Arch Point

Arch Point is the headland at the north end of Santa Barbara Island, with a swim-through arch about three-quarters of a mile west of Webster Point that gives the site its name. The arch is thirty feet wide, opens at forty feet of depth, and runs through the rocky structure with sponge and strawberry anemones covering the inside walls. The site is identifiable on the surface by the boiling appearance of the water where the rock comes almost to the wave line. Beyond the arch itself, the dive runs along the walls of the point, with purple hydrocoral on the more sheltered faces and a sand floor at fifty-five feet inside the arch chamber.

Arch Point shares the colors of the larger hydrocoral sites at Anacapa Island and Gull Island at a smaller scale, with the hydrocoral concentrated on the deeper walls where the upwelled water stays cold and clear. The site sits on the north end of Santa Barbara Island, outside the southeastern State Marine Reserve, and is the working spearfishing site on the island. Charter boats pair Arch Point with Sutil Island on a single day, with the rookery and other no-take sites kept for the second dive.

The bare rocky structure of the headland and the surrounding faces, with the sponge and strawberry-anemone cover on the rock and the cracks that hold larger fish, make Arch Point a rocky reef biome. Giant kelp anchored on the shallower reef around the arch and growing up through the water column to the surface adds a kelp forest biome. The canyon biome is the arch itself, the thirty-foot opening cut through the rock with the chamber floor at fifty-five feet.

Access is boat only. Charter dive boats run to Arch Point from San Pedro and Long Beach in the south and Ventura in the north, with the crossing three to four hours under power. The site sits on the north end of the island and takes some shelter from south and southwest swell, but it is exposed to northwest and north swell and to the wind that builds through the day. The arch itself is sensitive to surge inside the chamber.

Fishing and spearfishing are legal here under standard California recreational rules. The Santa Barbara Island State Marine Reserve covers only the southeastern side of the island, with the northern boundary at 33°28.500′ N. Arch Point at 33°29.30′ N is roughly three-quarters of a mile north of that line and outside the reserve. Divers running south from the point toward the Rookery or the southeast face cross into the no-take reserve and should chartplot the boundary before harvesting. Giant black sea bass, when encountered, are protected statewide and cannot be taken.