Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove sits in a notch on the north side of East Anacapa Island, about a mile west of the landing at Arch Rock and reached only from a charter or private boat. The cove takes its name from the way the cliffs and arches around the entrance frame columns of light when the sun is high, and the rocky walls inside drop in tiers from the surface to a sand bottom at seventy feet. A sea lion rookery sits on the cliffs above the cove, and sea lions are commonly in the kelp bed during a dive.

The cove and the headland just west of it carry some of the most consistent visibility on the north side of the island. Cold upwelled water rises along the steep face of East Anacapa, and the cove's small bay is sheltered enough that the water inside settles between sets. The result is the clear water and the full kelp canopy that give Anacapa its reputation.

Giant kelp anchored on the rocky cove walls and growing up to the surface makes Cathedral Cove a kelp forest biome. A rocky reef biome holds the headland west of the cove, with tide pools above the water and exposed reef in fifteen to thirty feet between the kelp patches. The arches and the vertical walls inside the cove, with the swim-throughs cut by surge over time, add a canyon biome to the horizontal reef.

Access is boat only. Charter dive boats run to Anacapa, the closest of the park's five islands, from Ventura Harbor, Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard, and Santa Barbara Harbor, roughly a one hour crossing from Ventura. Most boats moor outside the cove and divers enter the water from the swim step. Conditions are mild on settled days, but the cove faces north into the prevailing weather and turns surgy on any moderate swell.

Fishing and spearfishing are not legal here. The Anacapa Island State Marine Reserve covers the cove, the adjacent walls, and the entire northern shoreline of East Anacapa. The reserve has been no-take since the original 2003 designation, and the boundary on the west side of the cove lies inside the dive site, not outside it.