Cuyler Harbor

Cuyler Harbor is the protected anchorage on the north side of San Miguel Island, the gateway to the island for everyone who comes in by boat. The harbor sits in a curving bay sheltered to the west by Harris Point and to the east by the cliffs that run east toward Castle Rock. The dive site is the shallow rocky shoreline around the harbor, with depths from five feet at the cobble shore to about forty in the middle of the bay. Charter boats use the harbor as the overnight anchorage on the north side of San Miguel, and divers work the shoreline rather than the open bay.

The harbor is famous among dive photographers for its nudibranchs. The shallow bottom of cobble and short kelp carries a dense and varied population of nudibranchs that lives in the cracks and on the cobble at twenty to forty feet, and a photographer can spend an entire dive on them without going below that depth. The shore-level habitat around the bay also makes it the most forgiving dive on San Miguel, a beginner site in a place where the rest of the diving is intermediate at minimum.

Giant kelp anchored on the rocky shelf along the harbor shoreline and growing up through the water column to the surface, supporting kelp bass and sheephead, makes Cuyler Harbor a kelp forest biome. A rocky reef biome runs along the shallow shoreline, across the bare cobble and exposed rock, with the cracks and small ledges where the nudibranchs live. A surf zone biome forms the narrow strip of breaking water along the cobble beach inside the harbor, where the small surf in the protected bay washes the shore.

Access is boat only. Charter dive boats run to Cuyler Harbor from Santa Barbara on multi-day trips, with the crossing four to five hours under power. San Miguel Island is owned by the U.S. Navy and the National Park Service requires a signed access permit and liability waiver for any landing, with rangers escorting all visitors on the established trails. The harbor itself stays calm in most weather, but the entrance is exposed to north swell, which can make the crossing in and out rough on a building day.

Fishing and spearfishing are legal inside Cuyler Harbor under standard California recreational rules. The harbor sits inside the Harris Point State Marine Reserve, but the regulation carves out a Cuyler Harbor exemption area where commercial and recreational take of living marine resources is allowed. The boundary of the exemption is a straight line between 34°03.554′ N at 120°21.311′ W and 34°02.908′ N at 120°20.161′ W. Shoreward of that line, inside the harbor, take is open. Seaward of that line, the no-take Harris Point SMR applies and all take is prohibited. The line should be chartplotted before any harvest.