Johnsons Lee

Johnsons Lee is a sheltered anchorage on the south side of Santa Rosa Island, just northeast of the headland at South Point. The lee position of the anchorage is the point of the name, with South Point breaking the prevailing northwest weather before it reaches the water. The dive site is a rocky reef with kelp and sand channels in twenty-five to eighty feet of water, calm enough for beginner boat divers on most days. The anchorage was a long-standing red abalone ground before California closed the recreational fishery in 2018, and the same reef structure remains productive today.

The geography matters here. South Point juts south from the island and takes the wind and swell off the back side, and the anchorage tucks into the corner behind it on the eastern side. Charter boats use Johnsons Lee as the overnight anchorage on multi-day Santa Rosa trips because the lee holds even when the open coast of the island is unworkable. The cove was named for the Johnson family that ran cattle on Santa Rosa in the 1800s before the National Park Service acquired the island.

Giant kelp anchored on the rocky reef and growing up through the water column to the surface makes Johnsons Lee a kelp forest biome. A rocky reef biome holds the bare structure between the kelp patches, with the sand channels cut through and the holes that historically held abalone. The sand channels themselves are a sandy flats biome between the rock. The sandy beach at the head of the anchorage, washed by the shorebreak, adds a surf zone biome.

Access is boat only. Charter dive boats run to Johnsons Lee from Santa Barbara and Ventura, with the crossing from Santa Barbara about three and a half hours under power. The anchorage sits inside the South Point shelter and stays diveable on northwest weather that closes the rest of the south side of Santa Rosa. South and southwest swell does reach the cove and turns the site rough on a building day from that direction.

Fishing and spearfishing are not legal here. The named anchorage sits about thirty-seven meters inside the eastern boundary of the South Point State Marine Reserve, which lies at 120°06.500′ W. The reserve is no-take, and the boundary call at Johnsons Lee is among the closest in the park network. Divers working the eastern fringe of the broader anchorage may extend just outside the reserve into open-take water, but the position should be chartplotted before any harvest, and the anchorage center as commonly named is inside the no-take reserve.