Prisoners Harbor

Prisoners Harbor sits in the middle of the north shore of Santa Cruz Island, midway between the eastern Scorpion landing and the western end of the island. The NPS pier at the head of the harbor marks the boundary between the eastern quarter of Santa Cruz, which the National Park Service owns and the public can access, and the western three quarters, which The Nature Conservancy owns and which requires a permit to land. The dive site is the cove around the pier, a shallow cobble and sand bottom that supports an eelgrass bed and a rocky shoreline.

The site reads as a gentler alternative to Scorpion. The crossing is the same one and a half hours from Ventura, the Island Packers ferry runs to Prisoners Harbor several days a week in season, and the cove sits in good shelter from the prevailing northwest weather. The water is shallower than Scorpion and the visibility carries less of the cold offshore blue, but the eelgrass on the sand near the pier is known to hold leopard sharks and bat rays in summer, and the rocky shoreline that runs east and west from the cove holds reef fish.

The cobble-and-sand beach at the head of the cove, where breaking surf washes the strip on north swell, makes Prisoners Harbor a surf zone biome. Giant kelp anchored on the rocky reef at the edges of the cove and growing up to the surface adds a kelp forest biome where the kelp holds. A rocky reef biome runs along the shoreline between the kelp patches, across the bare cobble and exposed rock. The seagrass biome is the eelgrass on the shallow sandy bottom near the pier, the nursery ground that gives the cove its leopard sharks and bat rays.

Shore access is from the ferry pier and the cobble beach. Charter boats also moor in the cove for a dive. The pier is a working landing for park concession and supply boats, so the dive happens away from the pier face and out toward the kelp on either side. Conditions inside the cove stay calm in most weather, and the harbor is among the most reliable settled-water sites on the island.

Fishing and spearfishing are legal under standard California recreational rules. The cove sits outside all three Santa Cruz Island reserves: Scorpion State Marine Reserve is east, Painted Cave State Marine Conservation Area is west, and Gull Island State Marine Reserve is on the opposite coast. The pier itself is NPS-managed, and the usual prudence around pier traffic and concession boats applies, but no MPA covers the dive.