Sutil Island

Sutil Island is a steep three hundred-foot rock about seven hundred yards off the southwest side of Santa Barbara Island, large enough on the chart to look like a small island and small enough on the water to circle in a single dive. The rock is about ten acres in area above the water, drops in vertical walls on all sides, and supports thick kelp on the protected east and northeast faces. The dive site wraps the rock, with depths from twenty-five feet on the shallower kelp shelf to eighty on the seaward walls. Several dive areas circle the rock, but most charter traffic stays on the east side where the kelp is densest and conditions are most settled.

Sutil holds a high concentration of biodiversity for its small footprint. Giant black sea bass move through the open water on the west and south faces, and octopus and large sheephead live in the rock cracks. The black sea bass are protected under California regulations and cannot be taken, but the sighting itself is what dive groups look for. Depths are shallow enough for beginning boat divers on the east side and deep enough on the walls for advanced divers on the west.

Giant kelp anchored on the eastern shoulder of the rock and growing up through the water column to the surface makes Sutil Island a kelp forest biome. A rocky reef biome holds the bare faces on the south and west sides, with the cracks and ledges that shelter larger fish. Around the rock, the open water makes a pelagic biome, where the larger pelagic species transit through and the visibility opens to the deeper blue.

Access is boat only. Charter dive boats run to Sutil Island from San Pedro and Long Beach in the south and Ventura in the north, with the crossing three to four hours under power. The position out from the main island gives no shelter from any direction once the weather comes up, and the dive is exposed to swell from the south, southwest, and west. The east face of the rock holds the more settled conditions on most days.

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 main island and does not extend out to Sutil Island. The reserve's western boundary at 119°02.2′ W lies about half a nautical mile east of Sutil at 119°02.9′ W, so divers transiting between Sutil and the main island should chartplot the boundary before harvesting. Giant black sea bass, when encountered, are protected statewide and cannot be taken.

Brittle Star Reef is a nearby rocky reef carpeted with brittle stars at roughly sixty to seventy-five feet, set in the same west-side cluster of Santa Barbara Island as Sutil. The reef sits outside the Santa Barbara Island State Marine Reserve, which covers the southeastern side of the main island, so the same standard California recreational rules that apply at Sutil also apply here.