Yellow Banks + Smugglers Cove

Yellow Banks and Smugglers Cove sit side by side on the southeast side of Santa Cruz Island, about half a mile apart, southeast of the no-take Scorpion State Marine Reserve. Yellow Banks takes its name from the yellow sandstone cliffs above the water that show as bright bands when the late afternoon sun hits them. The dive area is a large stretch of kelp and reef running south from the anchorage along the back side of the island, with depths from twenty feet on the shallow reef tops to eighty in the sand channels between structures. Charter boats use the anchorage as their last stop on a back-side run before heading home, and Ventura spearfishers know it as one of the few legal-take dives close to the Scorpion SMR.

Smugglers Cove fronts a sandy beach used as a National Park landing, about half a mile northeast of Yellow Banks along the same southeast shore. Kelp beds and reefs extend offshore from the beach, with depths running from about forty feet on the inshore structure to eighty on the deeper reef edges. The kelp and reef run continuously between the two, and charter boats work both on one trip. Smugglers Cove sits outside all Santa Cruz Island reserves, and standard California recreational rules apply, the same as at Yellow Banks.

The back side of Santa Cruz, the entire south face from the east end past Yellow Banks down to Coches Prietos and the southwest corner, sits in the lee of the prevailing northwest weather. The water in that strip is calmer than the north side on a building day, the visibility holds longer, and the kelp grows thicker. Yellow Banks is the easternmost of the back-side anchorages, the closest to Ventura, and the dive most often paired with a Scorpion morning dive on a two-tank day.

The sandy beach at Smugglers Cove, where the surf breaks along the National Park landing, makes the area a surf zone biome. Giant kelp anchored on the rocky reef and growing up through the water column to the surface adds a kelp forest biome. A rocky reef biome runs between the kelp patches, across the bare reef and the steeper reef walls on the seaward edge of the dive. The sand channels between those structures, 80 feet deep at the bottom of the dive, form a sandy flats biome.

Access is boat only. Charter dive boats from Ventura, Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard, and Santa Barbara Harbor run to the back side as a routine stop. The crossing is about an hour and a half from Ventura, with another twenty minutes around to the south side. The anchorage faces south and is exposed to south and southwest swell, and the dive turns surgy on a building day from that direction.

Fishing and spearfishing are legal here under standard California recreational rules. The site sits outside all three Santa Cruz Island reserves. The Scorpion State Marine Reserve boundary lies several miles to the north at 34°02.7′ N, the Gull Island State Marine Reserve is well to the west, and the Painted Cave State Marine Conservation Area is on the opposite end of the island. Yellow Banks is the closest back-side dive to Ventura where rockfish, sheephead, kelp bass, and bottom-fish spearing are all open under standard regulations.