Bluefish Cove

Bluefish Cove sits on the outer north side of the Point Lobos peninsula, west of Whalers Cove between Cannery Point and Bluefish Point. There is no legal shoreline entry at Bluefish itself. Divers enter the water at the Whalers Cove ramp and then either paddle around Cannery Point by kayak or make a long surface swim around the point on the way in and back. The cove takes its name from the blue rockfish that school in the kelp canopy overhead.

Steep granite slopes covered in kelp form the walls of the cove, and the canopy overhead makes the site a kelp forest biome. At the center of the cove, a rock and sand bottom at 60 to 65 feet, separate from the kelp-covered slopes, forms a rocky reef biome underneath. Past the center, a chain of pinnacles at the cove mouth rises off the sea floor and drops past 100 feet, and the steep walls, caves, and narrow ravines between them give Bluefish Cove a canyon biome as well. The vertical faces there carry beds of pink and purple hydrocoral and dense giant strawberry anemone cover.

California Diving News describes typical visibility as 30 to 40 feet, with occasional days above 80 feet. Access, reservations, and fees are the same as Whalers Cove: 10 dive teams per day, 2 divers to a team, weekday $20 per diver plus processing and weekend or holiday $30 plus processing, and $10 vehicle parking at the Whalers Cove lot. The Whalers ramp is the only permitted point of entry to any water inside the reserve. Inside Point Lobos State Marine Reserve, no take of any kind is permitted, and no fishing equipment or collecting tools may be carried into the reserve at any point.