Naples Reef
Santa Barbara · Santa Barbara County · California
Today's forecast
Updated 6:00 AM PT todayDawn is the clearest window. A late-morning onshore builds surface chop and gives up a few feet by the afternoon.
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34.415° N · 119.936° W
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Open in Apple MapsAbout Naples Reef
Naples Reef sits about three quarters of a mile off the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County, fronting the Sandpiper Golf Course and the Ritz-Carlton Bacara stretch. It is a submerged reef complex rather than a beach, with no shore dive available. Charter boats out of Santa Barbara Harbor run the trip, and weekend slots fill quickly.
The reef itself is the draw. Vertical rock faces rise about 30 feet off the sand bottom, covered in strawberry anemones that turn the rock pink and red under a dive light. The structure breaks up into pinnacles, arches, and ledges across the site, and a giant kelp forest grows on top of the reef plateau, which puts vertical relief and canopy cover in the same dive.
Naples Reef carries three biomes. The pinnacles, vertical faces, and arches give it the canyon biome, since canyon covers any sharp vertical structure with real depth change. The anemone-covered rock itself, bare of kelp on the vertical sections, is a rocky reef biome. On top of the reef plateau, the canopy makes the same site a kelp forest biome, where giant kelp anchors at the rim of the structure and grows up through the water column to the surface.
Take is prohibited within the Naples State Marine Conservation Area, a 2.58-square-mile limited-take MPA designated in 2012, with two exceptions. Recreational take of pelagic finfish, including Pacific bonito, white seabass, yellowtail, and barracuda, is permitted by spear or by rod and reel, and commercial hand-harvest of giant kelp is permitted. Access is boat-only.
Rocky Reef
The rocky reef biome is bare rock, boulder, and cobble structure without a kelp canopy above it. The hard relief and its crevices shelter invertebrates and reef fish, and the structure concentrates life that the surrounding sand cannot hold. Learn more about this biome and the species found in it by clicking the link below.
Learn more in the Biome Glossary
Kelp Forest
The kelp forest biome is giant kelp anchored to rocky bottom and growing up through the water column. The canopy and stipes form a three-dimensional habitat that shelters fish, invertebrates, and the predators that hunt them. Learn more about this biome and the species found in it by clicking the link below.
Learn more in the Biome Glossary
Canyon
The canyon biome is sharp vertical relief with a real depth change — walls, pinnacles, and drop-offs. The structure draws current-borne food and concentrates fish and large predators along its edges. Learn more about this biome and the species found in it by clicking the link below.
Learn more in the Biome GlossaryTarget Fish Species
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