Lover's Point West

Monterey Bay, California, United States

The west side of Lover's Point in Pacific Grove is the more exposed, surgier of the point's two entries, so it rewards good timing in the water. A rock-and-sand bottom shelves from about 20 feet to roughly 70 feet over some 300 yards, though the best ground lies only about 50 yards out. The cracks and ledges hold nudibranchs, encrusting sponges, snubnose sculpins, gobies and game fish such as rockfish, cabezon and lingcod, and it is one of the few Monterey sites where red octopus are reliably seen by day. A macro-photography favourite, dived year-round and unregulated, inside the Pacific Grove Marine Gardens Fish Refuge.