Trip Details
- Where: Olympic Wreck and the Oil Rigs
- Depart from: San Pedro, Maritime Museum
- When: Friday, July 26, or Nov.1, 2024
- Time: Board at 6:00 am, depart at 7:00 am with us getting back about 3:00 pm.
- Cost: $230.00 includes 3 dives, light snacks, and water & air-Limited to 12 divers
- ALL TRIPS are weather dependent
Trip Info
Join Channel Islands Dive Adventures on a trip to the Olympic Wreck & Oil Rigs aboard the SoCal Diver Dive Boat
The wreck of the Olympic is an awesome dive, top it off with some rig dives and you have one of the BEST days diving you could wish for. Diving man-made objects in the open ocean is mystifying and that is why we keep going back.
The Olympic was built in Ireland in 1877 as a 3-masted ship and was 258′ x 38′. She was later sold and relocated to Washington State in the early 1900s to haul lumber and later worked in Alaska. In 1934, she became a fishing barge and was renamed the Olympic ll and moved to San Pedro. On September 4, 1940, when she was hit by another boat, the Sakito sank fast. The Olympic now sits a few miles out of Los Angeles Harbor in 100′ of water.
Diving the Olympic ll can be a fun dive. She sits on her starboard side and her bow is relatively intact, standing some 30 feet off the bottom. There is no penetration diving on the Olympic ll and visibility can vary but either way, it is still a FUN wreck to dive.
Diving the oil rigs Eureka, Elley, and Ellen can be an awesome experience. Eureka (about 700’ deep) is the furthest out of the 3 and in most divers' opinion, it is the best to dive. Elley and Ellen (around 260’ deep) are not far from Eureka and are about 8 miles out of Long Beach. Elley and Ellen are connected together by a bridge making them more into an oil rig complex. What makes an oil rig such an incredible dive is the amount of life that lives on the legs and cross braces plus you then have the schooling fish and sea lions swimming around the structure.
The rigs are the photographer’s dreams come true. The visibility can vary depending on conditions and depth from 20’-100’. Generally, the best vis is 60’ or deeper. Diving the Oil Rigs-Video
This trip is best suited for
Advanced divers and above that have experience in cold water conditions including; current, swell, possible limited visibility, and deep water. The oil rigs visited are unique and interesting and inherently have more hazards and may not necessarily have the best dive conditions. Most importantly, good buoyancy control is needed and surface signal tubes are always recommended.