San Diego photographer and underwater enthusiast takes to the ocean in front of the Marine Room near the La Jolla Shore beach to swim and free-dive with the leopard sharks. Read about his experience as well as seeing underwater pictures and movies. Recently I read an article in the San Diego Union Tribune about how in the summer leopard sharks come to breed in the warm ocean water in front of La Jolla Shores beach. Leopard sharks (Triakis Semifasciata) are the most common sharks along the coast of California and for some strange reason a large number of them come to San Diego in the summer months. Being a lover of the underwater world, I had to go swim with these sharks myself. I had seen leopard sharks before while SCUBA diving in San Diego, but never so many of them in one place like the article showed. So since it's summer and everyone in our family enjoys going to the beach, I figured why not head out to La Jolla Shores for the afternoon? Since all of my family are interested in snorkeling, I asked if anyone was interested in joining me. But for some reason the idea of swimming with a large number of sharks wasn't something people were too interested in. From what I've read and heard the best time to to swim and see the leopards sharks is in morning, when the wind is calm and the sun is out. All this means for warmer water temperatures, less surge and better water visibility. Also catching them at high tide is best, when they come in closer to shore to feed. Now as most San Diego people know, going to the beach at La Jolla Shores in the summer can be difficult. Finding a parking spot and a place to lay your beach towel down, can often be more scary than swimming with a few sharks... I know that for certain. When we got to the beach at 11:00 the parking lot was swarming with beach goers, SCUBA divers, Kayakers, etc., so finding a parking spot was a bit of challenge. Once that was done and we found our place on the beach, my wife, daughter and her friend got ride into having fun playing in the sand. But where was the sun? I thought for sure the sun would show itself by noon, but here we all were sitting under the gray clouds of the marine layer on the second day of August. What's that all about? At any rate, I wasn't going to let some bad parking, crowed beaches and gray clouds get me down... I'm going in the water to swim with the sharks!! So I grabbed my snorkel, mask, fins and camera and headed towards the ocean. Before I went in the water I checked with the lifeguard and asked them what the water temp was and where the best place to enter the ocean to see the highest concentration of leopard sharks. The friendly lifeguard told me the water temperature was 73 degrees and that entering the water just in front of the Marine Room was my best bet. So off I went. [caption]Google Earth image of where I entered the ocean from the beach and the dots in the water indicate where I saw the most of the Leopard sharks. The La Jolla Cove is on the far left hand side of the image and the La Jolla Shores Beach and Tennis Club is on the far right.

From doing previous dives at La Jolla Shores I knew it was best to do what is called the "stingray shuffle". This is where you slide your feed along the bottom of the sand so you don't accidentally step on a stingray... and trust me there out there, I've seen them (watch the movie below). So I did. and once I was in water deep enough to submerge myself and put my fins on I was on my way. At first I thought that the leopard sharks would be swimming in the shallows just off the shore in the sand.. but I didn't see any, so I headed south towards La Jolla Cove. Once I was in the eel grass, I noticed the surge was moderate and was kicking up the bottom a bit, making the visibility fair. After about 10 minutes of swimming I saw my first shark swimming just below where I was snorkeling in about 10-15 feet of water. I figured I'd dive down and take a closer look. But soon after I left the surface and dove down to take a closer look, the shark became spooked and swam away. I figured that maybe the best way to see them is to dive down and swim along the bottom until I saw one. This method proved to be the best. Since the visibility was about 10-15 feet it was kinda spooky to swim into a school of them cruising along the bottom. Sure enough there were more than one of them and they weren't at all interested in eating me. OK, I realize the quality of the videos below is almost as good as the water visibility that day, but hopefully this will give you an idea of what you could expect even with the conditions not being optimal. And because I went out at low tide, I had to swim father out to sea to find the sharks than you would if you entered the ocean at high tide. After about spending over an hour swimming around in the water without a wetsuit, I was plenty chilled and ready to kick back to the beach to warm up. Below are some movies I created while I was free diving. To view the movies, simply click on the preview photos below and when you're done watching the movie press the back button on your browser to go back to the blog post.

Bat ray swimming along the sand in water in front of the La Jolla Shores Beach

Underwater movie of leopard shark swimming off the coast of La Jolla Shores beach.

Underwater movie of leopards sharks, sea bass and garibaldi


Underwater movie of leopard sharks swimming through the eel grass and along the sandy bottom near the reef.

    
July 29, 2010 Update
On a recent swim to see the leopard sharks in La Jolla, to my amazement I saw a green sea turtle swimming in the shallow water right off the beach from the marine room. I\'ve heard that these turtles are rare in San Diego, but swim up from Baja in the summer to eat the eel grass in that grows in abundance in local waters. Heres\'s video I lucky got to prove I actually saw it. A green sea turtle swimming under the in shallow water near La Jolla Shores beach, San Diego Southern California. Photo/movie by Chris Keeney
iPhone users, click on image to see video of green sea turtle swimming with leopard sharks in the shallow water near La Jolla Shores beach in San Diego, California.

July 11, 2011 Update
I recently went to La Jolla Shores with my family and decided that I would check to see if the leopard sharks were swimming in the ocean near the shore. The water was relatively warm but visibility was awful and made it difficult to see the sharks.

I filmed this movie right where the red arrow is in the map above. They were swimming along the sandy bottom near the shoreline in about 5 feet of water. There were so many of them at one point I was afraid I was going to step on one. I think they were swimming so close to me since the visibility was so bad. It's quick a rush to be surrounded by so many sharks.

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