Welcome to Divebums

Circular vintage badge logo for Divebums.org. The center illustrates a classic brass diving helmet resting in ocean waves and kelp, backed by a sunset, palm trees, and a rocky shoreline. The outer ring features a nautical rope border with 'DIVEBUMS.ORG' at the top and 'SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SCUBA SITE GUIDE' at the bottom, accented by small scuba gear icons and a dive flag.

Divebums is a community-built guide to scuba diving in Southern California — with an emphasis on San Diego, but also covering northern Baja California and the coasts of Orange and Los Angeles Counties.

Here you’ll find detailed dive site descriptions (sometimes with GPS coordinates), conditions, and entry tips written by local divers who know these waters. Photo galleries document the history of San Diego’s Wreck Alley — the Ruby E, El Rey, NOSC Tower, and HMCS Yukon — from before they were sunk to how they look today.

A bit of history

Divebums was founded in 1999 by John H. Moore, who was frustrated by the lack of readily available information about diving in San Diego and decided to do something about it. What started as one diver’s project grew into a community resource, with information and photographs contributed by scores of local divers over the years. Steve Haynes joined John in managing the site and its popular email list in 2004. For many years, Divebums served as the go-to resource for San Diego’s diving community.

The original site went offline in April of 2025. This revival at divebums.org preserves all of the original dive site guides, wreck histories, and photo archives that John, Steve, and the San Diego diving community built together. Time permitting, we will improve and add to the content. You can explore the original site as it appeared over the years at the Internet Archive.

Read more about the full history of Divebums and the team behind it.

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