By Carol – (Lakewood, CA)
We snorkeled with the Leopard Sharks at La Jolla Shores, California over Labor Day weekend, August 31, 2014, and it was fantastic! The water was warm (relatively speaking) and comfortable and a wetsuit was not necessary (thankfully, since I didn’t have one).
I spoke with people coming out of the water at 11am and they said they saw few, if any, Leopard Sharks. High tide was at approximately noon, so I was hoping they would come in with the tide and sure enough, at 11:30, we saw many sharks. At one point, I tried to count them and saw a dozen within my field of view, right below me. It was incredible seeing these creatures in the shallow water.
Visibility wasn’t the greatest though, so seeing their spots was a little hard. Otherwise, with the nice water temperature and beautiful weather, we couldn’t have asked for more.
Thank you for the detailed instructions and helpful pictures for accessing this beach.
I have two additional suggestions for those snorkeling here:
- Bring your own water to rinse off in since there are no showers (or facilities) near the Marine Room Restaurant. I saw many people rinse off with their own gallon bottles of water and wished I had brought my own.
- Traveling southbound on I-5, there is no La Jolla Parkway exit. This exit only exists for northbound travel. Use exit 28, La Jolla Village Drive, taking a right off the freeway then turn left on Torrey Pines Road.
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Nicole & Galen – Sep 03, 2014 – So Fun to Snorkel With Those Little Sharks!
Carol, nice story. What a fun thing to do in the summer in La Jolla!
Thank you for your suggestions. Sure, if you don’t want to walk down to the park showers you could totally bring your own fresh water rinse. I will change the driving directions on our La Jolla Shores page to reflect your information.
Karen – Nov 07, 2014 – We Tried
We tried to do that snorkel trip last year and the waves were large and we were spent by the time we got half way there and never got all the way out to see them. Glad others have had a good experience. May try again on a better day.