How did an underwater photographer get this photo of a Pacific black dragonfish (_Idiacanthus antrostomus_)? He was part of a project documenting deep-sea animals found in Monterey Bay, California. Jason Bradley partnered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Moss Landing Marine Labs to gain special access to both live and collected deep-sea organisms, to reveal what lives in these distant alien habitats.

The story behind underwater photographer's Davide Vazzaro's photo of California sheephead in a kelp forest at Casino Point, a dive site off Catalina Island, California.

Great white shark diving brings you face-to-face with the ocean’s apex predator. Here’s where you can make it happen.

Nutrient-rich waters from deep underwater canyons give California’s Carmel Bay some of the best diving in the country. Here are the best spots to explore underwater.

With 840 miles of spectacular Pacific coastline, California offers abundant places for divers to get wet, from easily accessible shore-diving spots to offshore pinnacles and islands. And as underwater photographers will tell you, many of these sites offer gorgeous kelp forests brimming with marine life. We can’t possibly write about them all, but here are five amazing places in California to dive in kelp.

On Catalina, divers enjoy one of the best underwater parks in California

Our globe-trotting field reporter spent a day diving with the Scuba Diver Girls

This August, the staff of Monterey Bay Aquarium collected a juvenile great white shark near Malibu, California. As the sixth great white collected by the aquarium, the 4’ 7”, 43-pound male was put on display in the aquarium's million-gallon Open Sea exhibit on August 31st. Check out this video of the young white shark's journey to its new home at the aquarium.

This September, scuba divers from across the country will converge on Monterey, California, and compete for top prizes in one of the most unique underwater photography contests in the United States.