The Hunt for Beto's Reef
Oliver Edwards | Published on 3/1/2026
DPV dive to Beto’s Reef in Lobos
Dachuan Zengh and Oliver Edwards dove Beto’s using DPVs on a calm day with 25-35 foot visibility.
Beto’s reef lies just outside Whalers cove in 90 to 120 feet of water. It’s a perfect dive for DPVs; covering the fairly long distance to the reef quickly saves bottom time for the deep reef. People typically use nitrox and ensure they’ve large enough tanks for the dive.
Dachuan relates: Our plan was Hole in the Wall -> Lone Metridium -> Sea Mount -> Beto's Reef. But going directly north from Lone Metridium didn't put us directly on Beto's, will try veer a little bit to the west next time.
Once at Beto’s we swam along the West (deeper) side spotting “Beto”, a good size wolf eel, along with large fish and beautiful corynactis. Circling around the end we discovered the eastern side was considerably shallower. Dachuan retraced our steps through the UW features mentioned above.
During our surface interval other divers suggested two other ways to find Beto’s. One is to head directly from hole in the wall with a 330 heading. The other is to simply use natural navigation putting rocks on the left and sand to the right (as long as the vis is sufficient to see across from the rock/sand divide to Beto’s reef.
The Point Lobos 3D model map is a good resource for finding where each of the features is located and visualizing the routes. https://www.pointlobos.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Point-Lobos-Printable-Dive-Map.pdf
Oliver relates: It’s a good reef. I’d enjoy returning. Requires nitrox and a dpv to avoid a lot of deco. I would guess we spent 10+ minutes on the reef at 100 to 115 feet. I made the dive with 1 minute deco.