Welcome to the
Northern California Rainbow Divers

Northern California Rainbow Divers (NCRD) is a non-profit SCUBA diving club for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered divers and their friends.

We have more than 100 members (roughly 60% men and 40% women) throughout the Bay Area with a core membership of around 50 active members who share a passion for diving in California′s magnificent kelp forests and for adventure travel.

Northern California Rainbow Divers (NCRD) sponsors a wide range of diving activities for our members:

• Monterey Diving: We try to get down to Monterey Bay, Carmel Bay, or Big Sur once a month. Check the calendar for scheduled trips. Many people also use this website to keep an eye on the weather and plan their local trips accordingly. Our member's only email list is a great way to find a buddy on short notice.
• Channel Islands Diving: We try to visit southern California′s beautiful Channel Islands for world-class cold-water adventures at least once a year.
• Tropical Diving: Rainbow divers sponsors a wide range of live-aboard and shore based warm water trips. From budget/backpacker accomodations up to 4-star resorts and liveaboards, we've been to places like Roatan, Cozumel, Maui and the Kihei Coast, Thailand/Myanmar, the Galapagos Islands, Cocos Island, Papua New Guinea's fabulous Tawali dive resort and Palau. Check the links above for upcoming trips!
  
  We also participate in Diving for Life (DFL), an annual SCUBA jamboree in a tropical location with other LGBT dive clubs from the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe that raises money for non-profit, health-related organizations serving the LGBT community. Recent DFLs have been held in places like Curacao, St Lucia, Belize, and Thailand, and Bonaire. DFL 2010 will be held at Anthony's Key Resort, Roatan, Honduras, October 2-9, 2010.
• Classes and Instructors: We have several professional instructors and divemasters in our club. We have good relations with several gay-friendly dive shops in the SF Bay area. From basic SCUBA certification classes, "rusty diver" refreshers or intro to cold water diving, all the way up to stress & rescue, divemaster and even technical diving classes, we're happy to refer you to a good local instructor who "gets it". Email diveplanner@rainbowdivers.org to get started. Our friendly volunteer diveplanners are also happy to give advice and buddy up with new members for a check-out dive.
• Meetings: We organize most of our events online and through our email list, but we get together at least quarterly for non-diving events like swap meets, BBQs and our December holiday party/elections/volunteer draft. Recent member's only special events include a behind the scenes tour of the Monterey Aquarium, a non-emergency visit to Pacific Grove Hyperbaric Chamber, and visits to the new Steinhart Aquarium.

Traveling to world-class dive destinations is part of NCRD. (Photo by Sharon Ponder)

Of course, the Northern California Rainbow Divers (NCRD) wouldn′t dream of discriminating on the grounds of sexual orientation! Although our primary outreach may be to the queer community, more and more enlightened straight people are discovering that we offer a unique environment where the crushing of beer cans and spearfishing are refreshingly rare. So go ahead and invite your straight dive-buddy to join you; after all, it's the 21st century and we're in California!

If you like kelp forest diving, underwater photography, marine biology, or just relaxing and playing with the otters, you′ll make friends easily at NCRD.

For more information about membership benefits and to download a membership form, see Joining NCRD.