My son and I dive.
Monterey is a good place to dive, several protected water parks that you can dive. They only allow a certain number of divers in per day, need reservations for weekend dives.
Be prepared the water here is not warm. We dive with just wet suits, but a dry suit would be really sweet.
We have started diving warm water places so the local water feels especially cold here.
We spent some time in Florida over the winter and did some diving, did the manatie (sp) dive.
We dove some in-land pit dives, that was a bit different.
I think one was called devils den and the other the grotto, I would have to check my dive book to see.
There are some places around San Fran. to dive, although I have never dove any of the SF sites, colder water in SF.
Diving around SF areas you can encounter sharks, if you want.
Ride (or dive) safe