I'm the freedive instructor at your beach.
My name is Joshua Beneventi. I'm an AIDA-certified freediving instructor — San Diego's only one — and I operate at La Jolla Shores every Saturday, year-round. I run courses, community dive sessions, and a youth ocean camp out of Kellogg Park. I wanted to introduce myself properly, show you what I've built, and share a few ideas about how I might be useful to your team.
“I grew up in Point Loma, four blocks from the water. My great-grandfather was a whaler from the Azores who settled in San Diego for tuna fishing. My grandfather freedived for abalone in La Jolla. I graduated from UCSD, trained as a freediving instructor in Malaysia, Egypt, and Baja, and came back to La Jolla because there's nowhere better to do this work. I'm AIDA Instructor and AIDA Youth Instructor certified — the only one in San Diego for both adults and kids. DAN insured for professional liability. Red Cross certified in Adult and Pediatric First Aid, CPR, and AED. I carry a rescue tube and emergency oxygen on every session. I know the canyon, the walls, the currents, the seasonal patterns, and the marine life. You've probably seen me. I'm the guy with the orange buoy and the dive flag, swimming out to the canyon rim with a group on Saturday mornings.”
AIDA Instructor, DAN insured, Red Cross certified
Three programs,
all from Kellogg Park.
Weekly Saturday Sessions
Year-round group freediving at La Jolla Shores. We meet at Kellogg Park, enter at Vallecitos, swim out to the canyon. All participants are certified freedivers with their own gear, signed waivers, and a dive computer. I provide buoys, lines, and session leadership. Typical group: 6-15 divers. We're usually in the water by 8am and out by 10:30am.
Certification Courses
AIDA 1 (Discover Freediving) and AIDA 2 certification courses, run throughout the year. Small groups — maximum 4 students per course. Pool sessions at local facilities, open water at La Jolla Shores. All students receive safety briefings on the marine reserve, dive flag protocol, and local hazards.
Your Junior Lifeguards — surface skills. Camp Garibaldi — underwater skills.
Camp Garibaldi — Youth Program
A week-long ocean camp for kids ages 8-16, teaching freediving, surf survival, and water confidence. Gear provided. The camp's philosophy is building breath control and internal calm before developing external water skills. Kids learn to read conditions, identify species, equalize, and hold their breath before they ever go deeper than chest-high water. I'd like to talk with you about Camp Garibaldi specifically — I want to make sure you're aware of the program before it runs this summer.
Our Mooring Line
We maintain a mooring line at 32.856746, -117.262603 — canyon edge, approximately 35-40 feet depth, about 500 meters offshore from Kellogg Park. We always fly a dive flag. All divers use a lanyard attached to the line. We follow float, flag, anchor, and descent line requirements per marine reserve regulations.
Awareness first. Then maybe more.
Know who I am
I'm a trained, insured, certified professional operating in your jurisdiction every week. I'd rather you know me than not. If there's ever an incident involving a freediver at La Jolla Shores, I want to be someone you can call. I carry rescue equipment and emergency oxygen. I know the site. I'm almost always there on Saturday mornings.
Be aware of Camp Garibaldi
I'm running a youth ocean camp at La Jolla Shores this summer. Kids ages 8-16, in the water every day for a week. Parents will feel better knowing that lifeguards are aware of the program. I'm not asking you to supervise — I'm asking you to know it's happening so nothing catches you off guard. I'm happy to share our curriculum, safety protocols, and daily schedules in advance.
Share conditions intel when it matters
If you close the beach, post a shark advisory, or see something unusual — I have an email list of the exact people who need to hear it. Divers, snorkelers, swimmers who are heading to La Jolla Shores that day. I can amplify your warnings to the community that's most at risk. In return, my conditions platform is yours to glance at anytime.
Freediver incident resource
Freediving incidents look different from drowning. A diver floating face-down at the surface might be doing recovery breathing — or experiencing hypoxic blackout. The difference matters in the first 10 seconds. I can provide a one-page reference card for your towers covering freediver-specific emergencies: shallow water blackout recognition, loss of motor control, rescue breathing protocol for apnea blackout, and how to distinguish a freediver in distress from one who's fine. No cost, just a resource if you want it.
Training that's directly relevant to what you do.
Breath-hold training for lifeguards
Your Dive Rescue Team conducts underwater search and recovery on breath-hold. Your seasonal guards train in surf rescue where getting held down is a daily reality. Structured breath-hold training — CO₂ tolerance drills, relaxation under oxygen debt, extending functional time underwater — directly improves rescue capability. I can run a 2-hour workshop for any unit: dry-land breathing drills, timed static holds, and the physiology behind why it works.
Freediving awareness briefing
Recreational freediving is the fastest-growing underwater sport in the world. Your guards are going to see more freedivers at La Jolla Shores every year. A 90-minute awareness briefing covers: what recreational freedivers actually do, how to read a freediving operation (buoys, lanyards, safety divers, dive flags), what a normal surface interval looks like, what shallow water blackout looks like, and the specific rescue protocols that apply.
Shallow water blackout reference card
A laminated one-pager for towers and stations covering: how to recognize a hypoxic blackout at the surface (loss of motor control, facial twitching, tonic posturing — distinct from panic drowning), immediate response protocol (airway management, rescue breathing within 10 seconds, monitor for laryngospasm), and how to distinguish a freediver doing recovery breathing from one in distress. Clear, visual, built for a guard who has 5 seconds to make a call. I'll produce this at no cost.
Ongoing resource
Freediving incidents in San Diego are rare but they happen. When they do, having a local subject-matter expert you can call is useful. I know the freediving community here — who's certified, who's operating, what the common practices are. I can help with incident debriefs, community communication after an event, and identifying whether an operation was following standard safety protocols. Think of me as a resource in your back pocket — not a regular obligation.
Surface skills and underwater skills. The complete picture.
Freediving demo day during JG sessions
Your JGs already visit La Jolla Cove for snorkeling and cave exploration. A freediving demo day at La Jolla Shores would give kids a taste of breath-hold diving in controlled conditions — timed breath holds on the beach, basic equalization technique, a guided shallow freedive with their JG instructors present. I handle all instruction and safety. One session, 2-3 hours, no cost.
Camp Garibaldi as the "next step"
JG teaches surf safety, CPR, water rescue, ocean awareness, and fitness. Camp Garibaldi teaches breath-hold diving, equalization, underwater navigation, species identification, and dive physiology. A JG alum who's done two or three summers and wants to go underwater is the exact kid Camp Garibaldi was built for. Cross-referral between the programs gives parents a clear progression: Junior Lifeguards for surface confidence, Camp Garibaldi for underwater skills.
JG Intern AIDA certification
Your intern program accepts 16-20 kids per summer — ages 15.5-17, running a sub-8:30 mile and a sub-10:00 500m swim. These are elite young athletes. An AIDA 1 or AIDA 2 certification for JG interns would be a legitimate professional development credential — internationally recognized, directly relevant to careers in lifeguarding, marine safety, or dive operations. I'd offer this at a deeply discounted rate or explore sponsorship to cover the cost entirely.
Breath-hold physiology for A Group
Your A Group kids are 14-17 — old enough for real science. A 60-minute session on breath-hold physiology would cover the mammalian dive reflex (why your heart rate drops when your face hits cold water), how CO₂ tolerance works (why the urge to breathe is a signal, not an emergency), and the basics of shallow water blackout. This is directly relevant to surf hold-downs, rescue swimming, and their own safety. They'll feel the dive reflex activate in real time during a timed breath hold on the beach.
A conditions platform that might be useful to you.
I built a free ocean conditions dashboard for the La Jolla diving community. It pulls from the same data sources you check. I send a daily email to subscribers at 6am with a morning briefing. You're welcome to use any of it.
Camp Garibaldi — the ocean camp that starts from the inside out
JG alumni who want to go underwater are the exact kids Camp Garibaldi was built for
Who we are.
I'm at the Shores every Saturday.
If you'd like to see what we do, you're welcome anytime — I'm usually at Kellogg Park by 7am on Saturdays. I'm also happy to walk through the conditions platform, share our Camp Garibaldi safety plan, talk about a breath-hold training session for your team, or discuss a freediving demo for Junior Lifeguards. Whatever makes sense, at whatever pace works for you.
Get in touchlajollafreediveclub.com/conditions