Had my first ocean dive

[Guy Alcala]

Ah, I hear the same boast from divers here: 'if you can dive here, you can dive anywhere'. I haven't experienced anything I'd really call 'rough', but it's certainly rougher than the tropical waters I've been in even on a good day. It's pretty cold, 7mm wetsuits or dry-suits are the standard. All the shore dives involve getting through surf. You guys have kelp too, don't you? You'd probably feel pretty at home here.

Sure would, and we do have kelp. Anywhere you have to deal with cold, rough conditions routinely will make tropical diving a breeze. There are many experienced divers locally who've dived all over the world, but still consider the Monterey/Carmel area the best diving they do. However, we'd all be perfectly happy if we could see the same things, but the temperature was 20-30 degrees F. higher - one local diver said her computer showed 44 and 46 degrees F. at one of the local boat dive sites this weekend The usual range locally (on my computer) is about 48-53; I saw 59 at the surface and 57 at depth, once.

You can check out a video from this past weekend here:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/norcal/377552-what-does-diving-look-like-weekend.html#post5836164


Guy

 

[xyrandomyx]

Sure would, and we do have kelp. Anywhere you have to deal with cold, rough conditions routinely will make tropical diving a breeze. There are many experienced divers locally who've dived all over the world, but still consider the Monterey/Carmel area the best diving they do. However, we'd all be perfectly happy if we could see the same things, but the temperature was 20-30 degrees F. higher - one local diver said her computer showed 44 and 46 degrees F. at one of the local boat dive sites this weekend The usual range locally (on my computer) is about 48-53; I saw 59 at the surface and 57 at depth, once.

You can check out a video from this past weekend here:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/norcal/377552-what-does-diving-look-like-weekend.html#post5836164


Guy

Sorry, I missed your reply. It does indeed look a bit like the diving here, but not quite the same (of course). Your kelp looks different. As do your seals.

I've been on one tropical diving trip. I'm not sure if I'd say the diving at home is 'better' (still to early to tell, I suppose), but I definitely don't think that it's 'worse'. The two environments are so completely different, each with their own appeal, that I think I'd be missing out by not diving either one of them.

But, yes, I also wouldn't complain if the water was a little warmer. The sad irony here is that the water temperature can get as high as 65 degrees F in shallow-ish areas (still not quite 'warm'), but, on days like that, the visibility is incredibly poor -- the best visibility comes after an upwelling of cold water.

The visibility apparently gets better here in winter and the water on the one side of the peninsula gets a bit warmer (like 50--55 F instead of 45--55 F), so, while I'll miss lying on the beach, I'm quite glad that winter is starting.