Monterey conditions. (let's keep it going )

[3D diver]

Did a couple of fun dives today at Lobos with Raftingtigger. From the recent reports I had my expectations pegged at about 15 feet of pea soup viz, but had some new cameras to test & had to get wet. I was pleasantly surprised...

Quick summary for the day:

Viz: 15 to 40+ Feet!!!
Water temperature: 51.4 to 65F
Air Temperature: 73 to 77F Overcast at first, then sunny.
Surface conditions: flat, with thick Kelp & no boat channel
Low tide when we arrived, about 4+ feet higher by the end of our second dive.

First dive: Hole in the Wall and Lone Metridium.

Very low tide made entering the water a leap of faith from the end of the boat ramp. We kicked out as far as the boat channel lasted, then Raftingtigger lead us, along with Stilldivin and another guest, on a kelp crawl through about 35 feet of kelp to reach clear water. We continued out a bit further and dropped on the inside of Cannery Point wall just shy of Hole in the wall. We continued on toward Lone Metridium, with Stilldivin and his buddy turning around before we got there. There were lots of fish about & Lone Metridium was looking good. I spied the Treefish on the way back. We headed south in the next channel west of HITW and continued on that heading 'til surfacing in the middle of Whalers.

Bottom Time: 66 minutes
Max Depth: 63 feet
Temperature: Air 73.2, water 52.2 to 63.7F
Visibility: 15 to 40+ feet, better the further out you go.

Second dive: Middle Reef

The rising tide made the ramp much easier to navigate for this dive.

We surface swam 'til the kelp channel gave out and dropped to Middle Reef. There were a couple of big schools of Blue Rock fish that teased me up into the water column & let me film them closely. There a number of lingcod, lots of Vermilion and/or Canary Rockfish, a Cabezon or two, and a male Sheephead toward the end of the dive. Raftingtigger tried to turn us when we got the the end of the reef, but I ducked into the deeper water hoping to locate the Wolf Eel I saw last time I was there. (no luck) We then backtracked and added some west to our heading, surfacing fairly close to the ramp.

Bottom Time: 68 Minutes
Max Depth: 65 feet
Temperature: Air 76.8F, Water 51.4 to 65F
Visibility 15 to 40+ feet.

Oh, my new cameras run hot and this caused some fogging, in spite of the anti-fog strip. I'm going to try multiple strips & see if that helps.

 

[Akimbo]

... Oh, my new cameras run hot and this caused some fogging, in spite of the anti-fog strip. I'm going to try multiple strips & see if that helps.

Have you tried purging the air in the housing before closing the back?

Moisture Control in Subsea Housings

 

[3D diver]

Have you tried purging the air in the housing before closing the back?

Moisture Control in Subsea Housings

No, but am aware of that option. I'll look at your link (thank you) to see how to do so practically in the field.

I've done a quick review of my clips and am surprised to see the fogging doesn't appear to have messed them up. We'll see when I start editing.

 

[sea_otter]

Quick trip report from me - dove Point Lobos today with ParaMike. It was a gorgeous sunny day above water, and it was even better below.

Dive #1 - Granite Point Wall
Bottom time: 50 min
Max depth: 73 ft
Temperature: 49 F

We did swim out quite a ways over the kelp to make this one work. There really isn't a channel left, so we grabbed our snorkels and went straight over the top. Hard work, but it was well worth the effort! We dropped down near the end of Middle Reef and swam around it towards Granite Point Wall. The visibility on the east side of the cove was phenomenal... easily 60'! Mike led us in a loop around the entirety of Granite Point Wall, and we swam back over Middle Reef. The middle of the cove was a bit murkier, but it was still quite nice. I saw a sheephead, several decorator crabs, and the usual assortment of rockfish.

Dive #2 - Lone Metridium
Bottom time: 52 min
Max depth: 72 ft
Temperature: 50 F

Again a long swim out through kelp, but the higher tide seemed to make it slightly easier. We dropped down a little before Hole in the Wall and continued on out to Lone Metridium. The reefs in that area seemed to be more barren than I remember, covered with loads of purple sea urchins (but maybe the memory is faulty). Still a great dive. Not quite as good visibility as the first, but still up around 30-40'. We ended up veering a bit too far west and into the shallower area near Cannery Point, but we had the company of a couple cute harbor seals on the rocks where we came up to look around. Took a new compass heading and headed back to the boat ramp, plenty of gas remaining to do so under the thick kelp canopy - far easier than over!

Great fun! Can't wait until next time.

 

[3D diver]

I'm still buried under video to edit from Friday's dives, but when a friend asked when I was diving again and the wave model said today was the flat day for this week I said let's go (or something like that).

We did two dives at Lobos. Besides losing another snorkel, and my embarrassing navigation, we had a great time.

Overall the conditions were:

Viz 40 to 50+ feet in deeper water.
Water temperature: 50 to 58F
Surface condition: Thick kelp, glassy with a small but building swell.

First dive: Middle Reef, almost Granite Point Wall, almost blundered into Bluefish

There was water on the boat ramp, but the tide was low enough there was no clear boat channel for our first dive. We shouldered our way through the kelp, where the channel should'a been, and kicked way out before dropping on Middle Reef. We saw a male Sheephead and some nice dense schools of Blue Rockfish. At the end of Middle Reef we headed a bit north of east across the sand 'til we reached reef structure, but no wall. I believe we were south of the wall, but my buddy disagreed & we turned right and explored the reef south of us. Eventually I turned us west, expecting to cross the sand channel, go over middle reef, and follow the main sand channel south into Whaler's. In the event, apparently the reef structure we were into had merged with middle reef, so I kept going west after crossing the sand channel. My buddy finally had enough of that and indicated we needed to head south. We did this for a while and surfaced somewhere near Hole in the Wall---my snorkel nowhere to be found. We submerged for a few more minutes to get to clear water and headed for the ramp.

Bottom time: 49 minutes
Max depth: 58 feet
Visibility: 40+ feet. (The surface was crystal clear looking up from 37 feet.)
Temperature: Air 65.5, Water 50 to 56.5

Second dive: Hole in the Wall and Lone Metridium

The tide came up a couple of feet, making the almost-boat channel easy to navigate. We kicked way out and dropped near Hole in the Wall then continued on to Lone Metridium. Someone had mentioned some hydro-coral on the back side of the Lone Metridium rock so we returned behind it. (I saw a small hydro-coral, but am not sure this was the droid I was looking for.) We continued following back channels east-ish until we got into about 45 feet of water & I assumed we'd overshot the Cannery Point Wall and turned south. We cruised on a southerly heading in some interesting reef, but I was dismayed to find I wasn't in the sand channel. My buddy figured it out (again) and had us cut east around a prominence and we dropped into deeper water, and the sand channel. We encountered two Male Sheephead just then too. We continued on into Whaler's surfacing very near the ramp.

Bottom time: 57 minutes
Max depth: 61 feet
Visibility: 50+ feet (Looking up in 50 feet of water I could see the floating surface kelp clearly, backlit nicely by the sun.)
Temperature: Air 70F, Water 50 to 58F

I'm really buried in video now...

 

[sea_otter]

Was your snorkel orange and blue?

 

[3D diver]

No. A black Riffe J-type. No identification marks on it either, d'oh!

 

[slingshot]

Diving yesterday off the Aquarium, very calm conditions, temp 51, band of murky brownish water between about 20-40 feet, below which it opened up to 25 feet or so.

 

[KevinG58]

Nice day in the bay today. Very flat on top so it was a nice ride and surface interval on the Beach Hopper.
Hopkins Deep was about 25-30 viz and as I was ascending I could see divers still on the bottom until I hit about 40 feet. Metridiums were open, a couple of big lings were out and about, and pelagic crabs. No surge.
Macabee Pinnacle was green to about 40 feet then opened up to 15-20 feet of viz, a bit of surge. There is some nice kelp growth at Macabee.

 

[Rob Wilks]

Paddled out on the kayak at south monastery this morning...
Pea soup and felt like a night dive under the canopy. Some swell mixing everything up, though it's gonna lay down tomorrow for the new few days at least. Hope the vis clears up some, but summer can be green as envy
I can't complain though. Saw some cool critters and am happy to have been in the water.
Temp in the low 50s @ 60-70fsw
Foggy and cool top side
Vis about 6-8? 10 when we were lucky...