pt lobos 1/30 and pt lobos dive plan question

Hi All, I snuck away yesterday morning and my buddy and I were the 2nd car into pt lobos after it opened. Weather was nice and clear further north in santa cruz, but overcast in monterey for most of the day. Water temp 50 degrees.
Whaler's cove was flat, but there was about a 5 foot swell hitting the cannery pt rocks. We did two dives, one along the cannery point wall and the other was mostly middle reef and a quick stop to check out the caverns (couldn't see much there as the surge was pretty rough and the vis down as a result).

The cannery point dive was a long swim, but really amazing. The second dive was not as dramatic as the other, but had it's moments.

For those of you that have been to pt lobos and are diving without a boat or scooter, what's your favorite dive spot/plan there? I'm going again in March, and my current thought is that if I had to do it again, I'd probably do the same first dive and the second dive I'd maybe stay closer to cannery point to avoid the second long swim.

I like the cannery point dive. I have a little inflatable that I bring, and that gets me to better spots further out, but if the seas are flat, and you're not too cold, try surface swimming around cannery point into Bluefish Cove.

You can sneak between the rocks so you don't have to swim all the way to the end.

Once you submerge, swim out to the point, then hook back around to dive the part of cannery point you dived yesterday. It's a very nice dive.

IMHO, you have to swim out to the end of middle reef for the good stuff.

Cannery Pt

Even without a scooter you can kick out to about the wash rock and drop down... you'll find the wall/ridges and follow those out to deeper water... Yeah it takes a while but then again it's worth it. The middle reef also has tons of life .... and also intesting artifacts.... (look for a big anchor chain)

In my opinion you can't go wrong at Lobos... Just pick a direction and go explore

i saw an old (big) anchor at the shallow end of middle reef... any one know if that belongs to the chain mentioned above? i also liked cannery point more than middle reef , and will dive accordingly

Ben, I think we did end up doing about the dive you describe. We kicked out towards the middle of the two groupings of rocks and about 20 yards away. Descended when I noticed that the bottom had an interesting looking fissure at about 40-50 feet deep (heh, yep, I could see it pretty clearly from the surface - gotta love that) - ended up kicking east and then north towards the deeper waters after we dropped. So yeah, definitely worth the kick, but was just curious what others do as I was pretty whiped out after that dive. I was looking at the underwater maps of pt lobos, we surfaced at about where "Sea Mount" is. I had planned to swim back underwater, but neglected to take a heading before I decended so got a bit confused as to which way was which - a newbie mistake that I won't make again.

Jon,
I'm not the resident expert but besides the big anchor in middle reef... there's also a big chain attatched to a big block some where there also... lot's of stuff left over from the whaling days...

TypeA,
That's pretty much the standard dive for Lobos... it can be tireing... just take your time and eat something and try to warm up between dives. Often times since my buddy and I are in doubles we just end up going to Hole in the Wall then out to Beto's Reef then meander back to the boat ramp...It's a bit harder to find the Sand Channel right now since a lot of the kelp is gone but if the vis is good it should be obvious underwater.

Here's a scooter video from Andrew Georgistis "Inner Pinacle Tour" you can see the sand channel... and some other land marks... There's another good video out there that shows the Hole in the Wall.... Frankly that's a good landmark to learn.

If you don't already have it get the Discover California Diving video... it's got some cool video Lobos info on it.

Man, just dive there. It is all good. I've had great dives there in 10' of vis with big surge all shallower then 30'.

If the cove is clear, I like to drop down at the ramp and make my way out on the left side of the sand channel, then jump across the channel and make your way back on that side. I've found California Hydrocoral in 40' there, pretty nice!

The "Breakwater" of the parking lot holds a lot of life, a good place to end your dive.

Another favorite is following middle reef out. At 30' or so you cut across the sand channel to the Right on your way out. You will go over some boulders, then hit middle reef, follow it out to your turn pressure then follow it back.

There are a lot of nice little reefs in the cove itself. Lots of fun poking around in there when conditions are stellar. CO Sole, little shrimp, nudibranch, rockfish, sponges, abalone, everything.

Mark