San Carlos Beach 11/28

Went down to the breakwater after dropping my Son off at CSUMB for a little diving action. I have recently acquired a Steel HP 80 and wanted to try it and see how much weight I needed to drop from my AL 80 days. (yes, the milesone of an all steel tank has been attained)

When I got there at 0600, the surf at San Carlos looked like a Carmel Beach break.... but the surfboard is home in Bodega Bay, and the pinnacle 7mm Element is a bit restrictive movement wise. So off I went driving around. The wind was blowing close to 20 all over Monterey proper, so I grabbed some coffee, breakfast, and took a nice morning walk with all the locals on the Pacific Grove pathway. Lovers Point was posted again with the advisory not to enter the water, despite the fact that it appeared that it was the best wind block in the area. At about 0900, the wind began to lay down along with the ocean, and divers were buzzing about like a normal day at San Carlos. After suiting up by the West bathroom, I entered to a nice calm ocean at about 1030 to about 20 feet viz. I followed the bottom down to about 40 feet or so down into the rocky areas with sand and kelp we know so well. Lots of perch and a few greenlings scattered about. As the dive wore on the vis worsened (probably because I heading west toward the kelp, rocks and larger surge and wave action). It got down to about 10-12 feet closer in.

The verdict: Not bad for what was supposed to be a nasty weekend. Certainly not ideal, but virtually no nettles to speak of. Earlier near the boat launch, where I was watching an otter crack the shell of a scallop, I saw hundreds of baby nettles clustered up very thick. On the breakwater side, they were sparse.

I'm loving the steel tank. I also have a faber LP80 and another HP 100 that I have yet to try because I could only do one dive because of the return drive to Sonoma County.

After the dive I went over to Aquiarius II and chatted with Bruce while I got my fill and rinsed the gear. He told me I needed to get over to the outer pinnacle at Lobos and I would be in heaven. Very nice people at that shop...

Anyway...a cool day in Monterey. I have five weeks off in December and January, so I'm hoping to get down to Lobos with some of you and get a few dives in.

Anybody who wants to do a boat dive at North Coast or some shore dives in Monterey, give me a shout. As of the 13th, I'm free for 5 weeks....

Steve

I wonder where the sea otters get their scallops. I'm serious. Where do you find scallops and can we collect them for eating ourselves?

lots of scallops on the North Coast. Like urchin, most of the exposed critters that taste good are picked by the otters. Seems these critters have good taste in table fare..

blewgrass:

After the dive I went over to Aquiarius II and chatted with Bruce...

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Hmmm...Looks to me like you got deep into your stash again. It must be some good stuff!

fuzzybabybunny:

I wonder where the sea otters get their scallops. I'm serious. Where do you find scallops and can we collect them for eating ourselves?

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In Monterey there are very few legal places to gather or hunt.

zf2nt:

Hmmm...Looks to me like you got deep into your stash again. It must be some good stuff!

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I'm not sure if that was a response to the dive shop or my anecdote....but I'm not all that smart, (stash or no stash) so you'll have to elaborate offline or by PM...

Bruce was mocking me in a gentle kind of way... suggesting that I chose the worst possible day to dive... but being an adult college student, and parent of a college student that lives in the North Bay I don't get much chance to get out much.

5 weeks... and my tanks are full...

As for the hunting in Monterey Bay area.. I would agree that it's not as hunter friendly as ... say the North Coast, where on any given day the spear guns outnumber the divers.. I'm in the middle somewhere. As an employee of Sonoma County Parks, I see WAY too many fish and abalone pulled off the reefs both legally and illegally. I also believe that you can take a few fish and eat them, and still keep the fishery healthy. One good friend put it this way... "they stay fresher in the ocean" referring to fishermen who always take full limits (or more) of the largest rockfish they can find (often 80 to 120 year old breeding females) to fill a freezer for two seasons that could well end up as dog food.

A week or so ago a local partyboat hosted a research fishing trip targeting female breeding brown rockfish (Sebastes auriculatus) in which we were told that a 12 inch fish was 80 years old! These are not replaced at the rate they are taken, research shows.

The more time I spend diving and boating on the Pacific... the less I want to take.... I will usually only take what I can eat that day.

Steve

Just to add to the rockfish lore, they don't have any (i.e. it's negligible) senescence. Which is to say, they don't stop breeding as they get older. And the older they get, the more eggs they produce, exponentially. So, for example (these are not real numbers, but an accurate representation) an 8 year old female may produce 1000 eggs, whereas an 80 year old female could produce millions. It doesn't just increase linearly with age.

Kind of flies in the face of traditional fisheries logic that says "take the older larger individuals and the population will remain healthy."

It's true, and what surprised me was they don't have to be big to be old. Many in the scientific community believe the nearshore habitat is in more trouble than just fishing pressure... Nitrogen levels along with bacteria, unusually large jellyfish blooms, and larger numbers of "dead zones" farther North than before... Sonoma County's wine industry is producing more agricultural and livestock runoff than ever before... Tomales Bay has been under "no contact" warnings constantly over the past year or more now...

Ok...enough depressing stuff..but it's divers like us out there than can educate the public and get things cleaned up... it worked for SF Bay! We can do this.

Steve

There are TWO Aquarius dive shops and Aquarius II is at the Breakwater. Bruce (From Aquarius on Del Monte Ave.) was just teasing you since you were probably talking to Glen.

So how is it we live 15 minutes apart and you have NEVER made it to an NCD dive?

Peter - It's because I seem to be stuck working during most of the good dive times. I'll try to stay tuned for the next one. Since you seem to be down in Monterey often, I'd be down for carpooling with some of the Santa Rosa crowd too. I'd like to try to get in some Lobos dives over the break.

Steve

and doh... I was at the Del Monte shop... and the taco shop by Target was closed, so I had a burrito at the "mi tierra" store on Fremont and Broadway.... good post diving food.