boat traffic in Monterey, near the coast guard pier

Hello! I have enjoyed poking around the interwebz and absorbing all of the information and videos about scuba diving Monterey. Very impressed with the details that are available.

What I decided to look for is known boat traffic in the area straight out from breakwater beach. Is there a resource for most traveled areas?

Well most boats enter and exit at the end of the Breakwater. Boats can go which ever direction they want from there, but typically will head slightly out into the bay.

If you are not already accustomed to launching an SMB from depth I would recommend learning how and carrying a spool pre-rigged to an SMB in your pocket. This will alert boats that you are under the SMB.

I never see boats, other than kayaks, in the area used for shore dives at san carlos beach. You can hear boat motors while underwater but they are at a distance. I did find a small boat anchor along the breakwater wall before suggesting that boats have gone there but I have yet to observe one. The closest I've seen is a glass bottom boat that goes out to an area in front of 'hidden beach' which is just north of san carlos beach.

To be on the safe side avoid planning your dive to require surfacing far from shore or if you have to, use an SMB as suggested by Peter.

The "Little Mermaid" glass bottom boat will frequently run just off
the breakwater. Use your ears. You can hear a power boat a lot
farther away than they are a danger. Use your eyes.

If you dive the barge at BW, you will hear the boats....

Chuck Tribolet:

The "Little Mermaid" glass bottom boat will frequently run just off
the breakwater. Use your ears. You can hear a power boat a lot
farther away than they are a danger. Use your eyes.

Click to expand...

Kayaks and occasionally small sailboats (or some guy fishing in a small rowboat with an engine) will often come into the cove, and you can't hear them, so keep an eye out while surfacing. You could undoubtedly be knocked unconscious if one hits you. And every so often, one of the instructors will bring his RIB in and anchor it during classes. Given the number of students with poor buoyancy control, I worry a bit that they'll decide to move it just when a newbie does a runaway ascent. I imagine they look for bubbles before starting it up, but I still think it's a bad idea to have anything using an engine in the cove.

Guy

This weekend is the salmon season opener so expect heavy boat traffic. They won't come into the breakwater/san Carlos beach as salmon are in the deeper open waters. But anytime you get toward the end of the breakwater wall you want to use caution as that is the exit point for all boat traffic from breakwater and Monterey harbors..lots of commercial boats too..

The Capt. of the Glass bottom boat should be better now that some of the dive fleet crew talked to him about diver awarness in the area..he really was kinda clueless that we are all over the place there so he should be looking out more..

There is an instructor that during the summer was using the west end of San Carlos Beach to drop off and pick up students. He was using his inflatable as a dive boat and not a float. He would come in a unsafe speeds and I know there were other instructors that almost got hit by him as he ran over the top of them in shallow water coming in. I really hope this year he uses the launch ramp for his activity, there were a few complaint on him to the Coast Guard...