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20 Oct 07 Dive Report -- From Beachhopper in Monterey plus pictures
I had intended to get some dives off of the Beachhopper into Pt Lobos today and see some new areas of the park that I hadn't seen yet, but that just didn't pan out. I think the foreboding about not being able to dive set in earlier in the week when I looked at the conditions for the weekend. Not that I've been diving awhile, but in my short stint diving so far since July (I'm at 43 dives now), I have yet to see orange pop up on the Chuck's Conditions Page. Well, that's what I saw forecast for the next few days, plus some "calmer" light/dark green. Being the prudent soul that I am, I called the Beachhopper on Friday to confirm that they were still going. They were. Good.
Well, this morning, I showed up at 7:30, loaded my gear, got briefed on procedures for the day and headed to Pt. Lobos. After sitting at the gate for about 15 minutes, I noticed some of the other people on the boat turning around. Come to find out, the boat, nor any of the other dive boats, couldn't get around the "Point" because of the conditions. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from the boat saying the same thing and I headed back to K-dock. When I got back, my options were to bag the dives and not be charged for the day, go try to get dive Lobos from the shore, or do the boat dives, but in a different area at a reduced price. I chose the third option since I hadn't dove the weekend before.
I had a good time, but only really got in one dive. The first and only successful dive of the day was at a place called Bottles. I might be mixing that name up, but it was a cool little dive. Deepest point for me was 83 feet at 51 degrees (a little brisk). Average depth was about 72 feet though. Visibility was about 20 feet. I really liked the way this little reef was set up. There were two other reefs nearby, but we stayed on this particular one. The nice thing about it was it was big enough to swim around to offer a lot to see, but not so big that you couldn't be back to the anchor line in a couple of minutes. I'd like to thank whoever that was that put the strobe on the anchor line. That made it soooooo much easier to get back to the anchor line. Anyway, I took lots of pictures as usual, but saw some new things. Among them was a 3-4 foot sand colored ling cod, crabs with small anemones attached to them, and an interesting small anemone that caught my eye (labelled as favorite anemone yet).
All in all a very nice dive. My buddy was on Nitrox and had a bit more NDL than me, so at the end of the dive, he escorted me to the anchor line and looked around a little more himself. I went up to 15 feet and did my safety stop (trying not to get jerked too far up and down with the anchor line). Bruce (Aquarius Dive shop owner on Del Monte) had said something to me about Nitrox this morning, so today's dive only confirmed the fact that I need to get Nitrox certified. Got some video of a sea nettle passing by me as I was doing my safety stop. His swimming sounds just like my breathing.
Sea Nettle
Dive 2 was my buddy and I going out to the anchorline, only to be met by people returning saying they could barely see their hand in front of their face at 70 feet. Dive 3 was much the same, but my buddy and I got down to the bottom, looked at the conditions (about 4-5 feet at best) and called the dive. Oh well, my meter time was running out anyway. Good day of diving, although a little rough.
Great report, pics and video Brad! Did you see me at K dock? I saw the BeachHopper taking off in the afternoon and was surprised because I heard they cancelled the Lobos diving. I dove the Great Pinnacle from a boat yesterday and the swells were wild on the surface. Beautiful dive though! Here are my pics. Monterey 10-20-07 - a photoset on Flickr We called the 2nd dive because conditions had gotten worse after our SI, but it was a great day overall.
I had the same realization yesterday about Nitrox! My DM instructor offered to complete my cert for me, so I'm definitely going to take him up on it now.
Happy diving!
__________________
Michelle
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
~ Mark Twain
Yes it was unfortunate that Beach hopper 2 cancelled the Pt. Lobos charter. At the beginning of the second dive as I was going down to Anchor Farm after Escapade left, I hit the bottom face flat before I saw it. Then moved to the side and my dive buddy also hit the bottom before she saw it. Otherwise, Bottles was very nice and rivaled Ballbuster except it was shallower which was good for me to last long. If yes, go for nitrox, also take Yoga too.
Oh and sorry Brad for making that Lingcod go away and you had to swim after it. I was trying to get him to go into the rocks so that we could get a better shot of him.
Roy, bummer the vis got so bad in the short time after the Escapade left the Anchor Farm. It was good enough when we left to see the bottom before we hit it....
Roy, bummer the vis got so bad in the short time after the Escapade left the Anchor Farm. It was good enough when we left to see the bottom before we hit it....
I think the bad vis was my fault. I rototilled the whole bottom... :11:
Roy, bummer the vis got so bad in the short time after the Escapade left the Anchor Farm. It was good enough when we left to see the bottom before we hit it....
You didn't do anything Jonathan, that was God playing around with us because after we left Anchor Farm, the 3rd dive over in front of the aquarium was the same vis we got. I hit face flat on the sand, then moved to the side and let my dive buddy hit her face in the sand as well.
Otherwise....
That was nothing compared with Mike Clough and I when we did the afternoon charter to the sailboat wreck. He and I didn't see the wreck until we really hit it. To make matters fun, my reel got tangled up and we just left it there. If anybody finds a blue reel, let me know.
__________________
Dork Diver!
Last edited by RoyN; October 22nd, 2007 at 11:30 AM..
We were only like 200 feet from you guys. Amazing how much difference that sometimes makes. Looks like you guys got some good drills in on the second dive though from the cold water kitty dive report. I didn't even get to see it since whoever it was who went down first said the same thing as Roy. I think it was even as bad as he tried to signal to them that it was terrible all the way down, but Roy and his buddy couldn't see the other guy. Oh well.
We didn't do any steenkin' drills. We just dove. Went around the anchors a few times, then set off in a random direction. Found some market squid. Followed them around a bit. Then just followed some of the larger shale ridges around for a total dive of 50 minutes at 80 feet.
Among them was a 
Linear Mode
