Monterey conditions. (let's keep it going )

[sea_otter]

My dive report is consistent with the others, but I thought it was a neat weekend. Did two days of diving, one afternoon and evening at Breakwater and a morning at Point Lobos.

We had zero visibility at Breakwater for the top 20' - absolutely none. Even a bright light in the face was not visible. Buddy and I relied upon touch contact to ascend/descend. Below 30' it opened up nicely. Tons of life. Saw a squid, monkeyface eel, many octopus, crabs, tons of little shrimp, nudis, and had one of the resident seals follow us along. It was dark as night though. All signs of sunlight were gone in the first 2 or 3' of water. It was interesting coming up to see that indeed the sun was still shining.

Lobos was a little bit better but still very, very brown and dark. Maybe a foot of visibility for the top 30'. Sunlight penetrated to around 40 or 50'. We went out to the Rock Garden area, and at depth (80-95'), we had probably 20' of visibility. It was an interesting experience. I've never done a night dive at Point Lobos before. ;-) Saw lots of big lingcod, a huge sheepshead, and schools and schools of blues. Vis worsened as we returned back to the cove.

Hopefully the layer of muck in the water will disappear with the upcoming storm. But if you do get below it and have bright lights, the diving can be actually quite decent. Expect the darkness, though, and don't go without backup lights.

 

[uspap]

I'm glad I missed that one. I'm getting tired of crap vis. Here's hoping for a good winter diving season because last years was not that great.

 

[gchilcott]

Any reports from today for Pt. Lobos or Carmel area? I'm planning to dive Lobos tomorrow, but it sounds like it's been mucky.

 

[uspap]

North Monastery yesterday had 30 +/- vis. A bit of large entry and exit waves. Water looked blue. 54 degrees and beautiful top side. Second dive was South side which was 10-15ft and looked like salad in a blender and very surgy. Breakwater looked like coffee and we didn't even try it. Could not see 2 feet down from on top of Breakwater.

 

[sea_otter]

Breakwater looked like coffee

Is the red tide back in the bay?

 

[uspap]

Yep. Big time.

 

[elgoog]

Looks like a good week to drop off all my regs for servicing :/

 

[3D diver]

Fun dive at Point Lobos Middle Reef today.

Max Depth: 61 feet
Bottom Time: 51 minutes
Water Temperature: 55.8 to 60.8F
Visibility: 20 feet Looked like lots of sand in the water, not algae.
Water conditions: Glassy, but big swells breaking on Cannery Point rocks made for some surge. Tide well up the ramp, not much kelp on the surface.

Drove down to Point Lobos this morning through some pretty good rain. It stopped while we were gearing up, though, so we had some dry drysuit undies. Heading up the bluff I saw a big set crash over the rocks between Bluefish and Whaler's making for a lot of white water in the Hole in the Wall neighborhood. The water was pretty glassy in Whaler's, though. with a small, disorganized chop & a little surge at depth.

We kicked out where the boat channel used to be and dropped to Middle Reef in about 39 feet of water. It was dark & there was a lot of sand in the water so the viz appeared to be about 20 feet laterally. We could see the surface vertically. We cruised along the west face of the reef rising to the top of the reef as we neared the end. We dropped into the deep water at the end of the reef and returned along the east side for a while. When we got into about 30 feet of water, we crossed back over toward the sand channel and continued on into the cove.

There really weren't a lot of fish about, unfortunately. There were a couple of schools of tubesnout, a few Canary Rockfish, and a very shy Sheephead.

I found a weight belt and used my surface marker buoy to help shuttle it back to the ramp. Get in touch with me if you think it might be yours.

It was raining again when we climbed out of the water, but stopped by the time I'd finished my PB&J sandwich and was ready to get out of my drysuit.

 

[chris_the_brit]

Breakwater on Saturday was a bit of a challenge. Rough entry and exit, vis from 2-10 feet, and very strong surge. There were a few spots along the wall where the surge was barely noticeable, and we saw some giant nudibranch out on the anemones. A scattering of fish including one big ling, but not much else to see. Swam back via an excursion to look for octopus on the sandy bottom, and out there the surge was intense. Powerful and long duration which was quite disorienting when the vis dropped as we got shallower. Great conditions for practicing keeping close to your buddy!

Still fun and better than not diving. But we didn't bother with a second dive.

44 ft max depth, 58 mins, 58F.

 

[mobeeno]

Monday 11-14-2016. Picked up my regulator at a dive shop and took a look at Breakwater, it looked calm. So it was a great day to try out the regulator. Surface swam a bit and realized that I forgot my weight belt. Released all the air out of my bc and felt a bit negative so I kicked down to 15' and was neutral. Vis was a solid 15' to maybe 20' down to 38' depth. It was greenish but no more red tide. Coming back from the dive, I picked up a rock to ascend safely. Had a ball today.
Hoping for a great winter dive season.