Butterfly House - good shore dive?

[dsafanda]

Dove N.Monastery last week end and conditions were pretty good. Entries and exits were reasonable and vis was quite decent once you got below 50'. Dolphins played on the surface during both dives. On the way home we stopped by Butterfly House to take a look. I keep hearing this is a great spot. A local dive shop owner has told me this is his favorite spot. He seemed to imply that he usually did it as a shore dive. When we scrambled down to the beach to take a look it seemed like the kelp was especially thick all the way to the beach. It looked like a rather unpleasant kelp wrestling circus in order to find your way in to deeper water. A diver at Monastery told me he has only done the dive from boats. So what's the story? With the kelp as thick as it is right now is this a worthwhile shore dive?

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

I've done it once from the beach and many times from my boat.

Do it at high tide (so you can swim at the sand and not have to walk across the slippery
cobbles) on a flat day. Watch out for No Parking signs. Be sure to look back many times
during your surface swim out as the entrance to the cove isn't real obvious. Save
LOTS of gas for your swim back in. The best diving is at the outside edge of the kelp
and north, or south, but not straight out from, the cove.

Or get a boat.

 

[dannobee]

I second Chuck's boat idea. It's quite a kick out for deeper water, but certainly do-able. Maybe you have a kayak?

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Butterfly House story. Several years ago, Adm. Linda and I had just anchored at
just outside the kelp bed when two divers popped up and couldn't figure out where
the mouth of the cove was. I pointed it to them and asked how much gas they had:
500 PSI. There was no way they were getting back in without a long kelp krawl, so
I offered to drop them at Carmel River State Beach after we did our dive, which we did.
Turns out they were doing an AOW class. Later that week, there instructor called me
and said I should have made the kelp krawl so they wouldn't make that mistake again.
I told him: "No worries. The learned their lesson - they got seasick waiting on my
boat." ;-)


Chuck

 

[zf2nt]

Dove N.Monastery last week end and conditions were pretty good. Entries and exits were reasonable and vis was quite decent once you got below 50'. Dolphins played on the surface during both dives. On the way home we stopped by Butterfly House to take a look. I keep hearing this is a great spot. A local dive shop owner has told me this is his favorite spot. He seemed to imply that he usually did it as a shore dive. When we scrambled down to the beach to take a look it seemed like the kelp was especially thick all the way to the beach. It looked like a rather unpleasant kelp wrestling circus in order to find your way in to deeper water. A diver at Monastery told me he has only done the dive from boats. So what's the story? With the kelp as thick as it is right now is this a worthwhile shore dive?

Butterfly House is right at the top of my list of favorite shore dive sites. BUT...July and August are not the time to do it. As you noted, the kelp is just too thick this time of year. Either you wear yourself out making your way out through the kelp or you burn your air up swimming over a relatively uninteresting bottom in order to get past the kelp. Wait a while until some of the thick kelp cover breaks up, then go out and do it from shore.

The way to do this one is to turn from Scenic onto Stewart Way and park on the right of the street. There is only room for about 3 cars to park there, so arrive early if it's a weekend. Then walk back down to Scenic and take a look. Do NOT go around the wooden fence and head down the hill. The hill there is steep and slippery, and the last step is about a 5' drop. Instead, walk to the north about 200' and look for a gully that goes down the hill. You can follow that gully down to the rocks, then wind around on the rocks to make your way to the sand beach in the cove. This is a very protected entry point, so even on rough days you will have little trouble with entry and exit. On the way out, take care to avoid the rocky point off to your left. Just keep going until you get to the far kelp bed and drop down. There's awesome scenery there no matter which way you go--north or south.

All that having been said, this is still a long surface swim. There have been days I did this one when the $85 for a boat trip started sounding really good to me! I love the site, but you do have to earn the right to dive it when you go out from shore.

Bruce

 

[dsafanda]

Thanks for the info guys! Everybody pretty much confirmed what I suspected but it's always helpful to hear from those with more experience.