Monterey conditions. (let's keep it going )

[Vegan Shark]

About 15 ft vis at North Monastery this morning. First time diving there, so not sure if that's normal or terrible, but had a great time regardless. First time seeing a lingcod, first time going past 100 ft, first time getting narked ... lots of firsts today After reading so many horror stories about the entry/exit I was relieved to find it pretty doable today. Definitely a completely different difficulty level than Lobos, but by far my most epic dive yet.

 

[uspap]

North Monastery can go from less than 10ft vis to 100ft. Winter is best time or during an upwelling. Congradulations on diving this site. It is easily my favorite place to dive if conditions are right. Here is a clip of an epic vis day at the canyon. We started from shutes and exited at North Monastery. By the way: Was it pretty green? A lot of jellies?
North Monastery 225-226 005 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[Vegan Shark]

Wow, gorgeous clip; can't wait to experience visibility like that. I remember it being more blue than green, but looking at my GoPro footage now everything is pure green, so not sure whether or not my eyes or the camera is right. Didn't see any jellies, pretty much just lingcod and a bazillion of what I'm assuming are bluefin hatchlings. The lack of critters was easily made up for by the sheer coolness of that slow descent into the abyss, though.

 

[zf2nt]

I had 20'-30' at Lover's 3 today. It was the best I've seen in about 3 weeks now. On the 2nd dive we went way west of the point, heading out from the steps at 315. I bumped into some large rock formation I've never seen there, just before we turned and started back. This formation was at least 20' high, and it was larger than any other I've seen at Lover's. Now I wonder if I'll ever be able to find it again! There was so much life about I was absolutely stunned. The bummer was that I just got a new red filter for my camera and was planning on shooting some video today, but when I got to the site I realized I had neglected to pack my lanyard for the camera. No way will I go out without that thing tied onto me.

 

[otis24]

We dove North Monestery Saturday. Vis was about 15-25 feet at about 75 feet deep. On our first dive we went to 130 feet. This was my deepest dive so far. We spent about 45 seconds at that depth then made a slow ascent back up and headed toward shore. I'd say around 110 feet it suddenly got really dark, but the vis was about 30 feet.

 

[zf2nt]

On Monday, I had about 20'-30' visibility at HITW & LM, but out at Seamount it was more like 40'-50'. That's the best I've seen in a very long time. Later, we went over and looped around Granite Point Wall and the visibility was only about 20'. Still, that's way better than the 5'-10' we had only a week ago.

 

[uspap]

Did 2 at Breakwater. 15-20 ft vis along wall. It was raining when I got there. By the time I surfaced from the 1st dive the sun was out. By the second dive it was beautiful. Water temp 55. My little fringe head buddy moved out of his home. I found an octopus there instead. Saw a couple of rainbow nudibrachs which I've never seen before so I was happy about that.

 

[Jak Crow]

I lost my mask and snorkel on the metridium side of breakwater today. If anyone comes across a black and red oceanic ion2 mask with clear skirt and a neoprene aqua lung strap cover-snorkel holder and/or a black and red aqua lung impulse3 snorkel+ please let me know

 

[uspap]

Jak. Were you along the pipe or just diving in the kelp on that side? If I get out to BW this week I'll keep an eye out.

 

[3D diver]

Nice dive at the Breakwater this morning. It was overcast so a bit dark. Viz ranged from 10 to 20+ feet. Still lots of schools of juvenile fish and, being the Breakwater lots of juvenile...er...student divers too. My computer logged the water temp as 49F, but is consistently 3 to 5 degrees low. It got noticeably warmer when we worked our way into shallower water at the end of the dive.

We dropped as we got to the kelp by the "7", got to a max of 42 feet depth. My computer logged it as 57 minutes, my Princeton Tech mechanical bottom timer shows between 58 and 59 minutes. Saw some big Lingcod, and chased schools of Pile surfperch in the shallows at the end of the dive.

FWIW: while casing the joint prior to my dive a big tourist boat motored right over where we later dove. I don't think anyone was in the water at the time---the classes were still getting their briefings---but that would have been interesting to hear while diving. I didn't note the name of the boat but may have it on video.