Monterey conditions. (let's keep it going )

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Two fun dives at Point Lobos yesterday (Friday February 9'th). No whales or sharks, alas, but sunny skies, flat seas & good vis.

First dive: Hole in the Wall and Lone Metridium

Bottom time: 68 minutes
Max depth: 63 feet
Visibility: 45+ feet (could see the surface from 45 feet, couldn't at 55 feet)
Water temperature: 55F to 60F
Surface conditions: warm sunny day, flat water, tide about 1/4 up the ramp and dropping

The boat ramp is very slippery with a fresh coat of green algae. My buddy slipped and fell on the way down the ramp, but wasn't injured. There are bare, white, patches of concrete on the sides, though, and we walked on them the rest of the day.

We surface kicked well out over the sand channel, then a bit west, descending onto the small rocky area south of Cannery Point Wall proper where we apparently interrupted a confab of 3 or 4 Sheephead. We worked our way back to the edge of the sand channel and proceeded to Hole in the Wall. An air check showed we had plenty of air so continued on to Lone Metridium, which was in full, glorious, bloom. The vis was a milky 40 to 50 feet. It seemed better in the cove as we approached HITW, and just a little worse as we rounded the corner and headed to LM. We turned around, cutting south in one of the rock channels a bit east of HITW and meandered our way south and east 'till we got back to the sand channel. Continuing south'ish we checked out the fish and jellies 'til we got into about 15 feet of water and I called the dive, fearing we may have overshot the ramp. (We actually had another 30+ feet to go.) There were lots of fish, but I was trying out a different camera set up and didn't shoot as many clips as I normally would.

Second dive: across Whaler's, into the Coal Chute Caves, and back

Bottom time: 73 minutes
Max depth: 34 feet
Visibility: 30 feet
Water temperature: 55F to 65F
Surface conditions: still great! Sunny & flat water. Tide lower on the ramp, about 18+ inches deep, so enough for comfortable entry and exits

Dropped a few yards from the ramp and headed off on a compass heading toward Coal Chute Cove. Lots of fish to film (I had my usual camera setup for this dive) and a few moon jellies. We ran out of ocean a bit south of Coal Chute, so hung a left and worked our way North. Rounding into Coal Chute Cove I spotted another dive team exiting the first cave and in we headed. We went well back into the cave, checking out the rear entry, and returned to the main entry. Continuing east we checked out the second cave and found a nice school of Blue Rockfish waiting for us when we returned to the cove.

We worked our way out of Coal Chute Cove and headed back toward the ramp. Highlights of the return were a BIG male Sheephead, a big Lingcod that swam at me from about 15 feet then doubled back at me as it passed, and finding an old admiralty style anchor and chain. We surface near the ramp and exited safely.
 
Found a good-looking, newly-lost dive knife near the ramp at Point Lobos last weekend. If it's yours, let me know.
 
Anybody been to breakwater recently? I'm going to be there this weekend and was wondering about conditions.

Thanks!
 
In case you're not aware of these various scuba conditions resources, this page has good ones

Dive Conditions & More | Aquarius Dive Shop
Thanks... I'll be out there tomrrow and at first site, it didn't look to good, but that was coming in on Highway 1... the first beach there looked like the waves were pretty high. But it's also windy here in Monterey.
 
Went to Breakwater cove for 4 dives over two days with a Shop out of Sacramento. The primary reason why was because I was originally certified in a local lake to the area, and hadn't gotten any ocean experience yet. It had also been a while since I had any dives in, so I thought I would also do a refresher before going.

Dive 1 and 2 had probably the best viz. This was on Saturday morning and before all the classes went through we had about 20 to 25 feet viz. Dives 3 and 4 on Sunday had about 10 feet of viz, and with the coming storm, the waves on dive 4 got to be pretty rough. I had to do a crawl exit on Dive 4 because I couldn't get my fins off while in the water.

Water temp was a cozy 50 some degrees... for all of the dives.

Dive 4 we went along the pipe at breakwater. I think I saw more life there than near the wall where most of the classes go. At least there were some starfish on the last dive that were attached to some rocks. They were about 6 inches or so across, at least that's what it looked like anyway.

Didn't bring the camera with me since it was with a class, but here are some cool topside shots.

20180225_065534[1].jpg 20180225_115433[1].jpg
 
Using my Sunpak Epik 4K Action camera, I got some great video of a beautiful dive at Breakwater today. Cold but sunny. We swam way out to nearly the end of the pier and got some great video of the kelp forest there. Lots of noisy sea lions. We also saw cormorants, lingcod, schools of blue rockfish, and other critters. At the end of the video it shows a field of sea urchins that are destroying the kelp forests. I made two videos, the first is diving the shallows. Water was 49-52 degrees. Though we dove to 43 feet, in this video we are in 10-20 feet of water.

 
Did 3 dives at the Breakwater yesterday. Topside was awesome. 67 degrees and sunny. Water was calm and 53 degrees. Vis was 20ft +/-. Saw comb jelly and a lot of moon jellies. Best vis seemed to be shallower. Did Metridium Pipe, Center Kelp and Wall.
 
Did 2 dives at Breakwater today. Very nice conditions. 20+ ft vis. A variety of Nudibranchs along the wall. Saw two Mermaids purse next to each other. Saw 3 Fringe Heads in their usual spot. Got in the water around noon at high tide. I'm glad I was able to get a couple in before the storms.

Also found a dive knife. Describe it and I'll see about getting it back to you.
 
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Did two at Breakwater yesterday. 15ft vis +/- perhaps 20 in spots. 56 degree water. A ton of Hermissenda. Saw 4 Mermaids Purses. Top side was beautiful. Monastery was a bit surgey and river was running. Judging from how it looked from shore I'd guess you would have about 20ft vis.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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