What were Monterey conditions like 10-15 years ago?

[Bigbella]

@gypsyjim:

I agree that it's a memorable place. Here are two brief videos from a while back -- one from Monterey, the other from Carmel -- when I was testing out a then new GoPro camera. Yep, I am the slack-jawed punk with the yellow catch bag; and I do get dive-bombed toward the end of the first video . . .

 

[Chavodel8en]

I got certified in 2003. I guess now thinking back, there sure were a whole lot of sea stars back then - very thick, especially at Breakwater, and the occasional sunflower stars. Honestly, since Im not really "into" sea stars, I never noticed their demise until I read about it on here. Now that I know of their importance to the ecosystem, Im sad and hope they recover.

I do recall much thicker kelp, so that surface swims could be very difficult. I remember that Pt Lobos in late summer, you would always be faced by a thick mat of kelp filling most of the cove, with hopefully a thin path through it corresponding to the sand channel. Getting back to the sand channel was a must if you didnt want to face a difficult kelp crawl.

For the past several years, Ive not seen such a wall of kelp - there's always been multiple paths through the kelp, so you can now wind your way through without having to crawl, should you surface away from the exit.

I also remember that when I first started diving, i would occasionally see lobster shells at Lobos (never a live lobster). So Im assuming that Lobos was perhaps the very north of their range, or a few hardy souls tried to colonize up here. Having seen any shells in a while.

 

[Bigbella]

Kelp was tremendously thick last Summer; and depending upon the tide, it appeared that one could walk across the canopy from the Breakwater, along Cannery Row, past the first two hotels.

A couple of divers were ensnared in the canopy at Monastery Beach as recently as late last week -- far too much dangling gear . . .

 

[dbnewton]

A couple of divers were ensnared in the canopy at Monastery Beach as recently as late last week -- far too much dangling gear . . .

I remember Monastery beach as the place that relieved those new divers of their extra equipment. As I recall the beach is quite steep and the surf carves out a trough where the curlers break. Late in the day, after all the open water classes had departed, we would get into that trough and swim parallel to the beach collecting gear, A mask here, knife there, maybe a fin... The trick was to stay in the bottom of the trough, let the waves crash over you and swim along collecting.

That was way before digital cameras so novices tended to not have cameras. I bet today that is ideal for collecting GoPros and small digital cameras.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

That's one of those sites where I feel blessed. Every time I have dived at Monastery it's been flat calm. Once we had to kelp-crawl our way to the far south edge to avoid surf but I've never dived there when it's been rough. Every time I see videos of bad days there I wonder why those people went in, especially with the history there.

 

[Bigbella]

We have usually rated the visibility and wave action at Monastery, in terms of soup. Consommé is imminently diveable; miso, not so much; and minestrone is inextricably tied to that "sickening here-we-go feeling" on the way back in -- on occasion, "turtled" on the beach . . .

 

[MaxBottomtime]

This was the day of my last dive there. I'm sure it's not like that this week.

 

[gypsyjim]

One of the few days that I dived Monterey with my brother it was so calm we took our dad's 17' out and south of the bay a ways. As I recall, my brother said in all his years diving there he had never seen the Pacific so flat and calm.
I'm assuming that my diving at Monterey was NOT quite typical conditions, great viz, spectacular kelp, good hunting.

Coming from diving New England waters, it seemed like warm water diving to me. That was a decade before I discovered REAL warm water diving.

I have fond memories of that weekend at Monterey, even though I did have my one near miss that weekend, diving those new fangled BCD thingies that I had not trained on.

 

[Bigbella]

One of the few days that I dived Monterey with my brother it was so calm we took our dad's 17' out and south of the bay a ways. As I recall, my brother said in all his years diving there he had never seen the Pacific so flat and calm.
I'm assuming that my diving at Monterey was NOT quite typical conditions, great viz, spectacular kelp, good hunting.

We have surprsingly calm periods; and, often, quite the opposite. A good friend became certified in a Midwestern quarry -- yes, quarry -- some time ago and I was able to take him, on one January morning to Monastery. He thought it resembled a lake; and we even went snorkeling afterwards. The water barely lapped at the shore. Visibility easily exceeded forty feet that day and he got to see his first enormous sunfish. He couldn't believe how many times I had gone through the spin cycle there, during that Winter . . .

Two days later, there was an eight foot beach break; a mountain of kelp on the beach; and I took him to Cannery Row . . .

 

[MaxBottomtime]