Monterey conditions. (let's keep it going )

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In the UK we saw live coverage last week. Looks like a very pleasant place to dive :)
 
It was recorded a week ago. It's lovely footage but I'm not sure it should be called "live" going out in North America.

-Adrian
 
Had a dive this morning at Breakwater that started poorly, but was pretty darn good after all.

Condition cliffs:

Occasional big sets stirred lots of sand into the green water. Vis was about 10 feet at the 11 but improved to 20+ feet at the end (yes end) of the jetty. The sets got bigger so the exit looked reel dicey, but was easy in the event. There was some surge corresponding with the bigger sets.

Water temp: mid 60's F on surface, 57F at depth.

Bottom time 86 minutes, max depth 45feet.

Long version:

Arrived a little after 8AM and walked the length of the jetty. My goal was to get way out and shoot some video of the sea lions. The vis looked OK from the surface out where they were hauled out, but the waves at the entry were a concern. Every 2 to 3 minutes a set of 2 to 4 waves would break that were big enough to tumble the unwary. We discussed Lobos, but decided it was calm enough between sets to stay.

We got in easily, but my buddy immediately lost his mask! I waited in the water while he retrieved his spare from his van, only to have it break when he entered again. We both exited & he bought a new one and we had another uneventful entry and kicked way out.

The waves stirred up a lot of sand so the vis was a green 10 feet when we dropped at the 11. We settled at 45 feet then worked up the wall and cruised in the 30 to 40 foot range. I shot a little video but there wasn't much to see withing video range. At one point, while I was shooting a clip of a surf perch I thought I felt my buddy tapping me. I spun around and there he was pointing, but he hadn't tapped me, there was a cormorant nibbling on my shoulder!!! I hit the shutter button and am dying to get this written and see if I captured anything. He stayed with me a while, nibbling on my hands, cameras, and mask!!!! I could have exited then and called it a good dive.

We tooled along with no sea lions to be seen. Finally I saw one and a few minutes later my buddy started gesturing wildly and lead me to some small cave like structures. (He said later he'd seen a sea lion and was trying to show me a big lingcod.) He then gave a thumbs up and I realized we were very near the surface, so up we popped. Lo and behold we were at the very tip of the breakwater. A gaggle of sea lions hopped into the water with us and I got to shoot lots of clips of them cavorting about us. We still had 2000 psi in our tanks and began our return along the 25 to 30 foot contour.

During my reconnoiter along the jetty I'd noticed a series of small buoy's in the kelp. As we returned we found they were anchored by pairs of cinder blocks and interconnected by a series of thin fluorescent lines, all at about 25 feet depth. I can't help wondering whether these were left by our BBC friend during the recent Big Blue Live filming. Hopefully the owner will retrieve them, as there's a lot of good rope just hanging there.

The vis was generally better on our return than heading out. We popped up at the 6 to get oriented, then submerged for a while more 'til all we could see was sand in the water and surfaced for good. The sets had increased a bit in size so the exit looked to be gnarly. My buddy crawled out, but we had exited just as the set ended and I was able to walk out easily.

The battery conked out on my dive computer when the sea lions joined us, but my old Princton Tectonics mechanical bottom timer just kept ticking.

Gotta start loading clips...

EDIT: I posted some video of the cinder blocks and lines on FB and received a response that they were placed by some UC Davis researchers & will be collected when they are through.

EDIT: I don't know how I survived this viscous attack:

 
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I dove Breakwater as well yesterday. We tried the pipe on our first dive, but aborted because the vis was so bad (we were going to swim the pipe out to the metridium fields). We exited and the dove the breakwater. I also saw the yellow rope blocking off a section of the wall. On my return, I found a sight at about 15' that indicated it was a scientific study in progress.

The waves and surge were a bit sporty. I could hear the waves crashing against the breakwater during our dive. I had to go completely negative and grab the sand during my safety stop because the surge was pushing me all over the place. Exit wasn't too bad, but you definitely needed to pay attention as there would be sets of waves that would easily topple you. We decided to just do the one dive, I'm hoping things improve next weekend.
 
Conditions were much better at Breakwater today---glassy calm and 20 to 25 feet viz. My computer died (again) so I don't have a temperature to report, but it seemed consistent with recent high 50s/low 60s temperatures.

We did a long (92 minutes) shallow (35 feet max) dive dropping at the 11, popping up at the end of the wall and returning to surface finally at the 4. There were lots of sea lions at the end of the wall---our reason for this dive profile---and lots of the usual fish during the rest of the dive.
 
Fantastic dive at Breakwall today. Calm, viz pretty good, huge schools of different fish, sea lions, and even a crab fight
Temp 61, 73 min, went to the end of the jetty
Signs up saying bacteria count too high and not to touch the water.
 
I forgot to update here from last week :(.

Had two lovely dives at south monastery Friday mid morning. North was rocking some decent waves but south was nice and flat. Barely ankle biters. We kicked out past the point and hit about 50ft depth. Vis was all over the place 20-40 just depending where we were. Little survey and lots of particulates, mostly in the 30ft depth range. Vis was arguable better deeper, but it also opened in the shallows too. Beautiful sunlight coming through the kelp today. 58f.
Second dive was similar but we dropped early due to kelp and didn't get out as far. I felt the surge was picking up a bit, but might just been because of depth.
Go while going is decent :)


Picts from the day
https://flickr.com/photos/8859561@N08/sets/72157659109611285
 
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Hey Griffon I'm glad it worked out for you today. Break water wasn't as good as you had at South but it was about 15 plus or minus. I'm glad Benny and I decided against Monastery. I was doing my first dive with a new semi dry and my weighting was off. I took a dive to drop some lbs and move weights around. A lot easier to do that at Breakwater than Monastery. It was nice meeting you and Eric today.
 
Hey Griffon I'm glad it worked out for you today. Break water wasn't as good as you had at South but it was about 15 plus or minus. I'm glad Benny and I decided against Monastery. I was doing my first dive with a new semi dry and my weighting was off. I took a dive to drop some lbs and move weights around. A lot easier to do that at Breakwater than Monastery. It was nice meeting you and Eric today.

Nice to meet you guys too. Breakwater is definitely much more forgiving for gear break in :).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
So...the thing about drinking coffee while driving home from a night dive is you get home too buzzed to go to bed...

Had a fun Breakwater night dive tonight. We planned to keep it more-or-less 40 feet or shallower in case my computer battery compartment leaked again, but the new o-ring & back seem to have done the trick, yay!

We kicked out to the 7 where we were rudely inked by a gaggle of squid and encountered a big school of either fish or squid (will have to review video) on our way down.

My buddy was set up for macro so we tooled around in the sand and reefs away from the wall for a while, each finding an octopus to reward our patience.We then wandered back to the wall where we met with a hungry harbor seal that attacked anything we looked at too long, a lot of skittish fish, and some interesting crabs.

As we returned along the wall I looked to my right and saw a long procession of lights as, apparently, a class passed by along the base of the wall. When we got into 15 feet of water we struck out away from the wall again to check out the sand dollar fields, surfacing when I got down to 500psi in my tank.

My computer is still out in my truck so I don't have the numbers, but my mechanical bottom timer said we'd been down for 105 minutes! Viz was 15 to 20+ feet. Fun, fun, fun.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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