wdunne311
Contributor
I was expecting to sit this day out for diving. However, when Doc Wong ponied up his Lobos reservations at the SB get-together at Buzzard's after the 19 Jan diving and no one jumped on them, I decided maybe today would be a good day for diving. I called a buddy and asked if he wanted to go. He was stoked. So I snatched up those reservations after getting change from the bartender for my twenty (since all Doc seemed to have were hundreds) and Doc signed over his reservations. Sweet then off to a night dive, which is how I found out just how hard it is to descend with a BC with no weights in it. Some Scuba fairy must have taken them out of my BC. Ah, but I digress.
I wake in the morning to find 3 messages from my buddy. He can't make it, because of a head cold. And I'm in a pickle because Michelle and most of my other reliable dive buddies from that weekend either already had reservations, were diving off a boat that morning, or went home. Hmm, dilemma...I hadn't dove with James from Aquarius in a while, so I called him. He was working at the dive shop, but he was allowed to go take a few hours to go diving. God bless Wesley! I met up with James, got my tanks filled and we waited for our third, Joe, who had never been to Lobos. He arrived and we headed out for breakfast (it was about 9:30).
After a nice pancakes, eggs and sausage breakfast at the Carmel Black Bear Diner, we headed to Pt. Lobos. We got through the gate with no problem what so ever. Thank you Doc for the hand written note and the dive team number. I then voiced my concern over the possible parking situation. Lo and behold, it didn't look like there was any parking....Hmm, what to do? Well, James decide to pull into the middle of the 3 parking spots (that don't really look like parking spots) next to the tables at the back of the lot. I guess I'm too nice a guy and don't like the possibility of blocking people in. Maybe it's that whole do unto others thing. I voiced that we were setting a dangerous precedent and not 2 minutes later there are cars on either side of us. Oh, well, at least the guys who were blocked in were out diving.
It started to rain as we got out of the car, so we got dressed and headed into the water at Whaler's Cove. Not as cold as I thought it was going to be, but it was still in the upper 50s at the surface. The plan was to go out to the pinnacles and drop to about 100 feet and work our way around. Looking at the way the surf was picking up outside the cove, I suggested staying near Hole in the Wall and Middle Reef since this was not as rough (good thing too since after the dive one of the guys we talked to said it was really surgy down to 90 feet near where they were diving). Reluctantly, James agreed and we dropped down into the sand channel. I think we were nearby the Coldwater Kitty Krewe as I saw a pink dry suit and a bunch of people in doubles (there is a picture of a pair of doubles from the surface but it is really hard to make out).
James is a dive master candidate and I wish I had his navigation skills. He's about 18-19 years old and swims like it too. He's a good kid, but he's still got that I'm 19 and indestructible heir about him. It is sometimes hard taking pictures with him because he likes to just swim by everything where as I like to stop and "smell" the flowers and then take pictures of them. Anyway, we headed off to the left of the sand channel and ran into hole in the wall (I've dove them enough now to recognize where we are---which is good for Mr. No-sense-of-direction). Lots of anemones and starfish, but not so many nudibranchs. We ran across a cabezon rather early in the dive (see pictures). The mouth of Whaler's Cove has been a very relaxing dive every time I've dove there and this was no exception. I saw lots of Gopher Rockfish and Copper Rockfish. We passed by this one large rock formation and my buddies scared out a lingcod accidentally while I was taking a picture of it. It might have also been me getting up in his face to take a picture, but they were screaming through there so I'll blame them.
We then swam over to Middle Reef. I was hoping to see the big Vermillion rockfish I've seen there in the past, but I only saw his little brothers. In between a couple of reefs, there was the nudibranch farm. Probably 30-40 assorted nudibranchs were in that area. So far, we had had a really good dive. I also think it was about this time that I turned around to see Joe trying to get me to take a picture of a decorator crab that he had picked up. I am not a fan of messing with the wild life, but I relented and accidentally dropped the crab after he was handed to me, which is when he became the Decorator crab parajumper...
After our antics with the crab, we swam along further. I played with a dead moon jelly top (almost felt like a jelly frisbee). After these shenanigans were done with, we turned a corner to see Joe freaking out pointing at something. Turns out he ran across a Leopard shark, but didn't notice until its tale was two feet from his face. I snapped a couple of wide shots and moved in to take some closer shots and he swam off. Again, so much for not disturbing the wildlife. We swam along further and I pointed out to James that I was at 1500 psi for gas (our turnaround point), so we started back. On the way back, we ran into another cabezon and our leopard shark again. I kept a close eye on my gas and periodically let James know how much I had left, even if he didn't want to know. We made it back to the Cove and sat on the bottom for a couple of minutes off gassing.
Deepest we got was about 64 feet, but stayed in the 30-45 foot range for a good majority of the dive. 50 degrees for the temp for 48 minutes.
Long story short, we had a great dive. Thanks Doc for giving me your spot. I saw my first leopard shark. I think I about gave my mom a heart attack when I said I saw a shark (she's not a diver and a worry wart).
Pictures can be see here
I wake in the morning to find 3 messages from my buddy. He can't make it, because of a head cold. And I'm in a pickle because Michelle and most of my other reliable dive buddies from that weekend either already had reservations, were diving off a boat that morning, or went home. Hmm, dilemma...I hadn't dove with James from Aquarius in a while, so I called him. He was working at the dive shop, but he was allowed to go take a few hours to go diving. God bless Wesley! I met up with James, got my tanks filled and we waited for our third, Joe, who had never been to Lobos. He arrived and we headed out for breakfast (it was about 9:30).
After a nice pancakes, eggs and sausage breakfast at the Carmel Black Bear Diner, we headed to Pt. Lobos. We got through the gate with no problem what so ever. Thank you Doc for the hand written note and the dive team number. I then voiced my concern over the possible parking situation. Lo and behold, it didn't look like there was any parking....Hmm, what to do? Well, James decide to pull into the middle of the 3 parking spots (that don't really look like parking spots) next to the tables at the back of the lot. I guess I'm too nice a guy and don't like the possibility of blocking people in. Maybe it's that whole do unto others thing. I voiced that we were setting a dangerous precedent and not 2 minutes later there are cars on either side of us. Oh, well, at least the guys who were blocked in were out diving.
It started to rain as we got out of the car, so we got dressed and headed into the water at Whaler's Cove. Not as cold as I thought it was going to be, but it was still in the upper 50s at the surface. The plan was to go out to the pinnacles and drop to about 100 feet and work our way around. Looking at the way the surf was picking up outside the cove, I suggested staying near Hole in the Wall and Middle Reef since this was not as rough (good thing too since after the dive one of the guys we talked to said it was really surgy down to 90 feet near where they were diving). Reluctantly, James agreed and we dropped down into the sand channel. I think we were nearby the Coldwater Kitty Krewe as I saw a pink dry suit and a bunch of people in doubles (there is a picture of a pair of doubles from the surface but it is really hard to make out).
James is a dive master candidate and I wish I had his navigation skills. He's about 18-19 years old and swims like it too. He's a good kid, but he's still got that I'm 19 and indestructible heir about him. It is sometimes hard taking pictures with him because he likes to just swim by everything where as I like to stop and "smell" the flowers and then take pictures of them. Anyway, we headed off to the left of the sand channel and ran into hole in the wall (I've dove them enough now to recognize where we are---which is good for Mr. No-sense-of-direction). Lots of anemones and starfish, but not so many nudibranchs. We ran across a cabezon rather early in the dive (see pictures). The mouth of Whaler's Cove has been a very relaxing dive every time I've dove there and this was no exception. I saw lots of Gopher Rockfish and Copper Rockfish. We passed by this one large rock formation and my buddies scared out a lingcod accidentally while I was taking a picture of it. It might have also been me getting up in his face to take a picture, but they were screaming through there so I'll blame them.
We then swam over to Middle Reef. I was hoping to see the big Vermillion rockfish I've seen there in the past, but I only saw his little brothers. In between a couple of reefs, there was the nudibranch farm. Probably 30-40 assorted nudibranchs were in that area. So far, we had had a really good dive. I also think it was about this time that I turned around to see Joe trying to get me to take a picture of a decorator crab that he had picked up. I am not a fan of messing with the wild life, but I relented and accidentally dropped the crab after he was handed to me, which is when he became the Decorator crab parajumper...
After our antics with the crab, we swam along further. I played with a dead moon jelly top (almost felt like a jelly frisbee). After these shenanigans were done with, we turned a corner to see Joe freaking out pointing at something. Turns out he ran across a Leopard shark, but didn't notice until its tale was two feet from his face. I snapped a couple of wide shots and moved in to take some closer shots and he swam off. Again, so much for not disturbing the wildlife. We swam along further and I pointed out to James that I was at 1500 psi for gas (our turnaround point), so we started back. On the way back, we ran into another cabezon and our leopard shark again. I kept a close eye on my gas and periodically let James know how much I had left, even if he didn't want to know.
We made it back to the Cove and sat on the bottom for a couple of minutes off gassing. Deepest we got was about 64 feet, but stayed in the 30-45 foot range for a good majority of the dive. 50 degrees for the temp for 48 minutes.
Long story short, we had a great dive. Thanks Doc for giving me your spot. I saw my first leopard shark. I think I about gave my mom a heart attack when I said I saw a shark (she's not a diver and a worry wart).
Pictures can be see here
