wdunne311
Contributor
I had intended to get some dives off of the Beachhopper into Pt Lobos today and see some new areas of the park that I hadn't seen yet, but that just didn't pan out. I think the foreboding about not being able to dive set in earlier in the week when I looked at the conditions for the weekend. Not that I've been diving awhile, but in my short stint diving so far since July (I'm at 43 dives now), I have yet to see orange pop up on the Chuck's Conditions Page. Well, that's what I saw forecast for the next few days, plus some "calmer" light/dark green. Being the prudent soul that I am, I called the Beachhopper on Friday to confirm that they were still going. They were. Good.
Well, this morning, I showed up at 7:30, loaded my gear, got briefed on procedures for the day and headed to Pt. Lobos. After sitting at the gate for about 15 minutes, I noticed some of the other people on the boat turning around. Come to find out, the boat, nor any of the other dive boats, couldn't get around the "Point" because of the conditions. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from the boat saying the same thing and I headed back to K-dock. When I got back, my options were to bag the dives and not be charged for the day, go try to get dive Lobos from the shore, or do the boat dives, but in a different area at a reduced price. I chose the third option since I hadn't dove the weekend before.
I had a good time, but only really got in one dive. The first and only successful dive of the day was at a place called Bottles. I might be mixing that name up, but it was a cool little dive. Deepest point for me was 83 feet at 51 degrees (a little brisk). Average depth was about 72 feet though. Visibility was about 20 feet. I really liked the way this little reef was set up. There were two other reefs nearby, but we stayed on this particular one. The nice thing about it was it was big enough to swim around to offer a lot to see, but not so big that you couldn't be back to the anchor line in a couple of minutes. I'd like to thank whoever that was that put the strobe on the anchor line. That made it soooooo much easier to get back to the anchor line. Anyway, I took lots of pictures as usual, but saw some new things.
Among them was a 3-4 foot sand colored ling cod, crabs with small anemones attached to them, and an interesting small anemone that caught my eye (labelled as favorite anemone yet).
All in all a very nice dive. My buddy was on Nitrox and had a bit more NDL than me, so at the end of the dive, he escorted me to the anchor line and looked around a little more himself. I went up to 15 feet and did my safety stop (trying not to get jerked too far up and down with the anchor line). Bruce (Aquarius Dive shop owner on Del Monte) had said something to me about Nitrox this morning, so today's dive only confirmed the fact that I need to get Nitrox certified. Got some video of a sea nettle passing by me as I was doing my safety stop. His swimming sounds just like my breathing. 
Sea Nettle
Dive 2 was my buddy and I going out to the anchorline, only to be met by people returning saying they could barely see their hand in front of their face at 70 feet. Dive 3 was much the same, but my buddy and I got down to the bottom, looked at the conditions (about 4-5 feet at best) and called the dive. Oh well, my meter time was running out anyway. Good day of diving, although a little rough.
Pics
Lingcod vid
Well, this morning, I showed up at 7:30, loaded my gear, got briefed on procedures for the day and headed to Pt. Lobos. After sitting at the gate for about 15 minutes, I noticed some of the other people on the boat turning around. Come to find out, the boat, nor any of the other dive boats, couldn't get around the "Point" because of the conditions. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from the boat saying the same thing and I headed back to K-dock. When I got back, my options were to bag the dives and not be charged for the day, go try to get dive Lobos from the shore, or do the boat dives, but in a different area at a reduced price. I chose the third option since I hadn't dove the weekend before.
I had a good time, but only really got in one dive. The first and only successful dive of the day was at a place called Bottles. I might be mixing that name up, but it was a cool little dive. Deepest point for me was 83 feet at 51 degrees (a little brisk). Average depth was about 72 feet though. Visibility was about 20 feet. I really liked the way this little reef was set up. There were two other reefs nearby, but we stayed on this particular one. The nice thing about it was it was big enough to swim around to offer a lot to see, but not so big that you couldn't be back to the anchor line in a couple of minutes. I'd like to thank whoever that was that put the strobe on the anchor line. That made it soooooo much easier to get back to the anchor line. Anyway, I took lots of pictures as usual, but saw some new things.
Among them was a 3-4 foot sand colored ling cod, crabs with small anemones attached to them, and an interesting small anemone that caught my eye (labelled as favorite anemone yet). All in all a very nice dive. My buddy was on Nitrox and had a bit more NDL than me, so at the end of the dive, he escorted me to the anchor line and looked around a little more himself. I went up to 15 feet and did my safety stop (trying not to get jerked too far up and down with the anchor line). Bruce (Aquarius Dive shop owner on Del Monte) had said something to me about Nitrox this morning, so today's dive only confirmed the fact that I need to get Nitrox certified. Got some video of a sea nettle passing by me as I was doing my safety stop.
His swimming sounds just like my breathing. Sea Nettle
Dive 2 was my buddy and I going out to the anchorline, only to be met by people returning saying they could barely see their hand in front of their face at 70 feet. Dive 3 was much the same, but my buddy and I got down to the bottom, looked at the conditions (about 4-5 feet at best) and called the dive. Oh well, my meter time was running out anyway.
Good day of diving, although a little rough.Pics
Lingcod vid
