kwest
Contributor
First, I'm sorry I missed your messages Mike G and Don, I didn't have a computer with me and I arrived in Monterey Sunday night. Hope you had a good day at Lobos.
Monday I dove the breakwater and the viz was pretty bad.
Tuesday however rocked!
Conrad (cmetzenger) and I met at 8:00 am and we launched his 17 foot boston Whaler. He had a few GPS coordinates but this was his first time putting his boat in the water in Monterey. We checked out a few sites but found the visibility to be marginal so we kept going until we got to Carmel. Our first dive was directly out from a huge mansion - I attached a photo, but I used the digital zoom so it's a bit blurry. If anyone knows the name of this site chime in, it was truly incredible. We hit a max depth of 64 feet and could almost see the surface most of the dive I would say the visibility was at least 40 feet. At one point we entered a large horse-shoe shaped structure. The word I would use to describe it is cathedral-like. The rock walls of the structure extended almost to the surface and almost all the way around us. We saw the usual suspects including a very large ling cod. Despite the great viz it was hard to find the anchor line at the end of the dive which is a much smaller (in thickness) line than what you find on the big boats. We managed to surface less then 75 feet from the boat however, so it was just a short swim. Our next dive was at what we both think is called Stillwater pinnacle. Again the visibility was fantastic. At one point Conrad tugged on my BC and when I looked over at him his eyes where bulging and he was pointing with both fingers behind me. I expected to turn around and see a Mola Mola or some other large fish in the distance. Boy was I surprised to turn around and come face to face with a large (were talking 400-500 pound) sea lion bull about 5 feet away from me. We exchanged glances and I noticed two other sea lions (females?) in the distance - maybe he wanted to add me to his harem
. It turned out they were just curious and soon left, but I've only seen the juveniles underwater before, so this was pretty exciting. We swam around the pinnacle a few tims and this time ended up right back at the anchor line for the safety stop. The only slightly negative thing I can say about the day was that the water was much colder than any of my other dives in Monterey, my computer read 47 degrees every time I took a look. For those who preach the good word of the drysuit, I'm at the door to your church but can't afford to come in.
I hope these photos attach.
((((kevin))))
Monday I dove the breakwater and the viz was pretty bad.
Tuesday however rocked!
Conrad (cmetzenger) and I met at 8:00 am and we launched his 17 foot boston Whaler. He had a few GPS coordinates but this was his first time putting his boat in the water in Monterey. We checked out a few sites but found the visibility to be marginal so we kept going until we got to Carmel. Our first dive was directly out from a huge mansion - I attached a photo, but I used the digital zoom so it's a bit blurry. If anyone knows the name of this site chime in, it was truly incredible. We hit a max depth of 64 feet and could almost see the surface most of the dive I would say the visibility was at least 40 feet. At one point we entered a large horse-shoe shaped structure. The word I would use to describe it is cathedral-like. The rock walls of the structure extended almost to the surface and almost all the way around us. We saw the usual suspects including a very large ling cod. Despite the great viz it was hard to find the anchor line at the end of the dive which is a much smaller (in thickness) line than what you find on the big boats. We managed to surface less then 75 feet from the boat however, so it was just a short swim. Our next dive was at what we both think is called Stillwater pinnacle. Again the visibility was fantastic. At one point Conrad tugged on my BC and when I looked over at him his eyes where bulging and he was pointing with both fingers behind me. I expected to turn around and see a Mola Mola or some other large fish in the distance. Boy was I surprised to turn around and come face to face with a large (were talking 400-500 pound) sea lion bull about 5 feet away from me. We exchanged glances and I noticed two other sea lions (females?) in the distance - maybe he wanted to add me to his harem
. It turned out they were just curious and soon left, but I've only seen the juveniles underwater before, so this was pretty exciting. We swam around the pinnacle a few tims and this time ended up right back at the anchor line for the safety stop. The only slightly negative thing I can say about the day was that the water was much colder than any of my other dives in Monterey, my computer read 47 degrees every time I took a look. For those who preach the good word of the drysuit, I'm at the door to your church but can't afford to come in.I hope these photos attach.
((((kevin))))
