SPKelpDiver
Contributor
I did my first dive at Haggerty's a couple weeks ago and I was impressed. That day Hag's had anywhere from 15-25 foot of vis, when the rest of the Peninsula had virtually no vis and brown water despite calm surface conditions. Yea it was mostly garabaldi and kelp, but I did see a large cabezon and a decent sized bat ray. The kelp forest was huge, overwhelming even. I felt like this place had potential.
Today I headed out hoping that Marineland would yield decent diving despite the incoming south swell, but upon scoping it was clear that the water wasn't so clear and entry at the cobblestone beach would have taken careful timing. Not worth it, especially solo. So I headed back to Haggerty's. The south side of the peninsula was sunny and hot; a stark contrast to the cold and cloudy north end. I couldn't believe it, it felt like I hit a thermocline on dry land.
Haggerty's looked decent despite the gloomy weather, so I geared up. I descended in 12 feet of water, opting to burn air in the shallows rather than kelp crawl (although I didn't burn much. The dive was over and hour and I still had just over 2000psi left in my steel 120. Who needs doubles with a sac rate like this. :cool2
. Here the visibility was 10-12 feet, but as I swam out further the visibility improved to a clear 20-25 feet horizontally. If the sun had been out I am sure it could have been 30 foot +.
So as I am swimming out through the seemingly endless kelp forest I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a large dark colored animal emerging from a thick patch of young kelp. I barely had time to turn my head and it ripped through the kelp with force, arcing just infront of me and out of sight quicker than it came. Yea...I flinched, but I still had time to I.D. the huge leopard shark. It's body was thicker than anyleopard shark I have ever seen. Soon after that I had a brief encounter with a well fed harbor seal. This guy was also one of the largest harbor seals I have ever seen in the water. I could tell this guy was older and had seen it all. He swam around me a few times and then lazied off into the kelp forest, disinterested.
I felt pretty good about my dive at this point and almost turned around to head back at about 35 minutes, but I could see a clearing in the kelp just ahead that beckoned me. On a rock in this clearing I found a huge abalone. I tried to feed it some kelp but I couldn't figure out how the thing worked. So I turned back into the the thick kelp behind me and took a heading towards my exit. As I look up I see what I thought was bat ray approaching me from the distance. As it got closer I could barely believe my eyes, it was an angel shark swimming calmly along. I followed her for atleast 5 minutes. She was with in an arms length from me and never spooked. We all gotta go back sometime, so I reluctantly turned from the angel shark and immediately saw a juvenile batray,also swimming calmly through the forest. I followed this one for a while too, thinking to myself "How long have I been swimming? Did I somehow scuba right into the touch tank at the Long Beach Aquarium?"
I swam back to my exit feeling like a lucky man, and even luckier everytime I looked behind me and saw my entourage of senoritas accompanying me safely back to shore.
Today I headed out hoping that Marineland would yield decent diving despite the incoming south swell, but upon scoping it was clear that the water wasn't so clear and entry at the cobblestone beach would have taken careful timing. Not worth it, especially solo. So I headed back to Haggerty's. The south side of the peninsula was sunny and hot; a stark contrast to the cold and cloudy north end. I couldn't believe it, it felt like I hit a thermocline on dry land.
Haggerty's looked decent despite the gloomy weather, so I geared up. I descended in 12 feet of water, opting to burn air in the shallows rather than kelp crawl (although I didn't burn much. The dive was over and hour and I still had just over 2000psi left in my steel 120. Who needs doubles with a sac rate like this. :cool2
. Here the visibility was 10-12 feet, but as I swam out further the visibility improved to a clear 20-25 feet horizontally. If the sun had been out I am sure it could have been 30 foot +. So as I am swimming out through the seemingly endless kelp forest I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a large dark colored animal emerging from a thick patch of young kelp. I barely had time to turn my head and it ripped through the kelp with force, arcing just infront of me and out of sight quicker than it came. Yea...I flinched, but I still had time to I.D. the huge leopard shark. It's body was thicker than anyleopard shark I have ever seen. Soon after that I had a brief encounter with a well fed harbor seal. This guy was also one of the largest harbor seals I have ever seen in the water. I could tell this guy was older and had seen it all. He swam around me a few times and then lazied off into the kelp forest, disinterested.
I felt pretty good about my dive at this point and almost turned around to head back at about 35 minutes, but I could see a clearing in the kelp just ahead that beckoned me. On a rock in this clearing I found a huge abalone. I tried to feed it some kelp but I couldn't figure out how the thing worked. So I turned back into the the thick kelp behind me and took a heading towards my exit. As I look up I see what I thought was bat ray approaching me from the distance. As it got closer I could barely believe my eyes, it was an angel shark swimming calmly along. I followed her for atleast 5 minutes. She was with in an arms length from me and never spooked. We all gotta go back sometime, so I reluctantly turned from the angel shark and immediately saw a juvenile batray,also swimming calmly through the forest. I followed this one for a while too, thinking to myself "How long have I been swimming? Did I somehow scuba right into the touch tank at the Long Beach Aquarium?"
I swam back to my exit feeling like a lucky man, and even luckier everytime I looked behind me and saw my entourage of senoritas accompanying me safely back to shore.
Really need to recuperate and get back out there with ya. Hag's is now on my summer to-do list 
