Robin got a better shot of the sunbathing Mola than I did.
On the way out of the bay everyone was pretty enthusiastic about the conditions. Here are a few shots from the boat deck as we headed out. First Robin and Mark, then Michelle and Will.
Silver Prince left the harbor in bright early morning sun, but as the boat slowed somewhere off Carmel an hour later the fog was just thick enough to obscure the coast. There was nothing but glassy water, fog, and kelp. Dave came on the speaker and announced that we were off Butterfly House on one of the pinnacles out there. These pinnacles are close enough to the Carmel branch of the Monterey Canyon to get a lot of upwelling, and there was sure to be an explosion of life on the rocky terrain below.
Here are a few pics from that dive.
Vis was about 25' and Anne and I could see pretty far down the west wall of the Pinnacle. It was a vertical face jutting up from about 100' to about 60', and we contented ourselves with cruising along at about 85' inspecting cracks and crevasses. The hydrocoral was fabulous, and of course every tiny micro-milimeter of rock was bursting with invertibrate life.
Here's a shot of Michelle and Anne just before we headed back up.
After an hour or so Dave had moved us over the Outer Pinnacle off Pescadero Point, and we dropped onto the multiple spires of the pinnacle and soared into the canyons, levelling off at around 75'. This was not really deep enough to explore any but the upper reaches of the pinnacle, because those on air were constrained by NDLs after the earlier dive, so we snooped around the peaks.
As the sun rose higher and the fog burned off divers peeled off their exposure suits and soaked up the rays. There was no wind and it was getting warm.
Our last dive was on Outer Chase Reef, and our plan had been to swim south into the kelp fields for a nice, shallow cruise. Unfortunately, vis was only about 5-10' and Anne and I decided to swim along the reef dike that ran parallel with the shore just under the boat.
Back in the parking lot Norcal divers gravitated to Michelle's car for goodbyes and planning for the evening. Here's Mark, Robin, Sarah Greg, me, Anne, and Michelle.
I was sorry we didn't get Ann Marie, Teamcasa and the others from SoCal in the shot, but we had a great time meeting and diving with you all.
More photos at:
http://www.pbase.com/irimi/monterey_mg_on_silver_prince
