Boat or Shore diving in Monterey?

[Ben Prusinski]

Hi Bill,

I recommend an 8mm wetsuit or drysuit if you can afford it. The Lavacore full jumpsuit under a wetsuit will keep you warm. I don't cold with my Excel 8mm wetsuit and Lava Core under it. Shore diving is more work depending on how far the surface swim is. I dove Metridium from shore which was a long swim. Boat diving is not that hard in Monterey. For good spots, look to Point Lobos and Carmel which typically have better visibility. Breakwater is good for training and cold water orientation dives but not that great for anything else.

 

[altaskier]

I've dived Monterey as an out-of-state visitor four different times now: three times in 7 mm wetsuits, and once after I got my own drysuit. Drysuit is better... When I did two boat dives in a wetsuit, I found the time in between and especially the second dive to be very cold. Doing a dive at Lobos was less cold; I think the 200 yard surface swim out helped get us warmed up before the dive.

You might consider hiring a guide through one of the local dive shops, and getting some hints on local shore dives.

 

[rmillner]

I've dove both 7mm wetsuit with 7mm hooded vest and drysuit in Monterey. Coldest wetsuit dive was 43 degrees 8-}

The drysuit feels cold in the water but my air consumption is much better and I don't get cramps - you don't loose heat nearly as quickly. And its nice to be dry on the surface instead of shivvering cold.

Take a class if you want to go dry. There's new skills to practice and you really want pool time to get used to how buoyancy works.

There's a lot of opinions out there on whether to use your BC or drysuit to manage bouyancy at depth. Find what works for you based on your gear and weighting. For me and my gear, I find that just enough air to be warm in the suit is just enough air to be neutral and the BC stays completely deflated during the dive. Your Dive May Vary

Personally, I like boats. You can shore dive a lot of great places. It just seems easier to get to places outside the bay or get underneath the murky green stuff and where the vis opens up from a boat. And I don't dive often enough for the cost to become absurd.

 

[mahjong]

Drysuit is the way to go, of course. In a wetsuit, though, I would think that it would be important for you to "work hard" on a dive in order to stay warm. Generally, shore diving will make you work harder getting out and getting back in than boat diving, where you drop down the anchor line, fin around a bit, and then slowly work your way back up the anchor line, eventually coming to a complete stop for your safety stop.

Try Pt. Lobos. You can choose to do a longer surface swim to reach some deeper spots. I should think that even the surface swim might keep you warm, esp if the sun is out (I sweat bullets during the surface swim, but I'm in a drysuit with efficiently wicking underwear). Even if you drop early there's lots to see and it's a good hard swim out and back. Due to the gradual gradiant at Lobos your safety stop is taken care of while you are kicking your way back to the boat launch. Never a need to stop and get brutally cold.

 

[Peter_C]

My partner started in a drysuit or she would have never dove the local waters with me. You won't ever catch me diving in a wetsuit locally.

On that note I have never had a good dive off a commercial boat locally, so I gave up. On the few times I did dive off of boats I can tell you the drysuit divers were mostly warm and ready to do the second dive, but the wetsuit divers. often sat out the second dive.

There are tons of shore diving spots around the area to enjoy.

FWIW we have seen 70' of vis at the Breakwater as we could see the metridiums from the end of the pipe.

 

[famouslongago]

I take issue with the idea of using exertion to keep yourself warm. If you're not properly insulated, heat will leave your body too fast to make a difference. It will just add exhaustion to your troubles while ensuring a steady flow of cold water over your body.

My girlfriend had real trouble staying warm until she tried wearing a thin, fleece-lined LavaCore-like underlayer under her wetsuit. That and appropriate boots and gloves made a big difference in comfort level.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

I used to be Mr. Wetsuit for 400-500 dives. When the wetsuit (A New Zealand made Moray 7mm) gave up, I decided to go dry.
When I announced in a dive club meeting that I'd ordered a drysuit, one fellow dropped his beer. That said,
there are wetsuits and there are wetsuits. I was diving a 7mm hooded vest under a 7mm Farmer John under
a 7mm Beaver Tail. It worked OK. Drysuit works much better.

Buying a drysuit turned Adm. Linda from a one-dive-a-day-a-few-times-a-year diver into 60 days a year, two
dives, occasionally three.

I think keeping the trunk and head warm is far more important that feet and hands (e.g. boots and gloves). If your head and
trunk get cold, your body is going to give up on the extremities. Note that I wear one of Cricket's 12mm hoods with my drysuit.

A wetsuit has to fit right. It needs to be just a smidge smaller than you are. But only a smidge. Any tighter and you just get
uncomfortable, not warmer. Any looser, you get more water flow and cold.

A hood needs to fit right. Most don't. And the hood should have a small enough face opening that it overlaps you mask on the
top and sides. Few if any off-the-shelf hoods do.

Chuck

 

[mahjong]

Everything is relative to the particular situation. "Working hard" and ""exhaustion" might be "cause-and'effect" for one diver, but need not be for another. I run daily. "Workind hard" merely flips my body's metabolic switch into a higher heart rate that is, well, call it "normal 2," where it's hard to for me to freeze. In "normal 2," I'm very far from anything even remotely approaching "exhaustion." For me, it's entering a groove where my body is working at maximum efficiency--and I do not get cold in this mode when diving. When spearfishing, or when doing point-to-point dives with deliberate kickers, I don't get cold. When diving with 'stop-and-smell-the-roses' divers, often camera toting, I freeze. I'm not advocating one style of diving over the other. I'm merely suggesting that when kicking with deliberation I can wear fleece under my trilam drysuit. And when floating around and flaunting buoyancy control with 'stop-and-smell-the-roses' divers, I wear my full-cut trilam with 400g of Thinsulate plus a 200g Thinsulate vest because that's all that can keep me warm when the 'work' of a dive entails only staying still.

Now, if one is 'out of shape', such that finning or kicking with deliberation means something approaching "exhaustion," well, that's another issue. I would say that, following others, the best way to bury this issue, and bury it completely, is to go with a drysuit, particularly one that will allow you to wear very thick and warm underwear. Be careful here, though. "Drysuit" is not a simple solution. There are several different kinds. And if you are in 'great shape,' that means you will need even MORE insulation underneath your drysuit to keep you warm, if, that is, we are talking trilaminate drysuit. If you do go trilam, make sure your suit is cut full enough to accommodate the thick underwear you will need, especially if you are doing 'stop and smell the roses' kind of diving. But if you are carrying 25-50 pounds too much weight, well, then, you are in luck, because then you won't need such thick underwear and can therefore wear a trimmer fitting trilam suit. Otherwise, a neoprene drysuit is the warmest option, but it, too, has its caveats. In short, it's difficult to solve your problem by simply saying, in short, "drysuit." And your objection to my post suggests as well that it is difficult to solve your problem simply by saying work harder in your wetsuit, as I originally did.

Lots more info is needed, particularly regarding what kind of shape you are in.

I take issue with the idea of using exertion to keep yourself warm. If you're not properly insulated, heat will leave your body too fast to make a difference. It will just add exhaustion to your troubles while ensuring a steady flow of cold water over your body.

My girlfriend had real trouble staying warm until she tried wearing a thin, fleece-lined LavaCore-like underlayer under her wetsuit. That and appropriate boots and gloves made a big difference in comfort level.

 

[rmillner]

SCUBA is physically stressful; but its not an exertion kind of sport. If it were, your regulator would be 2x or 3x larger and capable delivering enough air to successfully hyperventilate. Its not.

The closer your dive is to a cross between play and meditation, the better the dive gets

Shivvering means you're already too cold. Your skills and ability to think clearly go downhill very quickly once that begins to happen. A lot more quickly than you realize.

For Monterey, I have a rule to call the dive immediately on the third mistake however small in either gear setup or during the dive. Didn't know why at the time but it made sense and I figured out later its because I was becoming hypothermic and couldn't feel it.

 

[mahjong]

"Exertion" leading to "hyperventilation"? As I understand it, modern regs can deliver FAR more air than most people ever need, even under exertion. Hyperventilation, however, is something different altogether--most typically something that happens under stress/panic. If physical exertion while diving might cause someone to hyperventilate, then that someone perhaps should think twice about diving, at least in Monterey on any day other than a perfectly calm one (few are such days in the course of a year).

Knowing that three "mistakes" might lead to a dive being called has me feeling some stress just thinking about it. Knowing that if I slip and take a spill on some eel grass covered rock while entering at Lover's 3 or Butterfly House might lead to the dive being called might have me hyperventilating before that even happens. Without the rule, I might just gather myself together and continue plodding along. That's the kind of "rule" that would seem to suggest that (Monterey) diving is not even on the 'play - meditation' continuum.