Shore diving Butterfly House
TLDR:
1. Arrive early, or carpool. The only parking available is on Stewart way, and there is only space for 3-4 cars.
2. Check conditions: Obviously the smaller the swell, the better. You also want to time your dives as close to high tide as possible.
3. Be physically fit enough for a long surface swim (300 yards +/-100 yards out to a good descent point), and be prepared to schlep your gear around very uneven (and potentially slippery) surfaces. Access to the beach, and the beach itself is comprised of trip hazards. Be careful!
4. Expect surge in the shallows and slight current once in the exposed deeper water.
This site is absolutely gorgeous. I’m definitely coming back to finish exploring the reef here as it’s humongous and I feel like I’ve only skimmed the surface of what it has to offer. There is a lot of work and planning involved, but it is so rewarding if the conditions are good. There was only 1 other team of divers we encountered on a Saturday with no swell, so this spot is about as untouched as shore diving gets in Carmel/Monterey.
Visibility: 25-30ft at depth 30+, 10-15ft in shallows 20ft-30ft
Water temp: 54F
Dive 1:
Depth: 65 ft
Time: 40 mins
1:30 surface interval
Dive 2:
Depth: 27ft
Time: 25 mins
Spotted: Spiny crab, lingcod, Cabezon, rockfish, several schools of fish, harbor seal, anemones, starfish, sea urchins, abalone (shells only)
My buddy and I met up at Aquarius on Del Monte to pick up tanks and move all gear into one car. Since parking on Stewart is definitely sparse, we decided it might be easier to find 1 parking spot than it would be to find 2. We were the first divers onsite at around 8am. After scoping out conditions, it looked like an ideal day to try this site out for the first time. There are 2 or 3 steep narrow paths to get access to the beach. We decided to bring all our kit to the beach and get geared up on the beach itself. Getting geared up at your car and braving any of those paths in full gear is simply not safely feasible. Be extremely careful when transporting gear, especially tanks and weights. Take your time, and take as many trips as you need to. The beach is currently covered in washed up kelp. Most of the sand is not visible under a layer of kelp 6” to 1’ deep. Although after reading a few other reports, this may have been a blessing in disguise, since that was kelp we didn’t have to crawl through on our entries/exits. The beach kelp is rather slippery though, so be sure to watch your step.
I can’t speak to navigating entry here during low tide, but it’s easy enough during high tide. Just watch out for a few submerged rocks that could be trip hazards. We established positive buoyancy, donned fins, and started the long surface swim out with an approximate West bearing. There is a formation of large boulders to the South. Once clear of the rock formation, we were in more exposed open ocean and a slight southbound current was noticeable. We agreed on turn/ascent pressures, a navigation plan and prepared for our descent. We knew there was reef to the North and South, so we planned to start with a Northbound heading in case the current became more significant. We didn’t want to end up on the wrong side of the rock formation on ascent.
We descend about 50 to 100 yards past the last visible rock and landed in ~30 feet of depth. We had hoped to reach the deeper parts of the reef so we adjusted our course to W/NW. The topography of this site is absolutely stunning. Huge boulders is an understatement. Some of these boulders were house sized or bigger. They create plenty of canyons, crevices, and swim-throughs that are teeming with life. The kelp forests here are healthy and this site has the most active fish I’ve ever seen in Carmel/Monterey. I am thoroughly impressed! This feels like the quintessential Kelp diving experience. This reef is huge! We hit our turn pressure at around 65ft of depth. We wanted to continue to explore deeper waters, but decided to stick to our plan. We took a S/SE heading and the 2nd half of the dive was in the 50-60ft range. Once we hit our ascent pressure, we started our ascent, did our 3 minute safety stop, and in a rare bout of navigational excellence, found ourselves popping up directly in front of the cove; albeit several hundred yards out.
We had some equipment errors that made us wary of attempting a deeper dive the 2nd time around so we stuck to the shallows and practiced buddy breathing. I’ll note that the shallows are also beautiful. The kelp beds immediately to the North in the 20-30ft range have some interesting life and topography. If you can help it, go deeper, as the vis won’t be as good (10ft), and the surge was pretty significant in the shallows.
