Initially Ben and I had decided that we were going to try to hit Butterfly House. After meeting at the dive shop and informing Ben I had my 130cuft tank ready to go we decided to try and find Mono Lobo again. Off to Carmel we went!
When we got there we did a quick check on how the wave action was. We both decided that it was do-able and headed back to the cars to gear up. When I had opened the valve on my tank and checked my SPG I was disappointed to see that I only had 3100 PSI at ambient temperature (instead of 3442). Ben and I had a quick discussion and we decided that we could work with this and we were still on for the dive.
In the water on the way out we saw a group from the Monterey Bay Sea Otters club getting in as well. They were swimming out to do a South Monastery dive and man were they swimming out fast! They dropped and we were still swimming navigating our way through the kelp. Before ascending we were trying to figure out what the Monterey Express was doing. They came over fairly close to where we were and then moved a little farther away over about 5-10 minutes. Looked like it was a private charter and that there was some kind of high dollar equipment on the back sitting on top of this wooden ramp. Finally we decided they were going to be there for a while and didnt feel like we needed to worry about an anchor coming down, so down we went.
The first portion of the dive we were just going out over a sandy patch. It was cool however because we were in 60-70fsw fairly quick and once there we saw tons of Squid Egg patches. Then a few seconds later I spotted one of the squid, and had my light pointed right at it. We followed him for probably 15-20 seconds before he took off. Very cool, and I love how they swim/hover. Maybe 2-3 minutes later I see a large mass coming towards us out of the murky darkness, and I couldnt believe what it was when I finally could see it. It was a Bay Ray with at least a 5-6 foot wing span! It seemed to be there to feed on the squid eggs, and I quickly got Bens attention and pointed to it with my light. I think all the lights eventually spooked it and it turned away from us about 10 feet out and went about its day, but wow was it big.
Finally were down at 90-100fsw and start hitting some big rock structure all around. I spotted a large red rockfish that was looking at us as if we had disturbed him. A few minutes later as we swam along we hit the mono lobo. We swam counter clockwise around its base admiring all the color and structure. There was a lot of big sponges of various colors and of course a lot of strawberry anemones. There was also a very cool anemone that I had never seen before. It was in the sand and had some very long tentacles. However it was a very pastel purple color and had these pink stripes on every tentacle, probably the coolest anemone ive ever seen. Then I saw what reminded me of a sea fan from my reef tank days. At about this time our computers were telling is we had 4-6 (I was on EAN34) min of NDL left. This is when we started coming around the back side of the pinnacle and started working our way up along the side of it. Back into the lower vis waters we went.
On the swim back Ben had hit deco so we spent a good long portion at 70fsw and then another long portion at 50fsw before we really came up into more shallow waters and lots of kelp. I should add that on the swim back we ran into three very large schools of blue rockfish at varying depths. As we entered the 40fsw range we saw Lingzillas baby brother (perhaps) which was at least a 4 foot ling cod just sitting there and didnt even care that we were there. What was surprising to me is that in the kelp the vis appeared to open up again some. This is about where we found a flashlight, back in the rocky kelpy shallowish area right on the southern point of the cove at South Monastery. I was right at 500 PSI so we did our safety stops and came up. Only to realize we had a ton of kelp all around us, so back down we went and we headed under the kelp at about 10fsw until we made it through it, and it was a somewhat long swim. We were making our way back and realized that we still had a little patch of kelp that we needed to swim under. Between the last kelp swim and the safety stops I was now down to 300 PSI so I got Ben to let me breathe off his primary long hose while we did this last swim. Wow is the long hose setup nice for stuff like this. There was no intimate eye locking to be had, instead I just swam along side and checked out all the jellies (mainly moon jellies) that were there as well.
We then made our long swim back and had to time out exit a bit. Apparently the seas had picked up some since we went in, so we timed the swells and waited until it was a good chance to make a run for it. What an amazing dive, I would have to say that this was my favorite and best dive in Monterey. Sadly there are no pictures.
Dive #81: 108fsw max for 61 minutes. Varying vis, 20-25 feet in the open waters, 30-35 feet at 100+fsw, and probably a good 30 feet in the kelp. Diving EAN34 with a CNS O2 of 22% and a PSI Delta of 2518. (sorry for kind of a long post... if people want I can just link to my blog since thats easier for me anyway.)
When we got there we did a quick check on how the wave action was. We both decided that it was do-able and headed back to the cars to gear up. When I had opened the valve on my tank and checked my SPG I was disappointed to see that I only had 3100 PSI at ambient temperature (instead of 3442). Ben and I had a quick discussion and we decided that we could work with this and we were still on for the dive.
In the water on the way out we saw a group from the Monterey Bay Sea Otters club getting in as well. They were swimming out to do a South Monastery dive and man were they swimming out fast! They dropped and we were still swimming navigating our way through the kelp. Before ascending we were trying to figure out what the Monterey Express was doing. They came over fairly close to where we were and then moved a little farther away over about 5-10 minutes. Looked like it was a private charter and that there was some kind of high dollar equipment on the back sitting on top of this wooden ramp. Finally we decided they were going to be there for a while and didnt feel like we needed to worry about an anchor coming down, so down we went.
The first portion of the dive we were just going out over a sandy patch. It was cool however because we were in 60-70fsw fairly quick and once there we saw tons of Squid Egg patches. Then a few seconds later I spotted one of the squid, and had my light pointed right at it. We followed him for probably 15-20 seconds before he took off. Very cool, and I love how they swim/hover. Maybe 2-3 minutes later I see a large mass coming towards us out of the murky darkness, and I couldnt believe what it was when I finally could see it. It was a Bay Ray with at least a 5-6 foot wing span! It seemed to be there to feed on the squid eggs, and I quickly got Bens attention and pointed to it with my light. I think all the lights eventually spooked it and it turned away from us about 10 feet out and went about its day, but wow was it big.
Finally were down at 90-100fsw and start hitting some big rock structure all around. I spotted a large red rockfish that was looking at us as if we had disturbed him. A few minutes later as we swam along we hit the mono lobo. We swam counter clockwise around its base admiring all the color and structure. There was a lot of big sponges of various colors and of course a lot of strawberry anemones. There was also a very cool anemone that I had never seen before. It was in the sand and had some very long tentacles. However it was a very pastel purple color and had these pink stripes on every tentacle, probably the coolest anemone ive ever seen. Then I saw what reminded me of a sea fan from my reef tank days. At about this time our computers were telling is we had 4-6 (I was on EAN34) min of NDL left. This is when we started coming around the back side of the pinnacle and started working our way up along the side of it. Back into the lower vis waters we went.
On the swim back Ben had hit deco so we spent a good long portion at 70fsw and then another long portion at 50fsw before we really came up into more shallow waters and lots of kelp. I should add that on the swim back we ran into three very large schools of blue rockfish at varying depths. As we entered the 40fsw range we saw Lingzillas baby brother (perhaps) which was at least a 4 foot ling cod just sitting there and didnt even care that we were there. What was surprising to me is that in the kelp the vis appeared to open up again some. This is about where we found a flashlight, back in the rocky kelpy shallowish area right on the southern point of the cove at South Monastery. I was right at 500 PSI so we did our safety stops and came up. Only to realize we had a ton of kelp all around us, so back down we went and we headed under the kelp at about 10fsw until we made it through it, and it was a somewhat long swim. We were making our way back and realized that we still had a little patch of kelp that we needed to swim under. Between the last kelp swim and the safety stops I was now down to 300 PSI so I got Ben to let me breathe off his primary long hose while we did this last swim. Wow is the long hose setup nice for stuff like this. There was no intimate eye locking to be had, instead I just swam along side and checked out all the jellies (mainly moon jellies) that were there as well.
We then made our long swim back and had to time out exit a bit. Apparently the seas had picked up some since we went in, so we timed the swells and waited until it was a good chance to make a run for it. What an amazing dive, I would have to say that this was my favorite and best dive in Monterey. Sadly there are no pictures.
Dive #81: 108fsw max for 61 minutes. Varying vis, 20-25 feet in the open waters, 30-35 feet at 100+fsw, and probably a good 30 feet in the kelp. Diving EAN34 with a CNS O2 of 22% and a PSI Delta of 2518. (sorry for kind of a long post... if people want I can just link to my blog since thats easier for me anyway.)
