Thanks all!
A bit more detail on our dive plan: we wanted to check out a new location, so we plotted a course starting at Hole in the Wall, NW to Lone Metridium, then N to Sea Mount. Assuming that worked out as planned, we'd either spend our dive poking around Sea Mount, or work our way further to check out Beto's Reef. Since Beto's is pretty deep, we figured we'd do an "aerial survey" this time to make sure we can find it, and explore the reef proper on a future dive.
When we hit the water, the conditions were so pristine that we had no problems executing the plan. We dropped a bit west of where we normally do, and Steve signaled "I think we may have worked our way to the back of HITW." I looked past his shoulder just then, and sure enough the hole on the wall to our right. Good call.
Lone metridium was a bit further than I remember (only been there once before), but we had no problems finding it, and Steve later mentioned that he always thought it would be bigger in person. If it ever dies and falls off, I think it would throw Lobos waypoint naviation into complete disarray.
Turning north to Sea Mount, we followed a clear rubble patch to a huge solid slab of rock - kind of like the bow of a supertanker. We circled it, and decided that conditions were in our favor to make for Beto's.
We turned NW once more, and followed the knife edge ridge below us, maintaining our depth at about 80fsw while the bottom sloped down deeper and deeper. At one point, we were about 20ft above the reef when the left side became a sheer wall and the right side a gentle slope. Viz remained a pristine 40-50ft. We approached a v-shaped notch and decided it was a good place to turn.
So we high-tailed it back, hitting Sea Mount from the north, back to Lone Metridium, and from there back to the sand channel and Middle Reef, where the viz gunked up a bit to a still-pleasant 15-20ft. We made our safety stops at the reef and surfaced to find ourselves a bit farther out than expected, past the mouth of the cove. We were tired enough where we just made a nice surface swim back to the ramp in the sun.
