Monastery questions

[andrewy]

Entry and exits at Monastery are, for most divers, pretty hairy, but as a veteran of literally thousands of such entries and exits, made with little or no incident, even in the middle of the beach, I will share what I was taught and did for many years:

Entries: We usually used a surf mat. We'd enter alone, fins on, mask on, snorkel in, surf mat in hand. We'd wade out backwards to thigh deep water, wait for the right moment, turn, leap on top of our surf mat and kick like hell. Usually we could avoid the break entirely. If we timed it wrong we'd turn turtle and let it break over. If we had no surf mat it was similar, but we'd snorkel out, surface diving under the break.

Exits: We always wore fixie-palms so we did not loose our fins and we'd surf in, either on our mat or in snorkeling mode. When we hit the sand we'd crawl up out of the water as quickly as possible.

Caveat: If you are going to do these sorts of things you need to know how. You must either be an experienced body surfer and a strong diver or have been trained in the techniques. We typically spent an entire day, working at the center of the beach, teaching our students how to handle it with progressively more load (e.g., just wet-suit, then add weight belt, then add rig).

Thats a nice one. I should try once

 

[Thalassamania]

I'm surprised that a surf entry and exit workshop of some sort is not offered there.

 

[andrewy]

Well , standard surf entry in full gear and holding hands is offered here but i guess there are at least 47 ways to skin a cat.. everyone has its bag of tricks.

 

[Thalassamania]

I think that a standard surf entry, holding hands, borders on suicidal, at least at the middle of the beach on a ten foot day. On days like that the options quickly drop to one or two. Though, at the north end of the beach, on a flat day there may be 47 ways to do it and survive.

 

[Peter_C]

Sounds like there's a nasty Rip Tide there from what you are describing.

There can be depending on conditions. Every beach sporting larger waves will have a ripe tide somewhere along it. Heck the current itself can rip around the Monastery area, including Carmel Bay. I have seen a current so strong at McAbee we could barely swim against it. The big one with Monastery is it has an undertow. The beach shape causes the waves to curl and cycle like a front loading washing machine with a lot of power.

I'm surprised that a surf entry and exit workshop of some sort is not offered there.

Surfers offer a get worked/shop for free! They also will laugh their butts off at the new rookie, and were more than willing to offer excellent advice on how "not to let it happen again". Many of my lessons came from surfing reef. Before ever heading into the water the "dudes" shared tons of good information. Like how to stand sideways when the waves are going to hit so you don't take your knees out. I believe the term would be mentors. Many sports have excellent mentors. Beach knowledge is important, and everyone should study the waves before entering.

 

[Thalassamania]

They have to have been taught how to read a beach (or grown up doing it) before that's vaguely practical. I only know of two classes (UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz) that actually spend significant time doing this and practicing it.

 

[fdog]

Okay, that's three - UCD. When I taught there each OW class usually made 2 dives at Monastery.


All the best, James

 

[Thalassamania]

Interesting how the UC programs seem to be the only ones that think surf training is a good use of training time. Everyone else just says that it's too hard or don't dive on big days.

 

[Ben_ca]

Interesting how the UC programs seem to be the only ones that think surf training is a good use of training time. Everyone else just says that it's too hard or don't dive on big days.

I would question the wisdom of diving on big (surf) days... especially at places like Monastery. If it is big going in I doubt it's going to get smaller later in the day when it's time to exit. I clearly remember the one fatality from Nevada (Who used to be a local) that dove on a big day... he died. His buddies were overheard saying "Nobody ever said it was dangerous there".

 

[Thalassamania]

I would question the wisdom of diving on big (surf) days... especially at places like Monastery. If it is big going in I doubt it's going to get smaller later in the day when it's time to exit. I clearly remember the one fatality from Nevada (Who used to be a local) that dove on a big day... he died. His buddies were overheard saying "Nobody ever said it was dangerous there".

Question away, the three UC programs alone have a track record of doing, many, many, many thousands of dives there without incident, so I tend to think you are proposing, "a rule solution to a skill problem."

I am not suggesting that people who are not trained to dive the site and who lack heavy surf experience try to dive it. I am simply expressing my amazement that there are not entrepreneurial instructors out there offering a real surf diving class.

BTW: I had a great experience at Hookena today. A slightly overweight lady with little or no tan was coming back in and one of the big waves (about eight to ten foot) that we get every day knocked her down. I went running toward the water to pull her in when the wave "spat her out," she crawled on all fours like a bat-out-of-hell up the beach face and yanked her mask down around her neck. I reached her just as she made it out of the wash water and helped here up, she grinned.

I asked, "you from California?"

She said, "yeah ... Davis."

I asked, "you dive Monastery often?"

She said, "yeah ... how'd you know?"

I said, "by the way you got out."

She said, "my daughter taught me that, she learned it at UCD."

I said, "Figures."