Monterey Bay Submarine Canyon

[DiverDown760]

Does anyone dive the Monterey Bay submarine canyon? It seems easily accessible by boat or a surface swim just outside Moss Landing.
I frequently dive the La Jolla and Scripps submarine canyons in San Diego which both require a substantial surface swim depending on what part of the canyon you want to enter. I don't mind a 45minute surface swim and dropping down to 200fsw if there is good structure to explore.

 

[Still Kicking]

Monastery Beach

An advanced dive site south of Carmel

scuba.spanglers.com

Be careful!

 

[landphil]

Yup- that south little branch of the canyon lands right at North Monastery as a rocky wall descending as deep as you’ll want to go. It’s a dive almost any experienced Monterey diver can do (if you remember to pay attention to your depth,) with what can be an extremely dangerous entry and exit that benefits a lot from some local experience and knowledge.

The canyon at Moss Landing is characterized by huge amounts of sediment transport, think oceanic sandstorm, and repeated turbidity flows, kind of like giant landslides into the canyon. So, even if you could get there, you don’t want to be there.

 

[DiverDown760]

Ok, so North Monastery is the spot for exploring the canyon.
Thank you to everyone that has contributed to this thread. Im moving to Santa Cuz in a few weeks for school and Im looking forward to diving Monterey!

 

[landphil]

Ok, so North Monastery is the spot for exploring the canyon.
Thank you to everyone that has contributed to this thread. Im moving to Santa Cuz in a few weeks for school and Im looking forward to diving Monterey!

Definitely try to hunt down some people with Monastery experience for your first couple of dives. La Jolla and Monastery are both beach entries, and can both be challenging. But they are very different. La Jolla will be relentless annoying waves as you try to wade to water deep enough to start swimming, while Monastery you take 2 steps into the water and you’re over your head. Then a wave comes in and you can stand. But it’s really just winding up to detonate the 5’ shorebreak and pile drive you into the sand.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]