sea_otter
Contributor
My dive report is consistent with the others, but I thought it was a neat weekend. Did two days of diving, one afternoon and evening at Breakwater and a morning at Point Lobos.
We had zero visibility at Breakwater for the top 20' - absolutely none. Even a bright light in the face was not visible. Buddy and I relied upon touch contact to ascend/descend. Below 30' it opened up nicely. Tons of life. Saw a squid, monkeyface eel, many octopus, crabs, tons of little shrimp, nudis, and had one of the resident seals follow us along. It was dark as night though. All signs of sunlight were gone in the first 2 or 3' of water. It was interesting coming up to see that indeed the sun was still shining.
Lobos was a little bit better but still very, very brown and dark. Maybe a foot of visibility for the top 30'. Sunlight penetrated to around 40 or 50'. We went out to the Rock Garden area, and at depth (80-95'), we had probably 20' of visibility. It was an interesting experience. I've never done a night dive at Point Lobos before. ;-) Saw lots of big lingcod, a huge sheepshead, and schools and schools of blues. Vis worsened as we returned back to the cove.
Hopefully the layer of muck in the water will disappear with the upcoming storm. But if you do get below it and have bright lights, the diving can be actually quite decent. Expect the darkness, though, and don't go without backup lights.
We had zero visibility at Breakwater for the top 20' - absolutely none. Even a bright light in the face was not visible. Buddy and I relied upon touch contact to ascend/descend. Below 30' it opened up nicely. Tons of life. Saw a squid, monkeyface eel, many octopus, crabs, tons of little shrimp, nudis, and had one of the resident seals follow us along. It was dark as night though. All signs of sunlight were gone in the first 2 or 3' of water. It was interesting coming up to see that indeed the sun was still shining.
Lobos was a little bit better but still very, very brown and dark. Maybe a foot of visibility for the top 30'. Sunlight penetrated to around 40 or 50'. We went out to the Rock Garden area, and at depth (80-95'), we had probably 20' of visibility. It was an interesting experience. I've never done a night dive at Point Lobos before. ;-) Saw lots of big lingcod, a huge sheepshead, and schools and schools of blues. Vis worsened as we returned back to the cove.
Hopefully the layer of muck in the water will disappear with the upcoming storm. But if you do get below it and have bright lights, the diving can be actually quite decent. Expect the darkness, though, and don't go without backup lights.