Oct 20 and 21 report

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alibi 2

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
397
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17
Location
Monterey Bay, CA
# of dives
I'm a Fish!
We got to breakwater at 0730 on the 20th..entered the water at 0830..I was surprised at how clear the water was for the predicted conditions. There was approx. 10'...The surf entry and exit was good.

Began Dive two at 10am and conditions were picking up...Visibility was now about 6' and it was getting surgey...the swells were comming from the NW and pushing into the breakwater rocks...surf was a little higher but entry and exit at the wall was still good..

Next, we had lunch and took a short break before going for our 3 dive...I was watching the surf and it was getting bad. A group of divers had entered in the middle of San Carlos Beach by the rocks...I watched as one diver exited the surf and got knocked down...another diver was towing a tired diver to shore...he came in on a very large set...the swell was about 5'plus...somehow they both made it in..it wasnt pretty but they made it...Another group lost a fin, mask and weight belt in the surf..

The surf at the south end was now higher than I'd seen it in a long time and the water was a brown color from the stirred up sand. We called the 3rd dive off for safety reasons. Hubby and his partner swam out and retrived our float that had pulled its anchor and was almost on the rocks. He said the surge was very strong and they had to swim hard to stay away for the rocks while comming in.

On Sunday the 21st we went to Del Monte Beach to try diving again. The waves were breaking all the way to the wharf and they were very close , breaking one after another. We left the group at the picknik area while we went to check out breakwater. It was a no brainer at breakwater. Vis was probally a foot if you were lucky..but there was about 4' breakers already..we talked to a instructor who had left his dive floats out over night and both of them were gone. No one was going into the water and all the instuctors were cancelling their dives.

We went back to our group at Del Monte..when we got to the parking lot there was a dive class suiting up..one of our group told us they had not even bothered to look at the water the group just got ready to dive...We told our group that the dive was cancel due to unsafe conditions..some in the group thought they could handle the surf...we told them to watch the group that was going diving...The diving group walked to the waters edge...then the 3 instructors decieded to enter first..2 were knocked down right away by waves that hit them shoulder height..the 3rd was able to walk out...the other two tried to stand but the waves were so close together they were hit again and couldnt stand...both crawled out and when they could stand they looked like a horror show creature with all the kelp stuck on their head and shoulders...after cleaning the kelp off, the group headed back to the parking lot to get out of the gear and go home.

Now everyone in our group agreed that calling off the dive was a good choice. Hubby and I went to a cafe for a hot cup of coffee and cinnamon roll then took a ride to look at Monastary..We werent disappointed, the waves were beautiful...next we headed to Capitola's wharf to look at the water...the waves werent as large as the other side of the bay but the water is so stirred up its muddy looking...finally we went home for a nice nap...on the bright side the sky was blue..the wind was a little cool.:coffee:
 
Thanks for the great report. It sounds like last weekend was as bit bumpy for most divers!!
 
Your report reminds me of the day at BW when I was supposed to do my final two checkout dives to get my OW cert. There was about a 5-6' NW swell breaking on the rocks and sweeping up onto the steps. Earlier as the tide was coming in I saw two divers crawling out near the breakwater, and whitewater was crashing over them.

Our class was gathered by the picnic tables watching as the tide came in, while other classes convened on their tarps out on the grass. There was a lot of chop from wind, backwash, and the water looked angry. I was definitely not so sure I wanted to go out in that, even though I'd spent the dough for the hotel room, rentals, etc for the weekend.

As we looked around debating we could see other groups beginning to take gear off and put it away, while one large class began filing down the stairs and headed for the water. Some were knocked down on entry, and the ones who made it out were just bobbing in the chop and waves.

After watching this class go in we decided to cancel the dives and reschedule a month later. Frustrating, but I had absolutely no problem not going in the water that day.
 
I had planned to dive Sunday as well. :) I got up late knowing that the conditions were probably going to be less than spectacular. Grabbed my camera gear since I was pretty sure I'd be staying dry to day. Went down to Breakwater and confirmed my suspicions with the surf, the look of the water (soupy) and reports of 1-2 feet of vis. McAbee didn't look much different from El Toritos, so I called my dive buddy and we had lunch there. I took lots of cool wave pictures with my new camera and drove down to Lover's Point and down to Asilomar beach. Conditions were poopy all around. I got nice pictures though. :) Just for kicks, I headed down to Monastery Beach to see what the waves were like. It was pretty rough and the waves were breaking pretty high and close together.

Nice dive report. :)
 
I had Lobos reservations for Sunday. The reports looked awful and email I was seeing from people who went in on Saturday backed that up, but my buddy already had his gear rented so we figured we would do the drive down anyway. When we got to the Lobos gate at 8:50 there were 3 people ahead of us instead of the typical line of cars out to highway 1. When they opened the gate we asked about conditions and the woman said the cove was really foamy and suggested we go take a look for ourselves, then come back and check in if we wanted to dive. There was a pretty good swell in Whaler's and the waves just outside were crashing hard. See the picture below.


small_IMG_0028.jpg




We left and went to check out breakwater. A few people were entering the water and there were a bunch of people suiting up on the grass. A few people that came out pretty much said vis didn't exist. One woman in a drysuit got tumbled pretty hard coming out, lost her mask and fins, and was leaning up against the railing by the stairs repeating how scary that was.

We went and had lunch and drove home. The good thing about it is the the owner of the dive shop my buddy rented from gave him a rain check for another gear rental. It turns out that the owner's trips were also canceled that weekend because of conditions.


Nathan
 

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