Operation Neptune's Arch

[FrankPro1]

Today Charlie and I were on a mission. We knew we wanted to do Neptune's Cove and we knew we didn't want to waste time searching in the shallows. We decided to drop down farther towards the point and kick out quickly until we came to the pinnacles. After about 15 minutes of searching, I began to worry we wouldn't find them. Our heading 230 took us directly to the pinnacles before, but this time we found nothing but small rocky reefs. In retrospect, I think I navigated us a little farther into the cove and we passed by our usual reefs. Luckily Charlie had the gift of clairvoyant navigation. He signaled to do 150 "which was parallel to shore, heading towards Pt.Vicente". After a few fin kicks a HUGE reef structure appeared. As we got closer, I immediately new where we were. Finally we have found the famous Neptune's Arch, which Bottomtime had told us about. The Arch is much much larger then the one at Shaw's and has more life on it too! Lots of schools of fish inhabited the surrounding area and some interesting reef species can be found as well.

Neptune's Arch Species list:
Nudibranch's: White Spotted Porostome, Diaulula nobilis "one was the width of my forearm!", Spainsh Shawl, Diaulula sandiegensis
Huge Schools: Opal eye, Mackerel, Zebra Perch, BlackSmith
Individual Fish: Garibaldi, Barred Bass, Kelp Bass, Sheephead "all ages and sizes", Painted Greenling, Various Rockfish, Blue Banded and Black Eyed Gobi

I got some decent pictures today, but somethings going on with the TTL on my strobe. For some reason its having a tendency to over or under expose the image. The shots I did salvage were done in full manual.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I'm impressed! Not only did you find the arch, but you made the long swim back to the beach afterward.
It's big enough to drive a car through, but barely big enough for Charlie's snorkel.

 

[blue steal]

VIS looked pretty good at HC & CTC today around 1030. Quite a few vehicles parked at HC. Was thinking of some snorkeling/freediving at either one Sunday morning.

 

[FrankPro1]

I'm impressed! Not only did you find the arch, but you made the long swim back to the beach afterward.
It's big enough to drive a car through, but barely big enough for Charlie's snorkel.

The hike/swim really kicked my butt today. The weather was hot, the entry was slippery and the current was strong. The picture really doesn't do the arch justice. It appears much larger in person and when the photo was taken, Charlie was near the top of it.
Here's a RAW Unedited video clip of the Arch : YouTube - "RAW" Neptune's Cove Arch Dive "Unedited"

VIS looked pretty good at HC & CTC today around 1030. Quite a few vehicles parked at HC. Was thinking of some snorkeling/freediving at either one Sunday morning.

The vis was so so at Neptune's today. At best it was 20ft, but in certain spots it dropped dramatically down to 5ft. Honeymoon was great the other day and the swell model has only improved since then, so I'm sure it would be nice tomorrow. Swim out off the far right point. It stays really shallow and there is some decent reef to explore.