Drewpy
Contributor
To all you No Cal divers who have not been there -MAKE A RESERVATION!!!! This place is great!
This was to be my first dive in the Monterey area, so I rented a suit(two piece f john) and a few steel 95s on Friday and off we went early Sun morn. Beautiful day with the sun trying to make an appearance, not to windy or cold.A very close by parking lot with picnic benches,bathrooms.fresh water to rinse your gear etc NICE.
Be sure to bring a tarp to lay down to change/gear up etc-parking lot is very sandy.
The diving-I was a little nervous/apprehensive and felt like the Michelin man and a tad claustrophobic with all the unfamiliar gear
and added weight(35lbs!ahh)hood etc. but all is ok -easy acces via a small boat ramp-after a short swim out, I told my buddy I wanted to just rest for a moment or two and gather my thoughts/calm down etc - he understood and after a short reveiw of our dive plan down we went to about 20-25ft and a nice sandy bottom.Vis was quite good (20-30ft)as we made our way along the reef out towards the channel.Anxiety was gone and I felt quite good except for a little trim issue(head down)but no worries ,and was actually quite toasty warm!
Nice reef! Saw many sanddabs and seastars along the sand channel and tons of life on the reef-rockfish,lingcod,cabezone a wolfeel etc. After about 20mins of leisurely poking around we made our way along the bottom all the way back to the ramp.
Great first cold dive! I was impressed!
Second dive was more of the same and very enjoyable-if this is what other Monterey dives are like then Im hooked!
The kelp was a little dense in places and was told by the ranger that winter diving is actually better bc the storms tend to clear out a lot of the excess kelp but it really wasnt an issue-just had to look up before sufaceing
Overall a great day and a nice intro to Ca diving,and a big thanks to my buddy Saul for his patience,help and assurance!
NICE! five *****!
This was to be my first dive in the Monterey area, so I rented a suit(two piece f john) and a few steel 95s on Friday and off we went early Sun morn. Beautiful day with the sun trying to make an appearance, not to windy or cold.A very close by parking lot with picnic benches,bathrooms.fresh water to rinse your gear etc NICE.
Be sure to bring a tarp to lay down to change/gear up etc-parking lot is very sandy.
The diving-I was a little nervous/apprehensive and felt like the Michelin man and a tad claustrophobic with all the unfamiliar gear
and added weight(35lbs!ahh)hood etc. but all is ok -easy acces via a small boat ramp-after a short swim out, I told my buddy I wanted to just rest for a moment or two and gather my thoughts/calm down etc - he understood and after a short reveiw of our dive plan down we went to about 20-25ft and a nice sandy bottom.Vis was quite good (20-30ft)as we made our way along the reef out towards the channel.Anxiety was gone and I felt quite good except for a little trim issue(head down)but no worries ,and was actually quite toasty warm!
Nice reef! Saw many sanddabs and seastars along the sand channel and tons of life on the reef-rockfish,lingcod,cabezone a wolfeel etc. After about 20mins of leisurely poking around we made our way along the bottom all the way back to the ramp.
Great first cold dive! I was impressed!
Second dive was more of the same and very enjoyable-if this is what other Monterey dives are like then Im hooked!
The kelp was a little dense in places and was told by the ranger that winter diving is actually better bc the storms tend to clear out a lot of the excess kelp but it really wasnt an issue-just had to look up before sufaceing
Overall a great day and a nice intro to Ca diving,and a big thanks to my buddy Saul for his patience,help and assurance!
NICE! five *****!
