saturday dissapointment @ lobos

[andrewy]

Does anybody had these conditions? why does it happen and how to avoid it.
We were so happy rolling into sunshine @ lobos yesterday. Calm waters and sunshine what else can you ask for. We could see bottom in about 15ft and were anticipating kick ass dive session. We dropped in about 30ft of water, going through -10,-20 stops and at about 22ft we hit total sil out that stayed 10ft off the bottom. it was so bad that we spent 2 hours doing drills at 10ft stop and being harassed by harbor seal. Sorry for negative vibe, but i just feel cheated.

 

[kathydee]

Hi Andrew,

What was your max depth?

 

[spoolin01]

In my experience while bad viz days are less frequent late fall/winter/early spring, they still happen a lot. I'd venture a guess that if it was on the bottom that it had to do with tidal flow and/or the high seas from a day or so before. I see Saturday wasn't much of a tide day, so I guess that wasn't it.

I've seen it blacked out inside Whaler's Cove when it was fine out where it's 50+ ft deep, don't know how much you looked around.

 

[fstbttms]

i just feel cheated.

What, Mother Nature owes you perfect conditions becuase you drove two hours to get to a dive spot?

 

[andrewy]

Kathy, we were max in 30ft of water. we tried several places to drop but it was all the same @ 20ft is like a second bottom, complete silt out. We did not wanted to kelp crawl past mid reef.
I never seen condition reversed like this, normally it is bad viz above not below

 

[kathydee]

Kathy, we were max in 30ft of water. we tried several places to drop but it was all the same @ 20ft is like a second bottom, complete silt out. We did not wanted to kelp crawl past mid reef.
I never seen condition reversed like this, normally it is bad viz above not below

I've seen it a couple times before. Usually clears up about 45ft or at least by HITW but I wasn't there.


Sounds like you made the most of the day - with skills ! That's great!

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Kathy, we were max in 30ft of water. we tried several places to drop but it was all the same @ 20ft is like a second bottom, complete silt out. We did not wanted to kelp crawl past mid reef.
I never seen condition reversed like this, normally it is bad viz above not below

You don't have to kelp krawl to get "past middle reef". There's a
fine channel through the kelp. Go up on the bluff and have a look.

 

[Lenaxia]

We had the same issue on the North coast this weekend. 4-5ft vis all weekend even though from the top we could easily see the bottom.

It was rather disappointing.

 

[andrewy]

Chuck, my question was why such conditions exists and how they are created., they seems to be in reversed , silted bottom clean top. as for getting out, kelp navigation is boring

 

[Thalassamania]

It's usually clear from 60 on down, but you've got to get outside. It is often sucky inside of Whalers, go on over to Bluefish. If you don't want to do kelp navigation ... dive Tahoe.