Saturday - Dive in Carmel and Monterey Bay

[Gombessa]

What a difference a few miles makes! I was aboard the BAUE recreational charter on the Escapade yesterday, on a planned 6-hour tour to Carmel. I left early, expecting a rush from the US Open, but apparently golf spectators are late risers.

The first site was East Pinnacles, and considering the marginal conditions from earlier in the week we didn't really know what to expect. When we dropped, I was surprised to see the conditions were more or less phenomenal. 40-50ft (or greater) viz, and if the other divers weren't behind one of the pinnacles, you could almost always see them. The pinnacles are covered in densely packed pink and purple hydrocorals, with corynactis packed in between.

Since the wind and swells were scheduled to pick up significantly in the afternoon, we pulled anchor and retreated back into the bay for dive 2. We parked at Shale Island, where Chuck T. and apparently everyone else diving off a boat had the same idea. On dropping, everything was pea-soup green, and viz was maybe 5ft, opening up to 10 in places. The best part of the dive was that the sun would continually break through the cloud cover, and every time it did it was like someone turned on an emerald-green floodlight. Then the clouds would come back in a minute later and everything would go dim again. I also saw my first mermaid's purse (no idea if it's from a skate/ray or shark though). In all a great day to dive.

[youtubehq]J0WJ4-eadZk[/youtubehq]

 

[enigmata]

Nice video! Makes me want to get on a boat in Norcal one day...

 

[Gombessa]

Nice video! Makes me want to get on a boat in Norcal one day...

Thanks! I'm much more the shore-diving type myself, but there are simply some amazing sites that you can't get to any other way than by boat. As long as I have a couple of doses of dramamine/bonine beforehand, I can usually make it through the day

 

[TSandM]

Oh, anybody who hasn't dived Monterey, ought to do so! With the hydrocoral and corynactis anemones as a covering to the dramatic topography of the pinnacles in the bay, Monterey ranks very high on my list of places I have dived.

Shale Island in the soup felt more like Puget Sound, though . . .

 

[rdjiv]

Thanks Kenn! As per usual, your video was great and enjoyable to watch. You definitely portrayed the stark difference in conditions between Carmel and Monterey Bay.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

The mermaid's purse was likely Swell Shark, they are occasional at Shale
Island.

You guys sure came up all over the place.

Vis at Shale Island on Sunday was 15-20'

 

[opisthobranch]

You guys sure came up all over the place.

Well, Shale Island proper was a busy place and you were sitting on our usual anchorage so decided to try a different ledge over to the east. Unfortunately the anchor wasn't right on the ledge and it wasn't obvious at all which way to go and in 5' vis it wasn't like we were going to make it back to the anchor which was sitting on top of a non-descript shale plateau. Certainly didn't want to bother with running line since boat traffic isn't too much of an issue over there (assuming there isn't a sailboat race which there wasn't).

In my case Allison and I went off looking for a ledge and it took awhile before we found one. When we finally did we weren't in any mood to turn the dive and go back to the boring area and look for the anchor. So we just kept working along that ledge with the idea that we'd shoot a bag once we decided to come up. Worked well enough. Nice when you have a crew on the boat and don't have to fret about coming back to the anchor.

Shale pics here: Slugs and Snails from the Shale

Clinton

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

No, Larry Cohn was on the usual anchorage. I was on a spot over near
the big navy anchor. I offered Jim numbers for another anchorage over
near the west end, but he declined.

BTW. Sailboat races are less of an issue. MBYC has moved their race
buoy elsewhere, and I thank them.

 

[ScubaSam]

I always enjoy your dive videos. Thanks for sharing them with us!!

 

[dougchartier]

What a difference a few miles makes! I was aboard the BAUE recreational charter on the Escapade yesterday, on a planned 6-hour tour to Carmel. I left early, expecting a rush from the US Open, but apparently golf spectators are late risers.

The first site was East Pinnacles, and considering the marginal conditions from earlier in the week we didn't really know what to expect. When we dropped, I was surprised to see the conditions were more or less phenomenal. 40-50ft (or greater) viz, and if the other divers weren't behind one of the pinnacles, you could almost always see them. The pinnacles are covered in densely packed pink and purple hydrocorals, with corynactis packed in between.

Since the wind and swells were scheduled to pick up significantly in the afternoon, we pulled anchor and retreated back into the bay for dive 2. We parked at Shale Island, where Chuck T. and apparently everyone else diving off a boat had the same idea. On dropping, everything was pea-soup green, and viz was maybe 5ft, opening up to 10 in places. The best part of the dive was that the sun would continually break through the cloud cover, and every time it did it was like someone turned on an emerald-green floodlight. Then the clouds would come back in a minute later and everything would go dim again. I also saw my first mermaid's purse (no idea if it's from a skate/ray or shark though). In all a great day to dive.

Beautiful dive and awesome video! I've got to head out there sometime!