Torture!!!!

[CALI68]

My Wife and I are getting over a bad colds we caught last week when we were in Disneyland (germy-land) This morning I suggested we go to Monterey to see the liitle Great White. I knew the conditions were good by my God! It was lake out there!!!! I clould see that the vis was insane too but I couldn't dive!!!!! Torture! So how was it? Let's hear it. Especially the boat dives. If I was well I would have paid any price to go to Lobos Rocks down south. Where did you go?

 

[Ishie]

My Wife and I are getting over a bad colds we caught last week when we were in Disneyland (germy-land) This morning I suggested we go to Monterey to see the liitle Great White. I knew the conditions were good by my God! It was lake out there!!!! I clould see that the vis was insane too but I couldn't dive!!!!! Torture! So how was it? Let's hear it. Especially the boat dives. If I was well I would have paid any price to go to Lobos Rocks down south. Where did you go?

Didn't do the boat dives, but did dive Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday we stayed at San Carlos. Did two dives to the Metridium Fields. Vis was surprisingly good. LOT of students over at the Breakwall, but not many out in the Fields. Found the cannery pipe and followed it out, but dropped too early so by the time we reached the outskirts of the field, Jim was low on air. We looked around, surfaced and did a rather long surface swim. Plenty of sea nettles.

Second dive, went farther out, dropped onto the cannery pipe, at the end, went to the LEFT (whoops) and spent the dive lost with increasing concentrations of sea nettles until there were enough to make us pretty nervous. Anyone see the numbers on those frigging things????? Thought we were going back, ended up going out farther (whoops again). Finally ended up doing a scary ascent through the nettles (I don't wear a hood, so that was another whoops) which were blanketing the water and ended up WAYYYY out. Took us forty five minutes of an unleisurely dive (plenty of nettles near the surface) to get back in.

Did a night dive at Breakwater. Excellent vis. Jim saw a wolf eel. Didn't get out far enough though and ended up staying in the 15 foot range because we were so tired from the above dive that we didn't want to swim out too far. Quite a few nettles there (so pretty, but argh!) , but NOTHING like the Metridium Fields.

Sunday was Lovers. Vis was really good. We found a half rusted out barrel and were hanging around there when we got a visit from two harbor seals. One was REALLY friendly and kept coming up to us. It even grabbed Jim's mask and tugged (didn't get it). A lot of life, the fish were pretty bold and good visibility except our second dive at Lovers, where the vis clouded up.

Oh, right before we left, we heard a meter cop talking to one of the dive shop guys about the dead baby blue whale at Del Monte that they'd just started the necropsy on so we checked that out. Poor thing. The dive shop guy said something about a probable prop strike but the paper mentioned something about possible rakes that looked like an Orca? It was fascinating but really sad. They had a big chunk of the baleen out. They're taking samples, stripping down the carcass and burying what they take off and are carting the rest out to see. Closest I've ever been to a big whale, but hardly ideal circumstances. Apparently the thing had been dead for quite a while though and the smell was far from pleasannt. Poor baby. I think they estimated the length at 39 feet? So probably wouldn't have been a good weekend to dive Del Monte!

Ishie

Pretty much no surf or surge the whole time, little in the way of current. Ideal diving conditions. Sorry you missed it, but we missed seeing the young lady!!

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Interesting about the Orca theory -- we had Orcas around
Labor Day down in Carmel Bay.

Where at Del Monte was it?

 

[Ishie]

Interesting about the Orca theory -- we had Orcas around
Labor Day down in Carmel Bay.

Where at Del Monte was it?

Haven't dived Del Monte so not that familiar with the layout. Coming from Breakwater, we took a left onto Casa Verde, wound up the private drive and found parking by the side of the road (quite a number of cars there, I'd assume) when we saw that we were along the beach. Only knew it was Del Monte because we saw a sign. We had to walk down the road then down the beach a bit (maybe a 10-15 minute walk) and there it was. I'm sure it's still there, though no idea how much of it. The crew has it in about knee deep water, which leaves almost all of it protruding. Poor thing.

The paper said it also may have starved if they aren't taught to feed properly? They said there were rake marks, but nothing definitive. Not sure if that information has been updated.

Ishie

 

[darkpup]

We had a great time diving off of the Escapade on Saturday. The first dive was on PTP (Pinnacle of Tremendous Proportions) in Carmel, followed up with a phenomenal dive on ballbuster.

The conditions were incredible, and some of the major highlights were a large bat ray and a wolf eel. The vis was in the 40' to 60' range, and temps were around 52 degrees. There was a slight current that made our ascents a bit interesting. Since we primarily dive lakes around Sacramento and Tahoe, we're not use to water that moves. But we're hoping to get past that some day.

Here are the pics: Adventure Day 10-2-04

To make things even more special, the 2nd dive was my 100th. Very cool considering I only had 30 dives before May.

~ Jason

 

[CALI68]

We had a great time diving off of the Escapade on Saturday. The first dive was on PTP (Pinnacle of Tremendous Proportions) in Carmel, followed up with a phenomenal dive on ballbuster.

The conditions were incredible, and some of the major highlights were a large bat ray and a wolf eel. The vis was in the 40' to 60' range, and temps were around 52 degrees. There was a slight current that made our ascents a bit interesting. Since we primarily dive lakes around Sacramento and Tahoe, we're not use to water that moves. But we're hoping to get past that some day.

Here are the pics: Adventure Day 10-2-04

To make things even more special, the 2nd dive was my 100th. Very cool considering I only had 30 dives before May.

~ Jason

Jason, Great Shots of the Wolf Eel. I especially like the "Close Crop" shot. If you come down to dive escapade again pm me and I'll try to get on the trip. You mentioned "water that moves" I'm surprised there was a surge...it looked so calm.

-Chris

 

[darkpup]

Will do Chris. I think the next trip is planned for December, but after this last trip, it may be sooner. There wasn't much of a surge, just a slight current in Carmel.

We're heading up to Tahoe on Sunday. Not as much to see, but it's a 3 hour round trip rather than a 6 hour round trip.

The wolf eel was pretty amazing. It was the first one I'd ever seen in the wild, and I would have missed it completely if others hadn't pointed it out.

~ Jason

 

[Ishie]

We had a great time diving off of the Escapade on Saturday. The first dive was on PTP (Pinnacle of Tremendous Proportions) in Carmel, followed up with a phenomenal dive on ballbuster.

Wow! Great pictures!!! I haven't heard of either of these sites, but they sure look incredible!!!

Ishie

 

[The Kraken]

Come on, Chris. Suck it up, deal with it and be a man about it! You wuss, you . . .

: ) D

 

[darkpup]

Wow! Great pictures!!! I haven't heard of either of these sites, but they sure look incredible!!!

Ishie

This was our first time doing a boat dive (except for a night dive in August), and we were blown away by both sites. The PTP site was absolutely amazing. It was an enormous pinnacle the shape of a molar tooth, and due to its size, we only saw about 15% to 20% of it. It was covered in some type of sea plant that resembled small, seaweed like palm trees about 3' tall. Beneath the plant life was the usual anenomes and critters you're use to seeing in other places. There was an extra perk in that large fish (1' to 3') were hiding in the plant life.

The pinnacle started out at about 45', and went down to 130'. We did a 30 minute dive with 5 minutes of deco with an average depth of 80'. There were large cracks in the pinnacle that made great sand channels to swim through.

Unfortunately it was a bit darker due to the depth, and the built in flash on my camera caused quite a bit of back scatter.

Ballbuster is a smaller pinnacle that starts at 65' to 70', and goes down to a little over 100'. This place was where most of the photos were taken, and there was so much life here that we found ourselves hovering over a 15' section of rock for most of our dive. It wasn't until the end of the dive (about 28 minutes) until we saw the wolf eel. We followed a similar ascent profile, but added an extra minute of deco between 20' and 10'.

My wife was buzzed by a sea lion, and others on the dive saw a 2' x 4' bat ray.

On a side note, you might be interested in the photos we took of the Metridium Fields on 9-26-04. That dive can be murder on single tanks when you're following the pipe out. It always amazes me how far you have to swim to get there. We are usually really close to our turn around pressure by the time we get there, and often change our dive profile to include longer bottom time and a longer surface swim back.

~ Jason