Weekend Diving Plans 26-27 Feb 10

[Guy Alcala]

Yeah, there was a lot of crap floating around. Couldn't believe my buddy found a crisp white placemat or cloth napkin (not sure which, didn't inspect that well).

Did find an old length of very heavy chain out there, couldn't see an anchor it would have been attached to, all crusted pink and purple, it was pretty, almost couldn't tell it was chain but for the very clear links. Guy, have you ever seen it?

Kristina, there's lots of chain, pipe and anchor blocks out there. When Fofo and I dove it last time we found three long chains (each ~30') running roughly parallel to the beach, spaced at intervals outward from it. I know there's also one that runs perpendicular, and I expect there's lots more. McAbee may have more cannery detritus than any other site, including BW.

I've considered mapping it, but I had someone contact me a while back who'd seen my BW map and wanted to do something similar for McAbee, and I've been leaving the field to them. I haven't heard from them in about a year so don't know if they ever did anything further. If the Navimate comes out more or less on time I may map McAbee using it, although summer isn't the ideal time owing to kelp.

Guy

 

[pacificgal]

Thanks, Guy!

 

[Guy Alcala]

De nada.

Guy

 

[Peter_C]

Friday dive conditions were really nice at BW. Slight current, but no surge.

Saturday vis was good and we had a very slight current and slight surge. Although we did get hit by one big swell during our dive that moved us over at least 10 feet.

Sunday was pretty ugly. The newbie classes had their students putting their fins on and walking sideways into the water. What is that about? I saw many of them go down. Anyhow our dive team got together and called the dive before we ever suited up.

The first and second photos were taken less than a minute apart, so I am sure you can imagine what the surge was like for those diving.

As you can see in this photo the railing is completely underwater.

So the best thing to do on big swell days is go for a hike! :cool2: Since we were in Monterey, Point Lobos was our choice.

 

[Hepcat62]

Sunday was pretty ugly. The newbie classes had their students putting their fins on and walking sideways into the water. What is that about? I saw many of them go down.

Yeah, Sunday was pretty nasty. We let our students walk in, since getting past the waves quickly was key. It was actually the instructor who got hit the hardest, since he was watching the students instead of the ocean. I TRIED to warn him...

It wasn't quite as bad on the other side of the beach since you avoided the little washing machine that gets created by the wall, so we entered there. Once under, nobody who called a dive missed much. It opened up to about 5' of vis around 40fsw, but any shallower than that it was <2' visibility, oftentimes dropping to <6" on the swim in. The surge was pretty stiff, and made the simple navigation exercise a bit more challenging for our students (to say the least).