Great idea, Sarah!
On 7/7/2009, I used my remaining vacation day to get a weekday dive in with Don. The whole planning process went something like this:
Me: "Whoa, I don't have to go to work today. Any of you free to dive?"
Don: "I'm free, let's go!!"
An hour later, we were on our way down to Monterey. The bay looked great, and I couldn't tell if the lack of surfers was due to it being a Tuesday or the flat conditions. Monastery beach was totally flat, and as we pulled into Lobos, so was Whaler's Cove. It was one of those days where you could see the hills and sky reflected on the water surface. Sounds like word had gotten out (conditions were great the entire week, apparently) since the parking lot was busier than on some weekends, and by the time we got there, we were team 12 for the day.
Considering the conditions (and the fact that Don had scooters with him), we decided to scoot out of the cove to the 3 Sisters, a site I've never been to before. Surface vis was a bit milky, but when we descending in the sand channel, things cleared up dramatically. Past HITW, we were pushing 40+ft, and could see that there was almost no water movement - particulates, kelp, floaties, all hung in place and looked like they were frozen in time.
Being unfamiliar with the scooters, I relied 100% on Don's navigation, only glancing briefly at the mounted compass as we buzzed along. He got us to the site in short order, and I found us hovering at about 95ft at the top of a beautiful pinnacle, with the sea floor clearly visible 30-40ft below. We stowed the scoots and started kicking circuits, around the first pinnacle, then onto the second, and then the third. There's SO much to see here, and we hit our turn time quickly. After a minute futzing to untangle my tow cord, we were on our way back into the cove.
Somehow, in the 40 minutes between getting into the water and heading back, the shallow viz had opened up quite a bit, and we spent another half hour or so poking around the west side of Middle Reef, an area I should really know a lot better by now. The same sites look dramatically different with calm conditions and great viz! I heard and saw the passing shadow of an inflatable pass directly over us, but we didn't run into any other dive teams. After a good amount of time offgassing, we made our way back to 20ft and ascended just short of the ramp. We packed up slowly, cleaned off the gear, and were back on the road (in reverse traffic the entire way) and in the bay area by 6pm.
It's days like this that make me think hard about maybe working part time
