Video of SCUBA diving in Monterey

Last weekend Scott and I went for a couple of dives in Monterey (where else!). We left really early in the morning in order to dive Lover's Cove, which has an 11 am cutoff time for divers. We entered the water at beach #3, intending to swim around the big rock outcropping to beach #2. The conditions were better than great - 40 foot vis and no swell - however, a couple of fishermen perched up on the rock deterred us from swimming around it. Don't want to become ensnared in fishing line or get hooked!

I had disconcerting issue with my BC the first dive - it didn't inflate fully and I was having to work pretty hard to stay on the surface. It was difficult to keep my head above water and think of what the problem could be at the same time. It was the first time I've been seriously tempted to ditch my weights. Turns out manually inflating the BC the rest of the way did the trick.

For our second dive we took it easy and just did the Breakwater wall. I brought my camera along and shot some short movies. When I got home I started pasting the footage together in iMovie and had so much fun I decided to compose some music for it too using the GarageBand software! Pretty basic techno, but I like the way it turned out. Enjoy!

Movie of Sunken Sailboat Dive

There were some recent reports of good visibility in Monterey, so we decided to go diving. Our friends Jesse and Matt, who are a bit new to the northern California diving environment, accompanied us. I was very much hoping for good conditions this trip. The last time we took our friends diving in Monterey, so many things went awry that I was afraid they would never return with us. The visibility was especially bad last time. There was so much finely shredded red kelp/minestrone in the water, you could barely make out objects a few feet away! We had to swim with one hand clutching our buddy and the other hand outstretched. The free hand would cushion the impact of rock walls that would suddenly appear out of the murk as the surge yanked us forward. While there wasn't much to see, it was kind of thrilling.

Luckily we didn't have to do a "braille dive" this time. The conditions were excellent - 20 foot vis, calm flat waters. We did a dive at MacAbee beach where we saw lots of the usual invertebrates. A huge sun star was bookin' it across the bottom (picture below). I also saw a large-ish decorator crab miraculously fall from the sky. The only explanation we could think of to explain this was perhaps the crab had climbed a stalk of kelp and let go at the top.

We went to nearby Del Monte beach for dive #2. The only reason to dive Del Monte (it's pretty much all bland sandy bottom) is a 45 foot sunken sailboat about a half mile out from the beach. We would have missed it had the visibility not been so good. As we were swimming along what can only be described as a minimalist moonscape of sand and the occasional beer bottle, a large shadow caught our eye off to our left. See the short video Scott put together of our swim around this small wreck... and it's scary secret... >:)

SCUBA Dive off Cannery Row

We went diving this weekend in Monterey. First dive was off the pumphouse at Breakwater to try and find Metridiums, which are giant white anemones. There is a field of them off of an underwater pipe that runs north from an old pumphouse. We didn't have enough air to reach the Metridium field, but we found an isolated patch of them. Second dive was off a small beach by the Aenas hotel. We drifted farther east than we intended, and found another set of kelp-encrusted pipes. On both dives we had a close encounter with a harbor seal! The first seal swam up to Scott and nosed his fin in curiosity. The second seal kept his distance and tried following us from behind a rock. We caught the second guy on camera briefly. See the short video Scott made on YouTube:

Watch the YouTube clip

The water was murky (15 - 20 ft vis), but that's par for the course in Monterey.