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4/11/2010 19SUR aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Jim Capwell

Visibility: 5' - 10' Time: 1:00 PM

Temp: 53F - 53F Surge:

Max Depth: 15FSW Avg Depth: 10FSW

Bottom Time: 1:20 Total Time: 1:20

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
The plans for the weekend were pretty ambitious. We had T1 trip on Saturday and T2 trip on Sunday plan on the Escapade.

We meet at the dock on Saturday morning and drove out to Point Pi~nos. The moment we try to go south we were confronted by a very strong south wing :-(. We decided to save the mix for another day.

Due to Saturday condition and Sunday forecast Captain CAP decide to call Sunday off. It's a dynamic environment after all....

On Saturday we went for breakfast at The breakfast club, then a trip to the sport center for a nice swim, where I shared my lane with a 75yr old gentlemen than was making me work hard to keep up. It was inspiring to swim with him :-)

Sunday afternoon CAP call me to see if I want to test our new Santi undies. We didn't have anybody to drive the boat so we just went under the boat and tested the gear. We saw tons of Hermisendas, a lot of hermit crabs, and two very cool sarcastic fringed-heads on inside the holes of a lead-acid battery. If they live there it might be a great place to get video of them. After a few minutes they didn't mind our lights any more. We found another one just under the boat, but didn't want to interact with us much.

So after all .... we went diving on the Escapade, well under the Escapade ;-)

4/11/2010 Pt Lobos by Kathy Dicker -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Kathy Dicker, Erik Sandvik

Visibility: 3' - 15' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 71FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 2:06 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Erik and I took a chance on Sunday and against the odds, wagered a bet on conditions at Lobos. Wind from the South, swell from the West, low tide and swell model increases towards then late afternoon, a calm report from Sat evening at BW. Perhaps the stars would align---and despite the ominous weather forecast we'd get lucky with a morning dive that would make the 4hr RT drive count.

Placid water at Monastery (and divers gearing up)feeds our mounting excitement. Under gray skies and slight sprinkle, we pull into the Whalers Cove parking lot. Hiking up to the bluff, we brace ourselves against invigorating cold gusts of wind and the sting of little droplets of pelting rain on our faces. From the bluff we notice white caps breaking quite a ways off shore. But--the surface of the cove and beyond is lake still and teaming with marine life. Exciting!
We barely notice the occasional gust of wind that sneaks over the bluff smacking cold rain drops into our kitting up efforts. The feeling that we've successfully cheated the odds and have Lobos entirely to ourselves (except one other team) spurs us on!
Kicking out through the calm water is exceptional. Sea lions, otters and seals are everywhere, playfully following us and not retreating. At one point we pause about 10ft from a gray whiskered otter casually floating on its back. We swim a little closer; he keeps cleaning his whiskers with his little paws and doesn't even seem to notice our presence.
We surface kick out a ways, drop down just past worm patch into 10ft grainy dark vis, then casually kick through the canyons out to Hole in the Wall. The vis opens up to about a grainy 10-15ft but its still quite dark. We head out towards Lone Metridiun. Then the darkness and vis close in. Just before we round the corner to pay respect to the solo Metridium we are greeted by this dark green-brown abyss; a grainy 3-5ft vis. Looking around at the little boulders and clumps of vegetation in the water, at this point I start getting that eerie cemetery feeling and decide it's time to turn back.
Enjoying peaceful calm waters we do a slow kick back down the sand channel to shallower clearer water, pausing for a while on middle reef to enjoy crabs and nudis. At some point a few fish fly by with a harbor seal in hot pursuit of a sashimi lunch.
126 minutes after we descend, we surface to a very cute family of four otters floating on their back in the kelp and a curious harbor seal or two or three and many playful sea lions.
Gusts of wind have increased and the surface has a curious texture but still zero swell. We step out of the water just in time for an exciting parking lot hail storm. Round white hailstones bounce off our hoods and equipment like little ping pong balls. A few brave tourists hike through the lot, but we are the only two divers. The rain/hail does a pretty good job of rinsing our equipment while we eat lunch. By the time the weather abates the lot is empty--we have Lobos entirely to ourselves. We finish the rinse job, pack our soggy gear and head home with big smiles -- knowing that we have indeed cheated the odds ;-).

4/9/2010 Pt Lobos by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Dionna House

Visibility: 10' Time: 11:00 AM

Temp: 50F - 48F Surge: 6'

Max Depth: 151FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:40 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
On Friday I went for a dive with Dionna. We got to Point Lobos to find relative large swells at the cove and vis didn't really look the best. However, I had a repaired drysuit to test so we decided to give it a try.

On the way to Hole on the wall we found a nice school of tube-snouts, and two very friendly harbour seals. They followed all the way to three sisters. Really cute. The came very close and play with us for long time.

We continued on The Road reef towards Twin Peaks. Vis was 10-15 but it was very dark and there was tons of sand in suspension. We saw some nice decorates crabs, a nice tritona festiva and a nice dinora albolineata.

On the way back Dionna let us back to the worm path, and we decided to ascend there and do our deco with better vis.

I was not sure if my suit was still leaking, as the water was very cold. We had 48 for most of the bottom part, and 50 from 70 and up. I think it's fixed. I just got my thermostat at little bit of after Aruba's 80F.

Nice lunch from La Tortuga :-)

3/27/2010 Granite Pt Wall by Dionna House -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Nathalie Udo

Visibility: 30' - 40' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 50F - 51F Surge: 3'

Max Depth: 73FSW Avg Depth: 45FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:33

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
BAUE folks had a get together at Pt Lobos. We were blessed with calm seas... some surge and good visibility. Natalie and I kicked out to Granite Pt Wall. We did the loop around the wall and came back to the cove along the east side of the wall. Saw a big Cabezon and Lingcod. Topography was great. Swam back in on the eastside of the Middle Reef and eventually cut westward to the sand channel and cruised back along the reef next to the park lot until we spotted several downlines with bouys attached. We saw several big blue rockfish in 15ft of water along the parking lot reef. Fun Dive. Good Food. Thanks to Joakim and everyone that showed up.

3/14/2010 Butterfly Outer aboard Escapade by Kenn Hwang -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: August Gugelmann

Visibility: 10' - 18' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 53F - 55F Surge: 8'

Max Depth: 85FSW Avg Depth: 59FSW

Bottom Time: 0:51 Total Time: 0:59

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
It's been several months since we've had good surface condition forecasts, and Sunday looked to continue the down trend. But the ten of us scheduled for the 3/14 Rec Boat on the Escapade decided to cross our fingers and head out anyways, figuring wet was better than not, regardless of predictions.

After motoring down to Carmel, we scrubbed the first site after finding it swamped with a pretty steady current, and retreated to Butterfly House. While the current was gone, the surge was strong, blasting us through, around, over and into the boulders and canyon walls. That, along with limited visibility (~15ft), made navigation a bit of a crapshoot, but we all made our way around and back to the anchor. All in all, it was a great dive and probably well surpassed everyone's expectations!

For the second dive, we all wanted to escape the spin cycle, so we opted to head back into the bay where reports were that the surface was calm and the surge gone. We dove at Aumentos, in slightly greener water and less visibility, but calmer and more relaxing for sure. The teams were able to spread out a bit, and I think we only saw Masao and Vladimir on the whole dive. We pretty much got ourselves lost, but again stumbled across the anchor just as we were about to declare defeat and shoot a bag.

Video up at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASCpdUF6PVU

2/20/2010 Montana by Harry Wong -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Harry Babicka, Harry Wong

Visibility: 20' - 70' Time: 11:00 AM

Temp: 51F - 54F Surge: 1'

Scooter: Gavin Long Burn Time: 1:05

Max Depth: 121FSW Avg Depth: 110FSW

Bottom Time: 1:05 Total Time: 1:52

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Double HP120 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
7,2,2, 3,2, 10,10
This is a dive that I've been wanting to do for awhile. It required the sun, moon and stars to line up, well at least a good combination of equipment, buddies and conditions. This was to be a scootering grand tour of the countryside, so to speak.

The day started out not too promising with swells predicted at around 10 feet with a 15 second swell intervals, but still Harry B and I decided to go down to Lobos and see what we could do. Passing the tall flag at the Seaside hotel showed no wind which was a good sign. Then passing Monastery Beach we could see several divers gearing up to dive Monastery, another good sign. Still, it was a west swell which meant while Monastery is protected, where we wanted to go may not be.

Nice, the view of Whaler's Cove revealed calm conditions as we were driving into the parking lot. Many of the usuals were there, Ted and Adelle (from Wallins) just finishing their dives with big smiles. Adelle did say she slipped on the very mossy ramp but was ok. Suzanne and Natalie, Clinton and John, Karl and Cynthia were all gearing up to go in as we arrived. Such a fun and social cadre of people. :-)

Our plan was to do the The Grand Tour and it definitely looked like a possibility today. Entering the water we had about 20 feet of viz in the cove, after doing our checks we headed out on the surface scootering in the Sand Channel until we got to Worm Patch where we descended to about 30 feet of water. Then we continued scootering to Granite Wall where the viz was still about 20 feet, maybe a bit more.

There was no surge and the water seemed calm so we continued going north and north-east around the structures of Granite Point Pinnacles. It never ceases to amaze me, the plethora of pinnacles, nook and crannies here. Staying NE at about 30 degrees at 70 to 80 feet we easily got into the Moss Cove Sand Channel, easily identified by the smaller "Monster Berry" sand. Visibility opened up to a good 30 feet.

We then traversed over other various pinnacles to arrive at Mono Lobo Wall. It's nice to see the different color lichens, moss and sponges in this area, definitely gives a different feel than any other place at Point Lobos, taking on a yellow coloration. Visibility was still about 30 feet here, still more than adequate for navigation.

Heading west we get to the northern face of Thumbs Up and sightsee for a moment or so. I stop to video a school of rockfish. I love the schools as they don't seem to mind if I'm close or in the middle of them. They must know I'm there just to shoot video and nothing else.

We get to Wall Street, first coined by Gary, marked by bountiful color and invertebrate life and fingering outcroppings of structure. Kind of like a flower garden actually. We hang out there for a bit where I took some video. Visibility started getting better at around 40 feet...a good sign and no surge. With a predicted 15 second wave interval I still expected to see a stirred up bottom an surge here, but it was calm.

Conditions were looking pretty good, the question was, could we go west from Wall Street and hit Montana? Traversing a bit south-west, we got to the structures before Montana. There was plenty of light, even at 100 feet and I could just maybe see a shadow of Montana, but maybe it was just a mirage. So here we were at about 110 feet and I could clearly see the bottom which was at 130 or 140 feet. This allowed us to stay shallow, avoiding an extended deco.

We ventured west, over open water and the mirage got darker and the huge shadow transformed into the top of the beautiful pinnacle we call Montana. The viz had opened up to over 60 feet! A quick hi-five and fly-by of the upper part of the pinnacle at around 120 feet and we were off in a south-east direction back to Granite Wall.

So all in all what started as a so-so day for this dive turned out quite well. All of the previous scheduled stops and depths and timing had to be on schedule for us to get out to Montana to keep our deco demand reasonable.

The sun, moon and stars did line up and we were pretty pleased. ;-)

Scooter trigger time: about 65 minutes
Dive Time: 112 minutes
Max depth 121 feet
Temp: 51 - 54 degrees F
Visibility: 20' to 70'
Round trip distance 6,100 feet
Gasses: Tx 21/35 50% and 100%
Deco: 7,2,2, 3,2, 10,10

2/19/2010 Cypress Canyon aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Joseph (Karl) Haywood

Visibility: 40' Time: 12:16 PM

Temp: 55F Surge:

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time:

Max Depth: 196FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:40 Total Time: 1:38

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Double HP100 Deco Tanks: AL40,AL80
Deco Profile:
6 and 4's
20 and up
Today was one of those days that you just don't expect to happen. It was a "plan D" type of day. Earlier in the week Karl and I had made plans to dive out at CRB. Due to a bunch of things that just didn't end up in the cards. Plan B was to dive at Monestary but that just seemed like to much work, so we settled on plan C: a nice dive at Lobos.

As we were busy getting gear together, Phil Sammett comes motoring back into the cove after diving with Ken. As a joke we shout out to him, "Hey Phil now that you are back you want to take us out?"

When Phil thought about it for a moment and shouted back, "Sure!" plan D was formed.

After a quick load of the tanks into the boat and relaunched we put-putted out to Cypress Canyon. The surfaces was flat but you could tell that soon it would be changing as the wind was gradually picking up.

We dropped down the anchor line in about 90 feet of water and quickly scooted north east to deeper water to find the Cypress Canyon wall. First thing we noticed beyond the nice blue water was a very large school of rockfish just hanging out along the reef's wall. We continued to the east stopping occasionally to ooh and ah at the various critters we saw when that was when we saw it....Crab-zilla

The biggest sheepshead crab that I have every seen. This thing was so big that he blew through large. Passed by huge without even slowing down. Only word that comes to mind is gynormous! Clearly the king of the reef. He was gripping an elephant ear sponge in one of his massive pincers that I would easily be able to fit my hand between.

After admiring him for a bit we continued on past another pair of rock crabs (also quite large) that appeared to be kissing! The bigger one had his claws around the smaller and they were face to face.

On the way back we meet up with the school of rockfish again and spend our shallower time scooting back and forth along the wall before finally leaving it at 70' when we shot our bag.

Deco was mostly Jellyfish free with only a couple visiting us at the 20' stop.

We surfaced to see the wind had picked up with a bit of whitecaping so we quickly loaded gear back on board and headed for the cove.

2/19/2010 Pt Lobos by Dionna House -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Andrew Denevi, Dionna House

Visibility: 30' - 40' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 51F - 53F Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 100FSW Avg Depth: 65FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:12

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP95 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
I had the day off of school and was able to Andrew Denevi to join me for a dive at Pt Lobos. We both just wanted to get in a blow some bubbles. We arrived at Lobos, the sea was flat with some light winds. We suited up for the dive and kicked out the sand channel. We descended just past the worm patch and immediately saw a huge sheephead. While kicking out to Hole in the Wall, we also saw a big cabezon. We kicked out to the Lone Metridium and out to the Shallow Sister, some where around 80ft. We headed northeast to Beto's Reef to visit the Wolf Eel, then back in passing Sea Mount. We kicked into the cove and meandered in on the east and west sides of the sand channel. Vis was about 40ft(milky). Great Dive and Great Fun.

2/11/2010 Pt Lobos by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Joakim Linde, Alberto Nava

Visibility: Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: 130FSW Avg Depth: 110FSW

Bottom Time: 0:45 Total Time: 1:30

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Joakim and I went for a dive yesterday hoping to get some good conditions before the forecast swell arrives. We jumped in the water to find very blue and clear water near the boat ramp.

Our objective was to have a nice relax dive and look for the wolf eel at Beto's Reef. We scootered th Hole-in-the-wall, sea mount and finally Beto's reef.

There were several very large lingcods and several large packs of their eegs, plus the usual
nudibranches at the bottom. We saw a very large
tritona festiva climbing on a gorgonia. There was a large school of rock-fish on top of the reef.

Torwads the end of the dive we locate the Wolf Eel near the top of the reef. Somebody said that the Wold Eel is called Beto and that's why the reef is called Beto's reef. Probably right...

After about 45min bottom time we switch to our deco bottle and spend another 40min going around some of the shallow structures on the west side of Whalers cove. Visibility was so great that we looped several of the reefs and looked for anchor points for the May mapping project.

We looked for the resident sail-fin Sculpin but it was not at it useful location :-(.

On the way back to the ramp we found a nice swells shark, and we spend good 5-8 minutes looking at it.

All in all a great day of diving :-)

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