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4/28/2008 E3 aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Kevin Dow, Allison Lee, Robert Lee

Visibility: 20' - 40' Time: 10:21 AM

Temp: 50F Surge: 1'

Max Depth: 154FSW Avg Depth: 86FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double HP100 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
4,4,1,1,2,8,5
Team Kitty invited David out with us for the dive. This was his last dive before he leaves for 4 months. The conditions weren't too bad, but it was mostly wind driven waves. Phil didn't recommend going around the point as he felt the conditions would build throughout the day, so we decided on going to E3 and insisting that Phil take us there this time. :)

Conditions shallow were somewhat like what we saw at the Breakwater the previous day. Lots of particulate in the water shallow, but still decent enough viz. Deeper the particulates cleared out to a respectable 30'-40' viz. Several people said it their gauges were reading 46 or so, but I sure didn't feel cold the whole dive. At the start at the dive, we saw an absolutely huge 'dorid' type nudibranch. It had to have been at least a 10" long. Toward the end of the dive, I found two larger Albus' mating. David got some really nice footage of this with his camera. Deco was uneventful, but a bit boring. We ended up doing 130' for 35 minutes w/ 25 minutes of deco.

At the 10 foot stop we could really feel the waves pushing us about and the surface had gotten a quite a bit more sporty. We ditched our gear and got out of there. Lunch was at Siamese Bay.

Pictures here .

4/27/2008 Butterfly House by Matt Vieta -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Matt Vieta, Nils Brummond

Visibility: 5' - 20' Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: 48F Surge:

Max Depth: 38FSW Avg Depth: 23FSW

Bottom Time: 1:00 Total Time: 1:00

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
min deco
Sunday was unbelievably calm. Neither Nils nor myself had been to Butterfly house so we thought it would be a perfect day to check it out.

I'd heard that approach wasn't all that much fun. The reality wasn't all that bad, even though the next day my legs were a little sore from hauling doubles up and down the rocky path.

The plan was to drop at the the end the small rocky point and to follow a 210 heading to deeper water.

The entry is through a small, shallow cove with lots of kelp and rocks. We dropped in about 5' of water to go under some of the kelp and to better watch for rocks. Once we were under we made our way out of the cove and hit an interesting, relatively shallow wall where we spent quite a bit of time poking around for slugs. I found a Triopha catalinae just floating mid-water. Nils spotted a nice Okenia rosacea, and I found another on an egg mass shortly thereafter.

It was a pretty cool dive. I'd like to go back and try to explore the deeper areas.

4/13/2008 Pt Lobos by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 10' - 40' Time: 11:00 AM

Temp: 46F - 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 180FSW Avg Depth:

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

Bottom Gases: Deco Gases: 50/25,O2

Backgas Config: Double HP120 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Sue and I had a Fundies class reschedule for the weekend so we decided to do get some Lobos diving done. We had a fish survey/research goal for the dive so we headed to Twin Peak and checked on the 2 Juv Yellow Eye rockfisht that live at the peaks. To our surprise there was a 3rd one in the crack now :-). It's cute... just like 1 inch long.

On the way back we set some survey lines and actually surveyed them on the second dive with the help of Dionna, Mark and HarryB.

It's was pretty cold but it was a lot of fun!

4/12/2008 Pt Lobos by Matt Vieta -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Matt Vieta, Ben Villao, Don Chennavasin

Visibility: 20' - 40' Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: 48F Surge:

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time:

Max Depth: 75FSW Avg Depth: 45FSW

Bottom Time: 1:27 Total Time: 1:27

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Min deco
Great Vis! I'd been wanting to improve my mental map of Lobos. Scooters were a great tool to tie together many of the places I've been to as isolated dives, but hadn't placed in relation to eachother. I have a much better feel for the area now!

From the ramp we headed to the hole in the wall for a quick look. From there I attempted a round trip to the lone metridium and back. We deviated a little into the area behind the hole in the wall on the way back and had to back track before finding our way.

Next we jumped E. across the sand channel to Middle Reef, and followed it to the overhang near the end. The plan from this point was to head over to granite point wall. I wanted to find a patch of hydrocoral that Allison showed me last weekend in the granite point area.

We jumped 60 degrees from the overhang at middle reef to granite point wall. Followed the wall left 'til it turned a corner. From there we jumped north across a sand gap to a 2nd wall, and followed it left to the hydrocoral patch! I was very excited to have found it - it is a very pretty corner covered with hydrocoral/anemonies.

By this time I was starting to get cold. We backtracked to middle reef with a slight detour to the left side of the overhang. We stopped for a second to visit the war bonnet.

We cut across to HITW for fun on the way home and ran into Allison, Rob and Jonathan. Some kelp antics ensued.

Great fun!

4/11/2008 Montana by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Harry Wong, Jonathan Derosier

Visibility: 50' - 50' Time: 11:02 AM

Temp: 48F - 48F Surge: 1'

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time: 0:50

Max Depth: 147FSW Avg Depth: 74FSW

Bottom Time: 0:45 Total Time: 1:28

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double AL80,HP100 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
4,4,2,2,3
It was an incredibly beautiful day topside. After staging bottles in the water, we dropped right at the ramp and scooted on out. Within what just seemed a short amount of time we had passed Crossroads and were on Montana. We ended up checking out the north western side and exploring a couple of cracks that run through the face of the reef and looking at the gently waving gorgonians on the face of the reef.

Saw some really nice spanish shawls around 140' of depth. All of a sudden they seem to be everywhere.

4/1/2008 Flintstones aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava, Dionna House

Visibility: 40' Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: 46F Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 190FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:30 Total Time: 1:20

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: 50/25,O2

Backgas Config: Double HP120 Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
Dionna, Susan and I went diving at Flintstone today. The ocean was like a lake with weak S winds. We headed for Flinstone and had a great time diving the pinnacle. We saw many gorgonias gardens, a lot of rock fish, one touchina very large 10inches long, and a very nice cabezon at the top of the reef.

Vis was 40ft at the bottom 15 in the shallow with a cold 44-48degrees water :-0, which felt like 40F after a week of diving in Mexico. For that reason we cut it short at 30min vs 40min that was the plan.

Diving Flintstone is the right way to get back to local diving :-).

3/22/2008 Hopkin's Deep Reef aboard Unknown Boat by Mark Lloyd -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Harry Babicka, Mark Lloyd

Visibility: 5' - 20' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: Surge:

Max Depth: 82FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
1's up
We anchored at Deep Hopkins and started preparing our gear when Jim from the Escapade motored by asking how the vis was. He was bringing in a group that had already had one dive and was planning another in the bay. We had only heard that the vis was about 10' so we past that on. After putting all our deco bottles in the water we geared up, dropped over the side, and clipped the 3 bottles on. Vis at the surface was pretty poor and green. No real current to speak of and the waves/surge was light. We dropped into the darkness with Harry leading. After we tied the reel onto the anchor we set off for a 15min out and 15min in dive. While swimming around I spotted a couple of big Triopha catalinae, 1 Acanthodoris hudsoni but the yellow spots were much bigger than what I have seen before, and a few yellow dorids. Vis on the bottom opened out to about 20' so we were happy. The temp definitely dropped however, it was about 48f and you could feel it getting colder as you decended. Harry almost used all his line going out the 15mins. We turned the dive at the 1/2 way point and we switched from our 32 stages when we reached 1500psi. On back gas we made our way back to the anchor, detached the line, and prepared to ascend. Since the bottom was around 78' we did our switch to the 70' bottle at 60' and rotated the 32% stage back and brought up the O2. At 30' we switched back to back gas and at 20' to O2 then made our way up. The anchor line was definitely difficult to see at 20' but the BBQ sandwiches were calling my name so we quickly made our way up, relaxed for a bit on the boat then hauled ourselves back for lunch. Fun fun fun !!!

2/29/2008 Montana by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Kevin Dow, Jonathan Derosier

Visibility: 20' - 30' Time: 10:51 AM

Temp: 52F - 52F Surge: 3'

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time:

Max Depth: 151FSW Avg Depth: 78FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Single,Double AL80,HP100 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
4,4,2,2,3
8, 6up
Jonathan and I planned to head on out to somewhere interesting and see what we could see. After several weekends where big waves were the norm we were relieved to see that things were settling down. While still a bit higher than summer goodness, with the waves coming out of the west, it wasn't going to be too bad getting down the ramp. That is until we found we had to negotiate it at low tide. :(

Kevin apparently liked going down the ramp so much he decided to do it twice to fix a bit of vital kit that he had forgotten to connect up. (ODV)

Anyways after our gear checks were completed we looked down to see that the viz wasn't too bad and decided to drop right at the ramp. Our path took us out past middle reef and then a jump over to Granite Point Wall and skirting the edge of the rocks until we reached our destination.

After waving hello to our greeting party of rockfish, we clipped off and swam around the reef on the western side. Quite a bit of life was on the reef and I ended up seeing several different types of nudibranchs among the Gorgonians. At one point we were shadowed by a large Ling cod who apparently wasn't too happy with divers invading his turf. Several times he would pick a rock in front of us and strike a pose for us. Viz at the site was a decent 30 feet.

On the way back in we picked up a third buddy when a sea lion decided to dive bomb us right before our first deco stop. The Sea lion liked what she saw as she reappeard to keep us company for our 20' stop later in the deco.

2/20/2008 Mount Chamberlin aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 20' - 30' Time: 11:00 AM

Temp: 49F - 50F Surge: 6'

Max Depth: 190FSW Avg Depth:

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

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: 50/25,O2

Backgas Config: Double HP120 Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
5s,20
Susan and I went diving today on board the Escapade :-).

Our weekends have been pretty busy with teaching so we decided to create a new diving style. It's called 'Weds with Jim and Ed'. The idea is to take some Weds off and go do some fun diving on the Escapade. Today was the pilot program day.

We woke up before the 6:30 alarm due to some very heavy rain splattering on our window. It looked like the Gods didn't want to cooperate with our diving adventure. Nonetheless we decided to get breakfast, feed Naia (our dog) and head for Monterey.

The drive down was slow with heavy rain and a lot of traffic. I kept telling Susan that the clouds and rain were going to disappear any time soon, but was starting to question the decision to dive today myself. The rain fell harder as we continued to drive south.

The moment we drove into the wharf parking lot, the rain stopped and the sky started to open :-). We met with Jim and Ed whom had gotten pretty wet while running from their car to the boat, where all their water proof gear was stored. Without saying much about the improving weather (so as not to jinx it) we headed out to sea.

The usual conversation about where to go started. Jim Capwell said he didn't bother to look for a good dive site as Susan will most likely tell him where to go anyway. We offered that due to the weather we could try to stay in the Bay, but captain's orders were to head out to sea and see what we get. Although his heart was set on diving in the bay, Beto relented and we drove south.

Half way to Point Pi~nos the sky was pretty blue and the swells were only 6 to 7ft so we headed onward to Carmel. The swells were breaking pretty good on shore so we decided to do something in the Outer Yankee Point area away from the breakers.

We settled on Mt. Chamberlain which is a huge structure with a 800ft long east-west wall. We didn't have our scooters with us so we picked a nice shallow spot to put the downline, at about 135ft. We watched the buoy for several minutes and it didn't look like we had any noticeable current. We got all our gear ready and jumped in near the float.

The moment we hit the water we noticed a deceivingly strong current from the South so we starting kicking towards the float and descended while doing a quick check at 20ft. We had to kick quite a lot to stay within visual range of the line, and we really never got to it but it were close enough to use it as target for our descent. At about 110ft we stopped trying to stay on the line and headed for the bottom.

We reached the bottom at about 140ft on the north end of a sand channel that cut the wall perpendicularly. We located the side of the canyon and headed South. The terrain was amazing. There were gorgonians everywhere; it looks like weed fields but full of red little animals. It was a bit dark due to some brown water near the surface but we had a good 20-30ft vis. We slowly moved against the current as we swam in and out of small cracks and arches on the sides of the canyon.

We located a 4 inche juvenile yellow eye rock fish, and we covered our light and were able to get very close to it and had a nice look with the ambient light. The moment we moved one of our lights close, it swam away and hid in a small crack.

After 15min we finally made it to the main east-west wall. We leveled-off at about 190ft and enjoyed the view for several minutes. The wall goes from 120ft down to 220ft and it's a massive structure. We saw a very large china rockfish and very nice vermillion that were swimming around us, as well as a resident ling cod.

After a very short 20min we headed back inside the wall using a parallel canyon and it was a lot of fun to ascend up the narrow crack from 190 to about 150ft. Once we settled at that depth we went for a short drift dive. We saw a rock crab in a crack, plenty of decorator crabs, and a white umbrella crab on a ridge.

The current at 190 was not very strong so we were able to swim out, but as we swam shallower it was much stronger so we just relaxed and enjoyed the drift towards the center of the canyon. We found the lingcod again and some very nice nudibranchs as we moved north. Everything was covered with corynactus and elephant ear sponges :-). What a beautiful area.

As we drifted with the current I remembered there is a shallow spot (80ft) about 300ft away from the wall and for a moment we let the current take us north hoping to see the peak. As we moved north there was a squirrely current coming from opposite directions which we didn't like, so we headed back to the area where we dropped the down-line and looked for a 130ft peak there. After another 20min in the area we headed for the shallow spot and deployed our bag to let the boat know we were about to start drifting with the current.

The decompression was uneventful until we got to about 30ft. At that depth there were tons of moon jellies swimming around. We looked at them for a while, and then noticed a few broken pearl strands of tiny bubbles floating up from depth. Hmmmm. Where could those tiny bubbles have come from? When we finally surfaced to say hello to Capt Jim and his crew, we asked if by chance a whale might have swam under us during our deco hang. Sure enough, a whale had been swimming in our 'line' of drift... and although we didn't see it, we saw evidence of a gray whale friend!

At the surface we found great conditions, sunny sky and moderate swell. We got back on the boat, removed our gear and went whale watching for a couple of hours. There were rumors of a big pod of dolphin somewhere near Point Joe but we were not able to find them. Better luck next time!

All in all it was a grand day out and a perfect way to break up the week.

Here are some sonar images

We're looking forward to more Weds with Jim and Ed :-)

2/8/2008 Montana aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 40' - 60' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 50F - 50F Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 172FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:20

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases: 50/25,O2

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
We had grantious plan of going to remote locations but the weather gods provides us with a different plan. Defiant the gods we still headed out of the bay and venture towards the Yankee Point but half way there we realized it was not going to happen. We check the NW side of Point Lobos looking for some protection from the swells, and after a while we decided to dive Montana pinnacle outsite of Whaler's Cove. Here the weather finally looked like we will be able to get wet.

Montana is a popular site for cooter divers departing from Whalers cove.However, diving it from a boat allows for more time at the site than travelling on the scooters.

Visibility was very good, at least 50ft, which allows us to get view of
the pinnacle. Sue, Karl and myself descended and head to the NW side of the pinnacle. We visited the sand interphase where we found good colonies of sea pens and some big lincond on the sand. Susan also found a couple of brittle start atached to some gorgonias.

We scooters from the N side to the South while travelling on the E wall at two different level. We stopped to check the cracks where we once saw
a large GPO but we didn't have much luck.

We saw several large lingcods hanging on the East wall, and swell as many decorate crabs.

After about 20min on the deeper part of the pinnacle we headed up shallowe and torwards the norh peak. In that area we found a pair of large dinora albolineat and Clinton point a Bocachio to us.

After about 40min on the site we deployed our SMB and drifted our
deco while looking at jellies and their parasites.

Another grand day out :-)

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