BAUE Trip Reports

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4/15/2006 Pt Lobos by Dionna House -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Suzanne L (Suz) Baird, Dionna House

Visibility: 30' - 50' Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: 52F - 55F Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 77FSW Avg Depth: 50FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double HP100 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Suzanne and I arrived at Pt Lobos to see flat seas,several newly harbor seal pups, and a good group of BAUE members. After deciding on a dive plan we suited up and got in. We swam out the sand channel to a pretty good guestimate on the end of the middle reef. We located the Beto's infamous navigational rocks with sponge on them. After doing a primary and secondary tie off, we went due North to locate the whale bones. Sure enough after about 120ft, A big whale bone appeared. This was enough to satisfy my adventure, we reeled back and cleaned up the line. We then took a compass heading of 60 degrees to head out to Granite Point Wall to count Nudi's. Lots of Archidoris Montereyensis, Anisodoris nobilis, Diaulula sandiegensis. Like always, that area is just beautiful topography. On the way back coming through the middle reef we were visited by 2 sheepheads, one big male and the other female. Great dive!!

During the surface interval, we had snacks with Mark Lloyd, Anibal, Clinton and John. Of course with this company lots of laughs and enjoyment. Everyone commented on how great it is to be a Pt Lobos. Some of us went up the hill to see the baby harbor seals. Looked like some were swimming for the first time gaining a big appetite to rest and be fed by their mommies.

Second dive was filled with practice and experimenting with a SS bp and different V-weight placement. The good part is I did see a cabezon, and tour other parts of lobos I have not seen. The not so fun is I did alot of flailing and have a some sore back muscles. Next time, the v-weight will be placed lower on the tanks.... All in All a fun day.

3/19/2006 Montana by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava, Devin MacKenzie

Visibility: 10' - 80' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 50F - 48F Surge: 5'

Scooter: Gavin Long Burn Time:

Max Depth: 171FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:45

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

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
We finally got a dive in. All attemps to dive during the last 3 weeks have been frustrated by bad weather. We cancelled the BAUE charter on the 12th, cancelled yesterday�s night dive due to gale force winds, etc, etc�

Today Susan, Devin and I decided to go diving no matter what. We showed up at Point Lobos to find the parking lot full (due to a Flipper Dipper and Carmel Fire Department diving day), and choppy seas with 25 mile winds from the north west. It was a bit cold while we observed the conditions from the trail on top of cannery wall. Although it was quite windy the swells were not as big as predicted. Maybe 6ft swells rolling over Whalers Cove every 10 seconds. We had to go diving and we had to go deep to get away from the swells. We went back and forth discussing whether to go to Twin Peaks or Montana. We finally decided on Montana, to take advantage of the fact that we were diving as a team of three, which gave us more redundancy for the longer dive.

We deployed all the stages and scooters and headed out for our dive. As we approached the end of the middle reef we were surprised by 60ft visibility and really blue water. We could not believe conditions were so good. I could see Susan saying through her regulator "this is amazing vis".

We followed the reefs in a north westerly direction while moving through big schools of rockfish. It was such a pleasure to dive with such a good vis. It was at least 80ft, and we could see all the ridges and pinnacles on the way to Montana. It�s rare to have visibility good enough to enjoy this kind of �topography� dive.

Just before getting to the pinnacle we took our reel out and made a small jump from the main reef to the south wall of Montana. This was to insure that we would get back to the main reef after looping around the structure.

Circling Montana in a clockwise direction we followed Devin through a small canyon which cuts the pinnacle in two. There were all kinds of rockfish in this canyon and we saw huge elephant ear sponges as well as several lingcod patrolling the area. Devin found a group of shrimps in a small crack and signaled to Susan and myself to come and see them. He made a lobster sign and we got really excited about seeing a lobster. Of course it was not a lobster, but we didn�t have the heart to tell that to the shrimps (better to let them think big). Had it been a lobster, I would have woken up somewhere in the Caribbean in a nice warm hammock.

The end of the canyon opens into a very wide plateau which ventures down to a nice sandy area with some billowing sea pens. Devin started working on some barrel rolls which was a good indication that he was enjoying the dive ;-)

After about 20min of playing around on the pinnacle we headed to the south wall, picked up the reel and head back to the main reef.

I think I'm going to ignore the weather reports and swell model from here on out. Based on the weather I should have stayed home doing some homework, but in reality it was an amazing diving day, made all the more special after an involuntary 3 week hiatus.

You never know if you don't go :-)

3/12/2006 Pt Lobos by Clinton Bauder -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Clinton Bauder, John Heimann

Visibility: 8' - 30' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 51F Surge:

Max Depth: 70FSW Avg Depth: 45FSW

Bottom Time: 1:50 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: EAN32,30/30 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks: AL80
Deco Profile:
Our deep diving charter got cancelled due to a sub-optimal weather forecast. John and I still wanted to get wet and fortuitiously John happened to have Lobos Reservations. Point Lobos it was then.

When we arrived it didn't look nearly as bad as the forecast. The launch ramp was sloshing a bit and there were occasional big breakers out in Bluefish Cove but nothing too threatening.

On the swim out at one point I looked down and realized we were swimming directly over the top of the middle reef. This is clear evidence that some big weather has come through as normally you'd be stuck in kelp if you wandered off of the channel. As I watched a couple of harbor seals playing underneath us I realized that what kelp remained wasn't moving much indicating a lack of surge. We dropped down and found it to be quite pleasant even at a depth of only 40 feet. We noodled around for a while before making our way over to Granite Point Wall. The surge was worse over there but still not really a problem. After about 80 mintues we finished off our stages and turned back for home. The visibility and surge didn't become an issue until we were nearly at the launch ramp. Pretty nice diving for a day originally forecast for an 10-13 foot swell.

2/21/2006 Sobranes Wall aboard Unknown Boat by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava, Clinton Bauder

Visibility: 80' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 100FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 1:00 Total Time:

Bottom Gases: 30/30 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
This president weekend ended up being a great diving weekend. The weather report was not the best with cold & rain but we just ignored it, and it ended being pretty good. We had the barge project on Saturday, slept and eat on Sunday, and Monday we joined a small group of people that were going South on the Cypress Sea.
We started heading south and the weather was sunny but cold, with the seas flat and calm. We were able to locate and anchor at Soberanes wall. Most of us haven't been there in several years and we tried two weeks ago on the Escapede but strong current and big swells didn't work in our favor. Yesterday, was pay off day for us :-).
Once we anchored the top side view was so amazing that we almost stayed on the surface.... just kidding... but it's truly an amazing view. The big mountains, the blue ocean.....
As usual Clinton jumped first and this time there was minimal current. You could actually see the kelp resting at the surface, vs laying down on the reef as it was two weeks ago.
We dropped down and Susan found a nice big Wolf eel swimming resting on a ledge. We gathered around the eel, which inspired him to swim freely while Clinton captured him on video. Then we headed south along the floor of a small canyon. You could see Metridims 80-100ft away!!! That's the best visibility I've seen in a while. We found several lincods egg nests and their protector, numerous cowries, and several rock fish and tree fish. Clinton found a very small nudibranch, you almost needed a magnifying glass to see it.
Towards the end of the dive we found the lost anchor from two weeks ago, and rescued it with a bag, actually we had to attach two of them as the chain was pretty heavy.
For the second dive we drove North and anchored at Lobos Rocks. We swam half turn on the west rock. The rock is covered with all kind of life. Green anemonies, hydrocorals, corynactus, etc. We saw some big schools of rock fish.
We found a small section with many dead barnacles. It looked like the perfect apartment complex for small fish. We looked in the holes for grunt sculpins but not luck. We did find another pretty nice sculpin in one of the holes. On the way back we went shallow and hung onto the rocks while watching the surf crash on the wall creating huge, white clouds-- like a washing machine effect. Pretty amazing sight. We saw some big seal lions come in/out of the surf. It was amazing to see the surf exploding on the rock, and all the white water moving around!!!!
After a 10 minutes of this we swam away from the rocks and drifted for a short deco.
All in all one of the best diving days this year.
I'll take 38 degree mornings any time, if the ocean and vis are like that :-)

Video from this dive can be seen here.

2/16/2006 Uncle Phil's Deep Trench aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by John Heimann -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: John Heimann, Phil Sammett

Visibility: 80' - 100' Time: 9:00 AM

Temp: 48F - 48F Surge:

Max Depth: 254FSW Avg Depth: 248FSW

Bottom Time: 0:20 Total Time: 1:40

Bottom Gases: 15/55 Deco Gases: EAN50,O2,35/25

Backgas Config: Double HP120 Deco Tanks: AL40,AL80
Deco Profile:
deep stops 170-130 1,1,1,3, 3, 7,5,5,5,5,27 + up
Took the morning off work and finally got to see the epic vis we thought we would get last Saturday on the BAUE LRR dive. This was my first dive to Uncle Phil's. Initially conditions looked a bit choppy and we thought we might have to look at the mud in the trench off Monastery, but what we got was just the opposite. Vis was truly superb - it had the electric blue shimmering quality of cave water - and there was a lot of natural light at 250. I was very impressed with the diversity of life at this site; it had the elephant ear sponges, gorgonians, diverse rockfish, corynactis, etc. that one typically associates with the 180'ish zone, but also had boot sponges, and a deepwater species (Phil told me the name but I forgot) that is normally found at more like 3000'.

2/12/2006 Granite Pt Wall by Kevin Dow -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Kevin Dow, jonathan Derosier, Nils Brummond

Visibility: 25' - 30' Time: 9:00 AM

Temp: 55F Surge:

Max Depth: 71FSW Avg Depth: 50FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:55

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Nice easy exploration of Granite Pt wall. After several times of going left at Lobos, its nice to go right for a change. We spent some time familarizing ourselves with the terrain. Would jump a reef, and then turn south to explore up the canyonway then back out and jump to the next reef.

We saw some very inpressive sheer walls. It will be interesting to see how the sea life compairs to the west side of Lobos.

1/7/2006 Mt Chamberlin - South Wall aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 20' - 50' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 52F Surge: 10'

Max Depth: 165FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time:

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

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
BAUE chartered the Escapade today for our first trip of the year. We wanted to start the new year with some good diving. However, after reading all the reports about how bad the weather was going to be, and receiving hints that this would probably be a better day to clean the garage or do other labor-intensive activity at home, we didn't set our hopes too high.

We were happily surprised, and were reminded how different diving can be if you're on a big boat, vs diving from shore diving or off of a small boat. With a big boat you can get away from shore and if you go deep you'll aviod most of the swell. As a local captain used to say..... 'during winter .... go deep' ;-)

We left the bay at about 8:30am and ventured past Point Pi~nos. There we some big swells (9-10') but nothing the boat could not handle. We passed at least a half dozen migrating whales along the way, one of which surfaced just behind us in the wake of the boat. We soon arrived at our destination, a nice pinnacle out of Yankee Point on a very large area we call Mt. Chamberlin. There are two peaks on the mountain that come all the way to 100ft. We named them appropiately: K1and K2

We anchored at the top of K2 pinnacle and Captain Jim gave us instructions to head down, swim north-east until we find a very large wall and then follow the wall on a 300 degrees heading for about 25min. We all got our gear on really fast (who wants to be on the surface on a rolling boat?) and started our dive.

Susan and myself descended first, finding the top of the pinnacle at about 100ft. We could not really see the wall yet and since there was no sign of the other dive teams we went out for a little 5min scout trip along a mini-canyon looking for the wall. We found the wall at the opening of the canyon, and returned to the anchor line to meet Clinton and John H, then we all headed towards the wall. There were a tremendous number of gorgonians along the canyon and several decorator crabs hanging on the rocks.

After a 5min swim we reached the East side of the wall and headed on a 300 degree heading for the rest of the dive. This is an impresive wall, going from 120' to 160' on the East side and 190' on the West side. We thoroughly enjoyed the terrain. During our swim we were visited by some very nice Vermillion rockfish, and some enormous lingcods, one of which we called Ling-Kong. These are probably bigger than the ones in BC.

We also saw 3 large tree fish swimming in the open ocean, and a gigantic Wolf Eel that was lying lazily inside a crack.

Once our 30min bottom time had expired we headed up towards the top of the pinnacles, which were surrounded by a huge school of blue rock fish peppered with an occasional sheepshead. We joined the school during our deep stops.

Once we got to 80 feet we encountered 4 nice, healthy mola mola. There were getting cleaned by groups of small sea perches. It was such a delightful experience to swim within feet of the tame molas that some of us almost forgot to switch to 50% at 70'. We all got excellent views of the molas from various (close) perspectives.

What a dive!!!... and the deco was a lot of fun too-- hanging out at the mola-mola cleaning station.

We compared notes with Dionna and MarkL once we were all back at the boat.

Visibility was about 50ft at the bottom and 20ft in the shallow. Water temp was a warm 54 degrees.

On the way back we have found several whales and a big, cooperative pod of Risso dolphins. The Rissos stayed with the boat longer than normal while we looked at the them and cheered all of their water ballet movements.

Here is a link to a animation of the pinnacle.

All in all it was a much better day than staying home and cleaning the garage or scuba room.

A video from the day's diving can be seen here.

12/14/2005 Breakwater by Mark Weitz -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Mark Weitz, Anibal Mata-Sol

Visibility: 15' - 25' Time: 6:41 PM

Temp: 54F - 55F Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 54FSW Avg Depth: 35FSW

Bottom Time: 1:56 Total Time: 1:56

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double HP100 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
We did a night dive at the BW last night. I don�t get an opportunity to do many night dives so it was pretty cool. It was also my first night dive to the Metridiums, and it was quite a treat.

Dropped down on the Metridium side of the beach in about 20� of water and headed towards the pipe. There were baitfish everywhere from the start of the dive till we got near the wall. Within 5 minutes I spotted an octopus then a minute later a large (8�) shrimp. Hit the pipe still at about 20� a few minutes later, and quickly saw another small octo. Headed out the pipe and watched as the shrimp would do a backflip when my light hit them. Hmmm, don�t remember them doing that, but it was cool to watch. Clown Nudibranch on the pipe, and a Sea Hare on top of the pipe at about 35�. A few minutes later we hit a huge school of pipefish. I�m checking them out and sweeping my light around when I spot another octopus with a few tentacles in the air, and watch as it grabs a pipefish. We go over and watch it fight with the two pipefish it has, and as it is being pecked at by other pipefish it slowly subdues the ones in its grasp. Got to the end of the pipe and checked in there, pretty large ling along with a zillion shrimp eyes reflecting red back at me.

Got out to the fields, nothing too unusual there, about 50 / 50 for open and closed. Vis was probably a good 20 � 25�. Saw a fairly large ling in the rocks with a small red shrimp on its body. Not a typical looking cleaner shrimp though.

At 38 minutes we headed towards the wall, saw a few large anemones in the sand in about 50� of water, nothing else too unusual, till my buddy flashed his light at me, there was a pretty large Bat Ray going by, my first one! It took a bit over 35 minutes to get to they wall, and I was making my way a bit S so we hit it at about 30�. We checked it out for a few minutes, then we headed towards the end of the BW, poking along the rocks on the wall. Some nice corynactus, sponges, clown nudibranch, etc.

I finally started to get a bit cold and it was getting late, so I turned the dive. We started making our way back, and the vis really opened up when we got shallow. At about 15� the vis was a very clear 25� and the water was amazing. There were a lot of fish hanging out. The rocks along the wall in the 10 � 20� range are really amazing, with big openings. Way back in between some there were a few very large green anemones. Then, to finish off the dive (I thought) I found a couple of what looked like very small Noumeaella rubrofasciata on some red algae in about 10� of water. A second later my buddy points out an even bigger bat ray in 11�. Totally cool!

Mark

11/23/2005 Mt Chamberlin - South Wall aboard Phil Sammet's RIB by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 2' - 5' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 52F - 52F Surge:

Max Depth: 23FSW Avg Depth: 23FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time:

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

Backgas Config: Double Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Well I think our luck ran out today. Susan and I had booked Phil to go out a dive Mt. Chamberlin. We had it all planned out, SADDDD.....

The moment I hit the water I felt quite a lot of water getting into my suit from my upper back. I got out and re-seated the neck-seal. I tried again and this time there was a lot of water getting in and staying in :-(.

I called the dive at 45s with a max depth of 23ft :-(. Visibility was two feet at the surface, but seem to open up a bit at depth ;-)

Soon after surfacing we found a 3/4 inch hole in the upper back area of my suit, along on of the seams. I'm glad it happened before the dive than during it.

Good diving, but stay dry ;-)

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