BAUE Trip Reports

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Diver

10/29/2003 Pt Lobos by Nick Radov -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Nick Radov, RJ Myers

Visibility: 15' - 25' Time: 9:30 AM

Temp: 53F Surge: 1'

Max Depth: 76FSW Avg Depth: 65FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:33

Bottom Gases: Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single LP95,AL80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
RJ was passing through the Monterey area on his way to San Diego so I offered to take him out on a couple shore dives. The surface conditions were totally flat and the kelp is much thinner than a few weeks ago. We swam out to Cannery Point Wall and dropped down where it's about 50ft deep. Followed the wall along the bottom out towards the northwest, then moved up to a shallower level and followed the wall back. It was a good nudibranch dive, spotted two Tritonia festiva, more Dialula sandiegensis than I could count, and the usual sea lemons and Archidoris odhneri. Also noticed a pair of spot prawns hidden back in a crack. Not too much fish life other than some surf perch, a few copper rockfish, and a single painted greenling. A harbor seal joined up midway through the dive and hung with us all the way back. By the time we were getting out the wind and swells were already picking up significantly.

10/25/2003 Local's Ledge aboard Escapade by Nick Radov -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Gary Banta, Nick Radov

Visibility: 30' - 40' Time: 9:30 AM

Temp: 51F Surge: 6'

Max Depth: 106FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:54

Bottom Gases: 30/30 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP104 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
This was a charter that Delia put together mostly for BAUE members and friends. The boat anchored right over the shallowest part of the reef. We followed the line down the side of the wall towards the west until we hit the sand at about 100ft. Then we swam slowly south along the bottom edge of the wall trying to get a good look at everything there. Saw the usual nudibranchs and crabs, plus Gary spotted an unusually colorful little sculpin that I can't identify. Turned around at about 17 minutes and headed back about 10ft shallower. Usually I'm a horrible navigator but at this site it's easy to just go up and find the line again. The shallower wall actually had a lot denser life than the deeper part but the surge was pretty wild. Right near the top of the rock at about it would throw us about 5ft to one side, then up 3ft, then 5ft back the other way, then 3ft down again: a real spin cycle!

10/16/2003 Breakwater by David Macheel -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Peter Gelbman, David Macheel

Visibility: 10' - 15' Time: 6:24 PM

Temp: 54F Surge: 5'

Max Depth: 45FSW Avg Depth: 40FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:21

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Peter Gelbman and myself headed down to the good old breakwater for a P.M. dive. I could see as I loaded my gear into his car, I'm diving with the big boys now, as his truck was packed with doubles and stage bottles!Breakwater looked kinda surgy, but the water didnt look too stirred up so in we went.After quick S-drills, we headed out.There was a navy cruiser anchored out in the bay, and as we swam along we both heard a dull THUD in the water. We heard several more, and the farther we swam out the louder they became.At one point, just before we turned, there was a loud bang, and you could feel a pressure wave move through the water.Really weird.Rest of the dive was uneventful, except for the harbor seal who decided Jet fins were fun to chew on.. :')

10/12/2003 Ballbuster aboard Escapade by Peter Gelbman -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Clinton Bauder, Ian Puleston, Peter Gelbman

Visibility: 5' - 40' Time: 1:02 PM

Temp: 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 106FSW Avg Depth: 85FSW

Bottom Time: 0:33 Total Time: 0:47

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double LP104 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
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Awesome dive! My first time here also and can't believe there is a site this cool right here in the bay. Vis was much better, water nicer blue color. Clinton had enough of our wasting his time with our line shananigans - he was looking for some video so Ian and I were just along for the ride. Beautiful colors, lots of Metridiums although most were not in full "bloom" today. Ian and Clinton spotted a small wolf eel but I missed that. Ian performed a snorkel recovery. Wind and swell were kicking up pretty good just as we got out of the water - we had a small window for diving today, got lucky and hit it just right. Lovely day diving - once again proof that weather reports and wave models are only a small piece of the pie.

10/12/2003 Mile Buoy aboard Escapade by Peter Gelbman -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Clinton Bauder, Ian Puleston, Peter Gelbman

Visibility: 5' - 30' Time: 10:38 AM

Temp: 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 147FSW Avg Depth: 140FSW

Bottom Time: 0:20 Total Time: 0:58

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Double LP104 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
deep stops
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Jim & Eric kind enough defy the weather reports with us and head out to see if Carmel was diveable today. Gave it a quick look but swell was already 8-10 and predicted to get bigger early afternoon and fog was setting in so we turned it around and headed for Mile Buoy. I've never dived here and was somewhat skeptical but Clinton had assured us that it was a cool site and he was right as usual. Dropped through chuncky green 30' layer, following the anchor line straight down to 130' or so. At the bottom vis was surprisingly good and water was still. Ian and wanted some reel practice to he tied in near the anchor line, disturbing an touchy link cod. Pleasantly surprised at how nice the dive is, there's a ton of life here - farms of dense Metridiums and seemed like every fish we saw was pretty big. Sealions dive bombing us almost the whole time. Kept it short hoping to save enough backgas for another deep dive. Sealions stayed with us the whole deco. At 70' gas switch we noticed a Harbour seal mingling with the sea lions - thought we were seeing things but we all confirmed it once we got out. Three man team deco on the anchor line in low vis is a challenge to stay in good formation and keep an eye on each other - need some work there. Clinton is a good reference ;-) Spent most of our time dodging egg yoke jellies, Ian got a minor sting on his face.

10/11/2003 Pt Lobos by Peter Gelbman -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Nick Radov, Peter Gelbman

Visibility: 5' - 20' Time: 2:17 PM

Temp: 50F Surge: 10'

Max Depth: 69FSW Avg Depth: 38FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:10

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single,Double LP95,LP104 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Will/Kevin on singles, Nick and I polishing off our doubles. Decided to play in the caves but east side of the cove turned out to be way too surgy and Kevin turned us back NW and we ended up just messing around in the kelp areas of the NE corner of the cove off Granite Point Wall. Nothing too exciting except a huge male Sheephead on the way back in.

10/11/2003 Pt Lobos by Peter Gelbman -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Nick Radov, Peter Gelbman

Visibility: 5' - 25' Time: 10:51 AM

Temp: 50F Surge: 10'

Max Depth: 103FSW Avg Depth: 54FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 1:32

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP104,AL80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Another Lobos day with plenty of BAUE folks. Dove as 3 two-man teams, Pete/Nick, Will/Kevin, Anibal/Mark. Plus Dionna & Suzanne were on singles also. Cove was very brown and surgy. We surface swam to the mouth, dropped and went left out along Cannery Point Wall. Pretty surgy but at 70' and more the vis opened up to 25-30' and things settled down. Usual suspects, nice long relaxing dive. Plenty of sealion action, one pesky guy was nibbling on Nick and my fins for a while during deco.

10/5/2003 Pt Lobos by Mark Lanett -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Mark Lanett, Dionna House, Suzanne B.

Visibility: 20' - 35' Time: 11:00 AM

Temp: 52F - 54F Surge: 5'

Max Depth: 50FSW Avg Depth: 40FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time:

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single,Double LP80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
It's all fun and games until... Ok, nobody was hurt, but it was a dive to abort.

After dropping and doing some drills, we headed out for Granite Point. Almost immediately we spotted a harbor seal, and it came by a few times, so we slowed to catch more sights of it. It started coming closer and started playing with my fins. In fact it came closer than that, nosing up to my camera and basically getting *so* close that I was thinking "this is a BIG dangerous animal" and started re-orienting myself to keep it at my fins but no closer. But of course the harbor seal is far more mobile than we are so it came as close as it wanted, definitely within my comfort zone. But it was not, as yet, being dangerous.

The harbor seal stayed with us for about all of our bottom time. After turnaround I was further away from the rocks so it checked out Suzanne. It was interested in more than fins, and it was nosing or mouthing everything. Exhaust valve, gloves, then it started biting - biting softly, but biting. It bit her on the arm, checked out the back of her head (but did not bite), bit her hoses, her wings. It did a lot of chewing on her wings, such that I was sure it would puncture them. It also pawed (flippered?) at her tank a lot. It did this to me once and hey, those flippers may be stubby but they are still the arms of a big animal - it can bat you around. I pulled out my backup light and used it as a stick to keep the harbor seal at bay. I didn't threaten it, just made sure that the only thing its mouth got was backup light (and my hand-mounted primary light). Let it bite things that are replaceable.

By this time I was of course signalling *abort*, and we were getting out of there, but... however poor the visibility got, the harbor seal found us every time.

Once in the cove and off the bottom, the harbor seal left us. On land we determined that everyone and gear was Ok; Suzanne's bite was visible but didn't seem to be bruising.

The harbor seal was checking out *everybody* at Lobos. Every group came back in talking about that friendly "seal". It was interesting to note that the less-experienced people coming out of the water described it as really friendly and fun; the more experienced ones called it agressive and something to avoid. My own feeling is that it was just *very* curious, but that with a large wild animal, too much curiosity is a bad thing. It is far more powerful and manouverable than we are in the water, and it has lots of teeth and uses its mouth to investigate everything. We, by contrast, are slow and mostly not scary.

For the second dive we went the other way to Cannery Wall, had much better visibility and thankfully, no visits from the "friendly seal".

9/21/2003 Flintstones aboard Unknown Boat by Nick Radov -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Nick Radov, Julio MacWilliams

Visibility: 20' - 30' Time: 8:30 AM

Temp: Surge: 1'

Max Depth: 93FSW Avg Depth: 80FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:21

Bottom Gases: EAN32,30/30 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single,Double LP80,LP104 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
BAUE club charter today. Due to several people getting sick and cancelling at the last minute we ended up somewhat mismatched on buddies, but it was a good opportunity to get better acquainted with some new and prospective club members. For the first dive we hit Flintstones at Todd's request since he had never been there. Julio and I dropped down the anchor line until the pinnacle came into sight, then jumped off and headed off to the left at about the 85ft contour. Midway through the dive I spotted an interesting specimen of Dialula sandiegensis; usually they're white but this one was a dull yellow color. I wonder if that means it's getting old, or maybe due to diet? Julio was on a small single tank so we had to turn the dive after only 10 minutes and then headed back along a slightly shallower contour. Since the currents were light I decided to skip returning to the anchor line and instead took us to the peak of the pinnacle to check out the hydrocoral there. Then we made our final ascent next to the kelp that grows out of the summit, right through a small school of juvenile blue rockfish. A pair of sea lions kept us company.

9/14/2003 McAbee aboard Unknown Boat by Nick Radov -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Gary Banta, Nick Radov

Visibility: 10' - 15' Time: 5:00 PM

Temp: 58F Surge:

Max Depth: 55FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:56

Bottom Gases: EAN32,30/30 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single,Double LP95,HP100 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
The boat was anchored on the far side of the kelp forest near the wall that runs sort of northeast to southeast. We spent the first half of the dive goobering around through the rock field in the kelp forest. Every crack we looked in was filled with spot prawns, never seen so many of those. For the second half of the dive we went back over to the wall and followed it out and back. Lots of various rock fish, including one especially large vermillion stuck back in a crevice. Also ran across a number of Hermissenda crassicornis and a crab with arms near as long as mine. When we returned to our starting point I could definitely hear the boat but we couldn't spot the anchor line. So we started doing a free ascent, but then we heard an outboard motor race by so I decided to send up a marker buoy. It turned out we really were near the boat; when we got up to our 10ft stop I looked up and realized my bag was caught on the swim step. :-)

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