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6/11/2011 Kawika's Gorgonian Garden aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Dionna House, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 10' - 25' Time: 7:00 PM

Temp: Surge: 3'

Max Depth: 127FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 0:30 Total Time: 1:00

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Yesterday we had a R3 trip scheduled on the Escapade. We were hoping to dive some of the amazing sites in Carmel/Big Sur, as for example, Flintstone, Soberanes Wall, Alan Arch and many others but the weather was less that cooperating so we ended diving in the bay. On the boat were Allison/Clinton, Brian, Ted and Ben, and Dionna and Beto.

The first dive was at Kawika's Gorgonias Garden. This is always a fun dive with a lot of gorgonias and nudies to see. Dionna and I found 2 toquinas, one of them a little baby that were eating the gorgonias. There we many large vermillions and tons of small lincods at the reef.

Second dive was at "The Drop Zone" #1 alias the Pipeline and we swam a long a nice ledge at 100ft for about 30min. We found a very nice octopus and some of the largest clown nudies I have ever seen. There were tons of juv rockfish on the reef which was really nice to see swim as we moved our lights.

Vis was 20-30ft at the bottom and 10ft during the ascend with tons of jellies to take care of during the deco.

All in all a fun diving in the bay

5/8/2011 Lunaticos Annex aboard Escapade by Clinton Bauder -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Clinton Bauder, Kevin Dow

Visibility: 40' - 20' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 49F Surge:

Scooter: X-scooter Burn Time:

Max Depth: 190FSW Avg Depth: 160FSW

Bottom Time: 0:38 Total Time: 1:30

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

Backgas Config: Double LP80,HP100 Deco Tanks: AL40
Deco Profile:
Deep Stops, 6,4,4,4,4,22,6 Up
We met at the dock Saturday morning with somewhat muted expectations. The wind was forecast at 10-20 building to 15-25 in the afternoon. This usually rules out Carmel and enthusiasm for diving Monterey was low. After some discussion we lost a couple of teams who decided to sit it out rather than burn a lot of helium on a braille dive in the bay. Kevin, Jim, Joakim and I voted to go diving anyway. Good thing we did.

As we got underway it became clear the wind had already died a bit from when we'd started loading. In fact, it there was relatively little wind at all so we pointed the boat south and headed for Carmel. Once there it was even calmer than in Monterey and we dropped the ball at Lunaticos.

I was diving with Kevin. We got off to a bit of a slow start as I noticed when we jumped into the water that I'd trapped my light cord. We fixed this and headed down only a few minutes behind the other team. Once we stopped scootering on the bottom I realized my right post was bubbling a bit and had Kevin come over to fix it. As he was doing this I realized I was looking at a juvenile wolf eel. It was just far enough back into a crack to make taking pictures difficult but a cool find nonetheless

Visibility on the bottom was surprisingly good -perhaps 40 feet. We meandered along the south wall of Lunaticos looking for slugs and other small life. Somewhere in there I realized that when I'd fixed my light cord I'd then fouled my scooter tow cord slightly and we stopped to fix that too. Jeesh.

Eventually my minor gear issues added up to a bit more gas usage than I'd expected and we called the dive 2 minutes early. Deco was uneventful with the highlight being a big sea nettle with a juvenile fish hiding in the bell. Kevin tried to point this out to me but by the time I saw it the nettle had moved up to 15 feet and was too far away from our 20 foot stop for me to take pictures.

We surfaced to a scene that was so placid it was almost surreal. The boat was sitting about 30 yards from us in glassy calm water. The crew was sitting on the swimstep enjoying the sun while they waited for us. We scootered over an leisurely handed the gear back onto the boat. The ride home was as easy as you can imagine.

By the time we finished lunch at the 17th Street Grill in Pacific Grove it was getting windy again so I guess we timed it right. Nice day on the ocean.

Pictures Here

5/2/2011 Ed's Wall aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Robert Lee, Jim Capwell

Visibility: Time: 10:30 AM

Temp: 42F - 50F Surge:

Max Depth: 232FSW Avg Depth:

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

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

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
For several weeks we had been trying to go diving on a Friday but the weather has not cooperate with us. For that reason we decided to switch the Mondays, which recently had been the best diving day of the week.

Susan, Rob, Jim and myself heading south hoping for some cleaner water, and calm seas. We had about 6 hrs weather window before the wind pick-up again so we headed for Ed Cooper wall and had a nice dive there.

We anchored at the deep end and motored the wall all the way to 70ft. We saw tons of vase sponges, several Yellow eye juveniles, one scorpion fish and one sail-fin sculping during the deep portion of the dive. Towards the shallow we found some large lingcods, large school of blue rockfishs, several tree-fish and a very nice wolf-eels at 120ft.

Visibility was actually good. We had 20ft at bottom and 40ft as we got to shallower water. Much better than the Bay!!!

Temp was 46F most of the time, with 50 during the O2 hang.

4/23/2011 Pt Lobos by Dionna House -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Clinton Bauder, mykle hoban, Dionna House

Visibility: 5' - 10' Time: 10:00 AM

Temp: 48F - 50F Surge: 2'

Max Depth: 50FSW Avg Depth: 30FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:50

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Single HP100 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
It was BAUE day at Point Lobos as well as Earth Day Celebration. I heard the vis was not suppose to be that great, but, it was nice to be in the water and hanging out with friends. I was also going to try doing 2 dives with a single tank, to see how my back would tolerate it.

There appeared to have been a few new harbor seal pups born and perhaps some on the way. Spring is always a great time for a new life. The BAUE days are a special day to dive with someone that you normally do not dive with. I buddied up with Mykle and Clinton joined us. Jim McDonald was suppose to join us, but, he had to plan his wedding. Mykle and Clinton were perfect buddies when you want to brush up on your species identification. Especially Nudibranchs!! We geared up, splashed in and kicked out to around the worm patch area. We descended and swam west on the 40ft conture. We followed the trails until we got to a sight that appeared good for Clinton to take macro pics. Mykle and I both saw a big lingcod. I thought it could have been Lingzilla. The visibility was not the greatest, but, the topography was beautiful.

SI: Lunch time and laughs amongst fellow members. People brought enough food to share with others. Mykle demonstrated some fancy juggling with Trader Joe's oranges at the picnic tables...

Second dive was out to the Middle Reef to look for Itchy and Scratchy, Clinton's fringehead, and to explore the east side of Middle Reef. The fringehead didn't appear to be in his hole, and the visibility was very limited to be able to find Itchy and Scratchy. No luck there. We ended up on the east side of Middle Reef. Fortunately Clinton found a very cool nudibranch that had to be at least 2 mm long. After almost 50 minutes we turned the dive and swam back into the channel. Hardest part of the dive was the swim in against an off shore wind and some headaches about gear issues. :-(

I managed two dives without serious back pain. Just had your typical soreness, that is my usual. Mission accomplished!!

Thanks for Diving Clinton and Mykle.

4/15/2011 K2 aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Jim Capwell

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

Temp: 41F - 51F Surge: 4'

Max Depth: 213FSW Avg Depth:

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

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

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Weather forecast for this morning was NW 15 knots winds which is not the best, but we had been busy with teaching for a couple of weeks so we were itchy for a nice dive. We met capt Jeem in the morning. The idea was to go check and see if we could go out that bay and head for Mid-Way pinnacle, aka MW. We got out of the bay no problem and headed south. We crossed the Kitty team at K2 (diving from Phil's boat) and we continued towards are destination another 30min down the coast. However, the white caps where getting more abundant as we headed south so after another 10min we decided to turn around and go join the Kitties for a dive at K2.

We dropped down at the south wall, motored south for a minute or two until we got to the wall. After that we followed the wall south until we got to the drop-off at the West end .We were hovering close to the 200ft mark as we were looking down and trying not to drop pass the mark. The end of the wall was covered with a large school of juv rock fish. I love to scooter in and out of the fish ball and this time I tried to corral the fish toward Susan and Jim. Susan spotted 6 juv yellow eye on the wall and we also saw two Quillback rock-fish. I haven't see one of those in a while. Eventually we headed back inside the wall while moving th some cool canyons and swimming through. We all wished we have save more bottom time in this section to go back through them, but after 20min it was time to head up to 150ft.

We motored to K2 peak going counter-clock-wise which is new for me. We found some really cool crevices and a lot of fish and by the time we go to the K2 wall proper we were inside a large school of blue rock fish. We played around the wall for another 10min and then went to check
the GPO hideout. No luck this time.

Water has very cold. My G2 read 41 at the bottom and most of the deco was 46-48 degrees. I wished I used my 200gr vest today.

here are some images from Rob.

Another grand day out!

3/27/2011 Gran Sabana aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Susan Bird, Alberto Nava

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

Temp: 50F - 53F Surge: 6'

Max Depth: 205FSW Avg Depth:

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

Bottom Gases: 18/45 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
This past week the weather had been quite volatile. We endured a gale, winds blowing from all directions and the swells were up & down. We had scheduled a tech charter for Saturday, but due to the weather forecast we moved it to Sunday with the option of bailing out if the wind/surge was too large.

On Saturday afternoon I drove to Point Lobos to pick up our forgotten tables that were there since the last day of the Science Camp. I found very calm conditions and nobody at the parking lot. I drove around the park and I could see diveable conditions south of Lobos. I sent an email to the team to motivate them to go for a fun dive on Sunday.

We motored out Sunday morning and were able to get out of the bay with no problems. There were some large swells and anything close to shore was out of the question, so we headed towards Yankee Point. We first thought about doing Mt. Chamberlin's South Wall but we decided to try something new so we headed to Gran Sabana which is a little father south from Yankee Point with the idea of getting away from the overflowing water from Carmel River.

Gran Sabana is a large round pinnacle with the top at 120ft, then a large plateau at 150-160ft and a vertical wall from 160 to 200. We last dove this a couple of years ago and we always wanted to come back.

Susan and I descended to the top of the pinnacle and headed West to find the deep water. At about 180ft we found a nice set of metridium which were quite deep for this kind of marine life. Maybe they get a lot of current from the north-west direction. From there we headed clock-wise on the pinnacle. Susan found a large patch of sea pens littering the sand. There were lingcods if all sizes swimming around and tons of decorate crabs feeding with the current. We found a nice yellow eye on a white sponge, and a reluctant little octopus on a purple sponge.

We spent 20min at the bottom before heading up to 160ft for the second part of the dive. Here we meet with the rest of the team and enjoyed some photo and video session for a while. The 150ft area was covered with elephant ear sponges and the peak of the pinnacle was very impressive. It was covered with corynactus and reached up from 140 to 120ft. There was a lot of current as you moved around the peaks which made for a fun time at the top.

On the way back we saw a large pod of risso dolphins and the top side weather was fabulous with the incredible Pacific Ocean and the mountains in the background.

Here are some images from Rob.

Another grand day out!

3/13/2011 Flintstones aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Jim Capwell, Alberto Nava

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

Temp: 46F - 51F Surge: 12'

Max Depth: 150FSW Avg Depth:

Bottom Time: 1:00 Total Time: 1:20

Bottom Gases: Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Yesterday we had several folks on the Escapade for our first R3 trip of the year. We're gearing up to create a new type of charters on the Escapade. This will sit in between our tech trips and our basic recreation diving trip. The goal is to visit sites that are not deep enough for the "tech" trips but a title too adventures or deep for the rec boats, with access to deep water in the 120-130ft.

We had several sites in mind but the swells where large enough yesterday that the only sensible diving range was away from shore. After a little bit of deliberation we settled for Flintstone rock. This is the perfect R3 site as the top of the pinnacle is a 40ft and it has access to a first deep section at 130ft.

We descended to find clear water, not as clear as last week, but still good 40ft of vis. We followed the north-south crack at Flintstone while looking for a rat fish that Clinton and Allison saw a little bit before. We did not find it but we traveled through the top of some nice pinnacles while watching large school of rock-fish, and tons of gorgonias on the north site. We payed a visit to the only left O2 bottle at the sand patch. The bottle is been there for about 10years and although it's
still full it's showing a lot of deterioration :-0. We also checked an old crab trap that's a the base on the main wall.

We finished our dive moving through the main crack on the structure. It goes from 120-100 ft and there are some nice hydrocoral, bryozoan and metridiums making it the perfect photo area on the site.

After some 30min at the base we moved to 70ft and switched to our deco gas. Here is where the fun part of the dive is as you can still dive while conducting part of your decompression stops. We move around the pinnacle at 70, 60, 50ft, while enjoying the view and swim around large school of rock fish. We found a very large cabezon with very green coloration. It was a beautiful fish.

Toward the top of the pinnacle we could really feel the large swell going over us. I love hovering near the kelp with the gentle back and forth movement as the swells go by. This is probably one of my favorite dive site!

After another 30min at the shallow part of the the pinnacle we head for the down-line/up-line and finish the top part of the deco on the line.

Here are some images from Clinton.

Great day of diving!

3/13/2011 Flintstones aboard Escapade by Alberto Nava -- [View this report only]

Bottom Team: Jim Capwell, Alberto Nava

Visibility: 40' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 46F - 51F Surge: 12'

Max Depth: 150FSW Avg Depth:

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

Bottom Gases: 21/35 Deco Gases: EAN50

Backgas Config: Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
Yesterday we had several folks on the Escapade for our first R3 trip of the year. We're gearing up to
create a new type of charters on the Escapade. This will sit in between our tech trips and our basic
recreation diving trip. The goal is to visit sites that are not deep enough for the "tech" trips but a title
too adventures or deep for the rec boats, with access to deep water in the 120-130ft.

We had severals sites in mind but the swell where large enough yesterday that the only sensible diving
range was away from shore. After a little bit of deliberation we settled for Flintstone rock. This is the perfect
R3 site as the top of the pinnacle is a 40ft and it has access to a first deep section at 130ft.

We descended to find clear water, not as clear as last week, but still good 40ft of vis. We followed the north-south
crack at Flinstone while looking for a rat fish that Clinton and Allison saw a little bit before. We did not find it but we traveled
through the top of some nice pinnacles while watching large school of rock-fish, and tons of gorgonias on the
north site. We pay a visit to the onlyt left O2 bottle at the sand patch. The bottle is been there for about 10years and although it's
still full it's showing a lot of deterioration :-0. We also checked an old crab trap that's a the base on the main wall.

We finished our dive moving through the main crack on the structure. It goes from 120-100 ft and there are some nice
hydrocoral, bryozoan and metridiums making it the perfect photo area on the site.

After some 30min at the base we moved to 70ft and switched to our deco gas. Here is where the fun part of the dive is as you can still
dive while conducting part of your decompression stops. We move around the pinnacle at 70, 60, 50ft, while enjoying the view and swim
around large school of rock fish. We found a very large cabezon with very green coloration. It was a beautiful fish.

Toward the top of the pinnacle we could really feel the large swell going over us. I love hovering near the kelp with the gentle back and forth
movement as the swells go by. This is probably one of my favorite dive site!

After another 30min at the shallow part of the the pinnacle we head for the down-line/up-line and finish the top part of the deco on the
line.

3/13/2011 Hopkin's Deep Reef aboard Unknown Boat by Dionna House -- [View this report only]

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Bottom Team: Harry Babicka, Dionna House

Visibility: 7' - 15' Time: 12:00 AM

Temp: 55F Surge: 3'

Max Depth: 75FSW Avg Depth: 55FSW

Bottom Time: Total Time: 0:40

Bottom Gases: EAN32 Deco Gases:

Backgas Config: Double LP80 Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
After hearing the dive reports of being good after the Tsunami, Harry B and I wanted to take his boat out for a test drive and dive. He had it serviced with new and improved parts. ;-) Getting up one hour early was the hardest part of the day. We arrived and chatted with Carol and Royston for a bit. Got the boat in the water. The boat started right up and we motored out. We were greeted by a pod of 40 Risso dolphins as we turned the corner at the Breakwater. We followed them for some time towards Del Monte and cheered when they breached and twirled in mid air. We motored out to see where to anchor, and get other dive reports. The boat was purring like a kitty. Yay for the boat. Came up to Carol's and John's boats at Trevor's. They reported about 10ft, surge and current. Harry and I decided to anchor at Hopkins Deep. There was no wind or surface current and it seem very calm and peaceful. We got down and tied off on the anchor and reeled around. Saw the usual suspects. Alot of fish hiding inside the cracks and crevises. Saw a nice cabezon. Most of the Metridium were shrivelled up.. :( There was a strong slow surge. Harry thought the vis was 10ft at most. I thought it was about 20ft at most. Back on board, Harry let me take the wheel. There were big long swells as I drove in toward Breakwater. At one time it looked like we were driving up a hill of water. Very weird. Just did one dive. Harry's back was bothering him from all the Hockey he plays. We came in and chatted with Carol, Larry and Royston. We ordered our usual sandwiches from the Deli and called Mark Lloyd to offer him a pork sandwich. Teased him about the BBQ aromas. Not too much stands between Mark and his pork sandwich on dive days on Harry's boat, but, today it was school work that kept Mark home.

On the way out we stopped by and chatted with other BAUE folks just coming off the Escapade and hearing about their dive. Thank-you Mary Jo for the delicious brownies!!

Despite not the best conditions in the bay... it was fun.

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