10 Days in Florida

I finally managed to finish posting the reports from our trip to Florida in March, for Ted's Cave 2 class.  It was a great trip.  Going for a longer trip is totally the way to go, way better than all these 4 or 5 day trips we always take!

I figured I should post something at the top of the blog, since I posted out of order.  Here's the list of the posts from the trip, including the intro:

Ted's Cave 2 Adventure
Ginnie Shakeout Dive
Little River: the last room?
Manatee
Ginnie Springs: Main Land
Eagle's Nest, Upstream
Peacock Tour
Eagle's Nest, Upstream-er
Corrupting Ted at Ginnie
Double Domes
Ice Room-ward

Rob is really bothered by the idea of posting out of order.  Apparently it violates the rules of civilized blogging.  Tonight he told me "You know what happens when you post out of order?  Every time you post out of order... a kitten dies."  Then, after I posted my my recent post (from last weekend), he made a little impression of a kitty conking out, mid-meow.  And went on to describe the kitten -- it was grey.  And he calls me a crazy cat lady?  Hmmm.

Adventures on the High Seas

Clinton and me near the top of the pinnacle.
Photo by Robert Lee

Sunday we were on a tech charter.  It was supposed to be just me and Rob diving together, but then I guess John caught Giardia from his cat or something (or maybe he just had food poisoning), so Clinton joined our team.  The forecast called for a good bit of wind, but when we passed the flag in Seaside, it was pretty limp.  So we were hopeful.  When we got going, it was pretty flat in the bay, and nice and warm and sunny.  When we turned Point Pinos we were greeted by more wind, plus a short period swell hitting us from the side.  Really not too pleasant.  We paused around Lunaticos, which had some whitecaps nearby, but not really right on top of it.  Then we continued down to Lobos, and even pretty close in, there were white caps.  Bleh.  We paused there (I'm guessing there was discussion about what to do in the wheelhouse) and then we turned around.  On our way back to the Lunaticos area, we became engulfed in fog.  It was pretty disturbing how fast it appeared, considering we could well have started a dive in pretty clear skies and started our drift in a thick fog.  We motored around for a while, I suppose just waiting for the fog to burn off, and eventually it did.  Now we found ourselves back at Lunaticos, surrounded by whitecaps.  But not very big ones :)  We decided to dive there, at a site which is, as far as we know, not named.  A pretty big pinnacle sort of between Lunaticos and Canyonlands, with the top around 100' and the bottom around 200'.

Clinton and me near the bottom.
Photo by Robert Lee

While the downline was being set, as I was just about to get into my rig, there was a problem with the line.  Apparently after dropping it, it had gotten a bit tangled in the prop, so that needed to be dealt with.  First the crew tried to retrieve it from the boat with a hook; then from the water with a mask and snorkel, and finally it was determined that this would require a bit more elbow grease.  So the ball and all hundred-some feet of line were pulled by hand (by Michael, with Clinton and Rob behind him pulling too), and then Derek freed it from in the water, with gear.  Phew.  I told Clinton that I wondered if this was a sign that we weren't meant to dive.  First the wind, then the fog, and now this.  Clinton told me I shouldn't give up so easily, while Rob snarled at me.  Once the downline was set again, we got into our gear, and got going into the water pretty quickly.  We were the first team in the water.  I immediately drifted in not the direction of the ball, I guess because there was a surface current that was at odds with the wind (I suppose this is how the line ended up on the prop on the first drop).  I guess this is the down side of being the first to jump.  Anyhoo, I got to the ball without any trouble and a moment later Rob and Clinton had also made it to the ball.  The viz looked super good, and the water was really blue.  We dropped down to 20' and after a quick bubble check, we were off.  Or they were off, and I waddled my way down the line, as my ears were not being uber-cooperative.  Sitting on the boat in the wind had given me a runny nose, so I was pretty stuffy by the time I got into the water.

Vase sponges
Photo by Robert Lee

The viz was awesome, and I could see the reef (and not just the top) very clearly by the time I was at 50'.  On the way down, I estimated that the top came to about 80', though I think in reality it only came to about 100'.  I guess the good viz made it look deceptively close.  We regrouped once we were on the structure, and headed to the south side of the pinnacle, and then along a canyon running to the west.  The sand in the canyon was at about 200'.  The viz was pretty much as good as it gets, probably in the 80' to 100' range for horizontal viz, with bright blue water.  After making it most of the way down the channel, we stopped and just meandered around for a while.  Rob pointed out a slug scooting along the wall, which was a Pleurobranchea californica.  This is what I thought it was, though it was much smaller (but still not small) than the ones we saw before.  It also seemed darker in color, but I suspect that was just because its spots were smaller (since it was smaller).  I didn't really do a lot of critter peeping on this dive.  I was too busy looking around at all of the awesome structure... because you could see so much of it!  I got out my hero cam and had some fun zooming up and down the canyon, with it mounted on my scooter.  Then I spent most of the rest of the deep part of the dive posing for pictures with vase sponges and rockfish (there was a little group of canaries, plus a small school of blues with the odd olive mixed in) for both Rob and Clinton.  Eventually it was time to head a bit shallower, so we headed back up the channel and up to pinnacle now on our left.

View of the sand from above.
Photo by Clinton Bauder

We worked our way shallower, stopping for pictures here and there.  Rob and Clinton both always complain about the lack of pictures of themselves underwater, so they were having a serious love-fest, taking pictures of each other, and then taking pictures of each other taking pictures of each other.  Yea, creepy.  I injected myself into a few of these pictures, and wondered how strange it would be to see me posing next to a headless Clinton, with a camera where his head should be :)  Maybe I should have held my hero cam in front of my face, to provide some symmetry.  Eventually while we were in the shallower areas, Doug signaled us, to show us a wolf eel.  Nice find.  It was a pretty big one, sticking its big head out of pretty wide crack.  It was at a sort of odd angle, because its head was sticking up out of the reef, but not very far out.  Apparently Doug and Erik also found a free-swimming wolf eel and a ratfish.  I'm jealous.  It does seem like a good time for ratfish peeping, considering how cold the water has been (my gauge was flipping between 44 and 46 on the bottom -- my gauge doesn't a 45, it's either 44 or 46).  We meandered up to about 120', and I started to get my bag out of my pocket, as Clinton put the cover on his dome port.  Right about then, Rob found a sponge that was crawling with nudibranchs of all different kinds... there was a baby Dirona (I saw tons of Dironas on this dive, by the way), some trilineatas, a Cuthona catriona, and some others.  Clinton was like "very nice" and then thumbed it, as it was really time to go.  I put up the bag, which took two puffs, since my lips were half-frozen... I considered it a success that I could inflate it at all without going to my cheater hose.

Rob shooting things
Photo by Clinton Bauder

And so our ascent began.  It was pretty uneventful, but freakin' cold.  There weren't many critters to look at,   mostly just some salp bits.  From 70', we could see the sand at the bottom, which was at about 200'.  Not bad :)  During the ascent, mostly once we got to 20', my sinuses started to really bother me.  I was feeling more and more congested, and at 20', my nose was so stuffed up that I could barely breathe out of it.  My mask was a little foggy on one side, but I did not dare to flood it, since I didn't know if I'd be able to clear it.      I basically felt like I couldn't breathe the whole 20' stop, though clearly I could.  And my ear was bothering me too.  It would bother me every time I moved, up or down, even a little bit.  I kept pawing at my ear like somehow poking at it through my hood would help :)  Rob and Clinton asked if I was alright, and I told them I was.  I kept coughing out mucus, since that seemed like the most civilized way to deal with it, but then long strings of goo kept floating across my face, attached to my exhaust tee.  Maybe it is more civilized to just take my reg out and spit.  Also during the 20' stop, every time I looked up, I could see the chop.  I also had a suspicion that the wind was gusty, because of the behavior of my bag.  Around 5' or 8', I handed the bag to Rob, so I could clean up my light (which was still butt-clipped) before we surfaced.

Proof of wolf
Photo by Clinton Bauder

We surfaced and I was relieved to finally be able to blow my nose!  And yell some unlady-like things about the state of my sinuses.  Jim maneuvered the boat over to us and swung the back around just perfectly, but the moment he stopped, it was a race to get back to the swimstep.  Clinton made it there and after a moment where I thought I just couldn't make it, even on full speed and kicking, suddenly I could see the ladder underwater; I guess there was a lull in the wind.  I removed my one bottle as I approached, and I made it to the swimstep just as Clinton handed his last bit of gear up, and then waited for him to climb the ladder.  Once he was done, I tossed my bottle and then my scooter and grabbed the ladder.  I declared to the crew that I might need a hand, then I flung a fin at them.  Before I could get the other fin off, a wave came, and I got tossed around like a rag doll, hanging on with just one hand.  After I recovered from that, I managed to get the other fin off and trot up the ladder.  Rob, meanwhile, was way the heck off the back of the boat, bobbing along with the bag.  Jim had to swing back around to get him, and when he approached the boat, he was all tangled in line, like a very bad kitty.  Apparently while cleaning up his O2 bottle, the boltsnap on the spool slipped, and the spool dropped to the depths, unfurling all 150-some feet of line.  (I avoid this problem by not cleaning up my O2 bottle, and climbing the ladder with it still in my mouth... or by handing the bag and spool off to an unsuspecting member of the team.) Once Rob detangled himself, the crew and Clinton pulled the line in.  Luckily they were well-versed in this procedure after the line snafu earlier in the day.  After we retrieved all of the line and Rob, the last team was up and we collected them.

Which way do I look!?!
Photo by Robert Lee

It was pretty windy, so we quickly got the heck out of there.  At least one person on the boat (can you guess who?) wanted to do a second dive, so we retreated to the bay to discuss.  I would have loved to do another dive in Carmel, but I didn't think my ears could deal with that, and the weather didn't allow that anyway, so it was an easy choice to stay on the boat.  We ended up at Aumentos, and I went up to the wheelhouse to hang out with Rob and Kevin, which turned out to be a questionable move, considering the wind.  Then I was stuck up there until we got back to the dock, since I didn't want to climb the ladder to go back down :)  Apparently the water was green with a murky 30' of viz (and a crap layer on top).  So not exactly what we'd had in Carmel!  After that, we had a short ride back to the dock, and Rob and I had lunch (dinner?) at the pub at the dock with Dionna and Jim, before subjecting ourselves to Sunday evening traffic on the way home.

As I said, the viz was pretty much as good as it gets today, and with a super awesome new-to-us site, I think we can safely call the dive "epic".  I'm glad I didn't let the wind, fog, or downline snafu scare me off.  There were, of course, too many good pictures to fit in this post, so you can see everything here.

Twin Peaks (at last)

Photo by Robert Lee

 This weekend was supposed to be Kevin's "birthday weekend" since he was out of town (for work, ick) over his actual birthday, and this was the closest available weekend.  And we always do birthday dives with Kevin!  So we had two to three days of diving planned, Friday with Phil and Saturday with Jim (and maybe Sunday with Phil too).  Then Phil fell through a week or so in advance.  So we were down to 1 day of diving.  Then, on Friday afternoon, we once again found ourselves staring down the barrel of a really crappy forecast for Saturday, when we were supposed to be diving on the Escapade.  After some last minute discussion and a report on the actual conditions down there, the boat ended up being cancelled.  So then we were left with nothing to do for the weekend.  We ended up having a birthday lunch (and cake!) with Kevin and Saturday, and Rob and I managed to finagle a reservation at Point Lobos for Sunday.  Actually it wasn't too hard to get a reservation, we simply looked on the website, saw that there were spots open, and called on Saturday.  Since Sunday was the Big Sur marathon, most sane people avoid diving in Carmel like the plague on that day.  Usually we do too; this was our first time ever diving at Lobos on marathon day.  Clinton (who also had Lobos tix for Sunday) filled us in on the logistics.  Every couple of hours, they let a convoy of cars go through the route, escorted by police.  9:45 was the magic time when this was to happen.  So we showed up a little after 9, just to be safe, and were like the 4th car in line for the convoy.  Around 9:35 or something, we started to move.    Despite the handout that was given to us about the convoy protocol, which decreed that the convoy would move at precisely 25 mph, we ended up inching along route 1 and finally made it to Lobos a hair after 10.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

The plan was to go to Twin Peaks, because, you know Rob, is there any other dive to do at Lobos?  Actually, we had been toying with a 32% dive, but we were at Anywater on Saturday afternoon, and heard that the viz was only so-so in the shallower areas, but opened up quite a bit out at the Road.  Plus we hadn't been to Twin Peaks in ages!  I think it had been 9 months since we'd been to Twin Peaks proper (we'd been to the Road slightly more recently), which is unbelievable, considering there was a time when we went to Twin Peaks like every month!  Anyhoo, that was the plan.  And since Rob was involved, the plan was to make it a 3 bottle dive, which I was being a bit passive-aggressive about.  When I agreed to the plan, I said that I reserved the right to make it a two bottle dive at the last minute.  It's just such a pain schlepping all that gear into the water!  When we got to Lobos, we found a pretty low tide, but calm water and sunny skies.  Woohoo.  We unloaded the van, got into our drysuits, and got the gear in the water pretty quickly.  Rob asked if I wanted to carry or swim... did he really have to ask?  After I got the first 4 bottles on the float, it occurred to us that we really need a bigger float (the Team Kitty float lives with Kevin).  But the water was calm, so I was okay with leaving a ton of gear on a float that was hovering essentially just below the surface.  The ramp was so slippery that when I got out of the water, Rob asked me if I wanted an escort down the ramp before he got into his gear.  Sure, why not?  I got into my gear, and did my gear match with my imaginary buddy (or Rob, in his imaginary gear) and then headed into the water, with Rob by my side.  And got heckled by John on the way in.  Actually Rob was the one getting the most heckling :)  Then Rob got geared up, and John walked him down the ramp, though there was a lot less hand-holding involved.

Photo by Robert Lee

We picked up our gear from the float, and headed out on the surface.  We'd heard that the viz was really bad in the cove, so we wanted to get at least to the sand channel.  But there was a ton of kelp on the surface (an usual amount for this time of year... I think a bunch of it was actually floating kelp debris), which made that annoying.  We made it out to just about where the worm patch should be, and were pretty much engulfed in kelp at this point, so we dropped there.  We scootered for about 20 seconds and found the worm patch.  The viz was pretty bad right there, but not terrible.  In the sand channel, it was likewise not so good -- maybe 15 or 20 feet.  But by the time we got to Hole in the Wall, it was improving, and it just got better and better, the further we went.  By the time we got to the Road, it was about 40 feet.  And blue.  And cold (46 degrees). We headed down the Road, staying on the sand interface on the right side.  We were pretty much on the trigger, but then we came to a little school of blue rockfish hovering above the reef, maybe 2/3 of the way down the reef, so we stopped to visit with them.  Then we continued on out, straight to the big peak.  

Photo by Robert Lee

I was pretty chilly, so once we were there, I took the opportunity to kick around to warm up.  Eventually Rob corralled me for some photos, and then once I tired of that, kicked around a bit more.  Rob eventually called me over to look at a Diaulula lentiginosa.  Nice!  Rob took some pictures of me looking at its giant-ness.  Eventually we moved from the big main pinnacle off to a small pinnaclet off to the side, which was also a bit deeper.  We looked around that briefly, not seeing anything particularly interesting, and then we moved to the other "peak".  We kicked around that a little, just long enough for me to find an Aldisa albomarginata. I swam over it, and thought it might be one (but was half inspecting it to turn out to be a Cadlina), and then as I swam closer I saw the tell-tale twinkling stars on its back :)  I haven't seen one of those in a while!  From there, we headed back to the big pinnacle, and not long after, I called it, because I was awfully chilly.  Rob asked if we could stop on the Road on the way in; I said yes, knowing that I would probably cancel that once there, since I was so cold.

We headed in, and were pretty much on the trigger until we got maybe 2/3 of the way back in.  We paused, but then I told Rob I just wanted to head in.  Along the way in, almost back to the Sisters, we passed a weird looking jelly animal, so we stopped to check that out.  He had two little brown "flippers" and a mouth like a whale.  Interesting.  From there, Rob attempted to head to the east toward Beto's, and I told him no, I wanted to go in and then head east.  So we continued on along the road until we got to the sisters.  From there, Rob was heading a bit too much east, and as I was about to signal him, I realized that he was cutting over to Beto's.  I guess he didn't understand that I meant I wanted to go all the way in to 70' before cutting over (I like to meander around the Lone Metridium/Hole in the Wall area on deco).  So, alas, we hit Beto's (well not literally) and then headed south.  We stopped in the kelpy sandy area around 70' to switch onto our bottles.  At 60', we headed over to Middle Reef, and worked our way in along the reef.  The viz there was not so good.  I was really cold, and not really in the mood to critter peep, so I basically just watched Rob as he scoured the reef for anything interesting.  He found the transect 4 warbonnet -- yay!  He was poking his head out from the reef, upside-down.  Why does he always do that!?!  I was glad to see that the landmark piece of palm kelp that we use to find the warbonnet had grown back in.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

From 40', we left the reef and headed in on the sand channel.  As we were cruising around 30', my scooter started to make the "wah-wah" noise it makes when it is about to die.  I felt like I was barely moving.  I kept riding it, but was flutter kicking to actually make some progress.  I told Rob it was dying and he pointed to his scooter and said the same thing.  It wasn't dying, but it was slowing down.  We got to the worm patch, and by then, my scooter was pretty much dead.  We switched onto our O2 bottles, and then I suggested we meander in by kick.  The viz in the cove was very bad, but since we would be swimming slowly, I was not too worried about getting separated.  I mostly just wanted to make a bit more progress underwater, since swimming on the surface with 3 bottles and a dead scooter is no fun.  So that is what we did.  Eventually we got to like 17 feet or so, and we just stayed there and then did a 6 minute ascent.  At the last stop (5 feet), I sort of blew it and from about 4 feet, I did a bit of a dolphin kick to get myself back down to 5 feet, and in the process I nearly kicked John, who I guess just happened to be swimming over us on the surface at just that minute.  Doh!  When we surfaced a minute later, I was actually pretty relieved it was John, and not some random diver!  (John deserved a kick, for the heckling!)  When we surfaced, we were still not quite at the ramp, but certainly closer to the ramp than the cliff.  I asked Rob if his scooter was totally dead and he said no, just slow.  So he towed me in on the surface.  We weren't moving very fast.  I watched kelp bug crawl across the back of his thigh as we moved in slow motion.  Yea, it was a boring ride back :)

Eventually he gave up, and we had to swim the last 20 feet or so to the float.  Hehe.  We ditched our stuff, and then I suggested that Rob get out and come back for the gear, which I would hand back to him bit by bit and then he could help me out (tide was still very low... I think we were one hour before low tide when we got in, and one hour past it when we got out).  While he was getting out of his gear, I went to try to retrieve Clinton's float, since they were done with it.  It was stuck good.  No way I could get it up from the surface.  I waited for Clinton to come back in to retrieve it, and then I dived down to get it (since he was out of his gear).  It was wrapped like 8 times around a piece of kelp at the bottom.  I disentangled it and brought it up, just in time for Rob to appear back at the end of the ramp.  Clinton and I swam the gear back from the float to Rob, and then when we were all finished, I was retrieved from the water (not under my own power, and not without slamming both of my knees against rocks in the process).

After getting out of our gear and such, we had a few snacks with John, Clinton and Vanessa, and then Rob and I headed to RG, which was surprisingly uncrowded post-marathon.  All in all it was a pretty nice day for diving.  Certainly better than sitting at home all weekend without a dive!

Coldest. Dive. Ever.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

For the first time in ages, we were scheduled to be on a boat on the weekend, and the forecast was actually looking good.  It was looking really good around midweek, and then it took a turn for the slightly windy (but not epicly windy), but with tiny swell.  Well, you can't have everything.  When we got to the dock, Jim was fretting about the wind, and didn't understand why everyone was so optimistic.  As we came around Point Pinos, Jim pointed out the white caps to the northwest, and Rob pointed south and said "but we're going that way".  The weather was interesting.  Around Cypress Point, it was dead flat, and the water had that glassy look.  But if we looked out to the west a bit, we could see a line beyond which there were whitecaps.  We eventually crossed the line, but it still wasn't a rough ride.  Not a Big Sur day (despite Rob and Kevin's best efforts), but we made it to Yankee Point without a problem.  After discussing site options, I voted for something in the Dos Gatos/Three Nixies area, so that's where we ended up.

Photo by Robert Lee

We headed down the line to find very good (but not epic) viz.  I have to admit that after diving here a bunch, I can recognize many of the features and pinnacles underwater, but I have trouble figuring out exactly what corresponds to what on the bathymetry map.  It sort of drives me crazy.  This would probably all be much clearer to me if I got Jim's mark where the anchor is dropped.  Anyway, that's not really important.  We dropped in a very familiar channel, which is the channel where we (and I say "we" loosely) first photographed Diaulula lentiginosa. We headed down the channel, and on the left side, in a little nook on the wall, I saw something on a gorgonian.  I went to check it out, and it was a teeny tiny basket star.  Adorable.  I looked up toward Kevin, to signal him, just in time for him to signal me.  We had a bit of a standoff, with him telling me to come over there and me telling him to come over here, but eventually I won.  It occurred to me that he might be looking at a basket star too.  He came over, looked at my little baby star, then swam me over to another much bigger basket star, near the mouth of the channel, also on the left side.  Nice!  From there, Kevin headed to the right, across the channel from where I was, when I realized that he had just scootered right over a purple sea fan.  Sweet!  I signaled the boys to show them my awesome find, and then posed next to it for some pictures.  After that, we headed back in the direction that Kevin had been headed, and I found another (smaller) purple sea fan.  Woohoo.  It wasn't as lovely as the first, so I just showed it to Rob, and we continued.

Right around this time, I was thinking my hands were insanely cold.  I was thinking these gloves hadn't lasted as long as my last pair.  Until I looked at my gauge and it said... 44 degrees.  No way!  My gauge often reports ridiculously low numbers right at the start of the dive, but this was a good 10 minutes into the dive.  Eek!  We ended up over sand at the bottom of a pinnacle, and Kevin zoomed out over the sand to find a giant basket star.  It was so huge, at first I thought it was two big ones, but no, it was just one super big one!  That was a pretty cool find.  From there, we meandered back toward the pinnacle, and found some fluffy sea pens in the channel between our pinnacle and the next.  I also spied a starry rockfish in a crack on the pinnacle across the channel.  It was a pretty productive dive considering we were only about 15 minutes into  it.

Photo by Robert Lee

Eventually we circled back around to the downline as we were heading shallower.  We discussed where to go next, and Rob was lobbying to head to the east to Dos Gatos.  So we agreed.  We headed over there, and found ourselves in that nice channel with really pretty gorgonians on the walls on each side (which we found on our first dive at Dos Gatos).  We meandered through that, and curled around the pinnacle to the left, and on the back side, we found a huge school of blue rockfish.  Below the school, I saw two lingzillas swimming about too.  Rob continued on, and Kevin and our loitered in the big school, enjoying the fish, until we decided we really should follow Rob.  Pfft.  Shortly after that, we agreed to head back.  We came to a structure, which I thought was the ridge between Dos Gatos and the Nixies.  We got to the southern tip, and Rob wanted to keep heading south.  I told him I thought that was wrong, but in the end, I was like... whatever.  So we headed south and after a minute of finding nothing (and seeing the bottom get deeper), we just thumbed it there.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

Kevin pulled the bag as we started to ascend, and I'm not sure what exactly happened, but the spool got dropped.  There was a moment where I considered going for it, but once the moment was past, I knew it was too late.  So Kevin just shot the bag and let the spool come back to him (thank you, current or wind), and then reeled it up.  It went surprisingly smoothly.  It was pretty entertaining to watch.  On the ascent, Rob told us that his 50% reg was breathing badly.  We offered to share ours, but he waved us off.  Anyway, Rob was looking pretty displeased throughout the deco.  But it was otherwise pretty uneventful.  Rob felt like crap and had a horrible headache when we got back on the boat.  He later decided that his (new) drysuit had an undertrimmed neck seal, and that's what was probably making him feel horrible.  (He determined this after the reg passed inspection with Frank, so then he put his neck seal on at home and sat with it on for a while, and found that it was uncomfortably tight).

So for the second dive, we were Bobless.  Kevin and I were going to dive, then we were going to dive with Clinton, but then Erik needed a buddy too, so in the end, I dove with Clinton.  We went to Mono-Lobo Wall, which amazingly, I've never been to before.  Well, not from a boat anyway.  I've scootered a long way south from South Monastery to an area which we thought was Mono-Lobo.  So now I could finally find out :)  Considering the freakin' cold conditions, I was thinking it probably wouldn't be a terribly long dive.  I was also wondering if I had enough Argon left for the dive.  Well, one way to find out.  So we dropped there, where it was actually pretty surgy.  The viz was really good, and it was still really cold.  As you can see form the pictures, the water was quite blue!  We just meandered around a bit, not really getting too far from the anchor line.  Clinton took a bunch of pictures, some of which I posed in.  We found a small school of blue rockfish, and a couple nice looking cabezons.  One was nose-to-nose with a lingcod, which I found very amusing.  And of course there was hydrocoral.  It looked pretty dang similar to the area that we'd scootered to before, whether it was technically Mono-Lobo, I don't know.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

About 15 minutes into the dive, I found that I was out of Argon.  It was okay, though, because we were already at 60 feet.  So I just closed down my exhaust valve a bit, and stayed right around 60 feet until we were ready to ascend.  That worked fine.  Eventually we called it, on cold or just being done.  I'm not really sure which :)  It was actually sunny on the ride back, so I laid on the deck to try to warm up in the sun.  Brrrr.

Another Almost-Cancelled Boat

Yet again, on Friday I found staring at a really bad forecast for Saturday, and also found myself the "organizer" of a boat on Saturday.  There was a small craft advisory through Saturday afternoon, but the one good thing was that conditions were supposed to be improving throughout the day.  When we drove in on Saturday morning, the bay looked oddly glassy.  It was insanely windy (I thought the van was going to get knocked over on 156), but the wind was out of the south (or maybe southeast) so the bay was protected.  But a change in the wind direction was forecast.  When we got to K-dock, Jim was out driving around Point Pinos to check things out.  We all congregated in the parking lot for a while, and then we eventually decided that standing around in the parking lot at K-dock is for losers, and we should just load the boat, without hearing the verdict from Jim.  When Jim got back, I think he was a bit surprised to find everyone loading the boat :)  He basically told us that it was in the bay or nothing, and maybe nothing.  By the time the boat was loaded, the wind had definitely shifted, and now it was blowing like a @#$!  Jim was hopeful that this was just a short-lived squall (I guess that is the technical term for "blowing like  @#$!") so we took our time at K-dock and eventually left.  We motored out to Mile Buoy, which was super windy, and killed a little time there, then we motored out to Deep Ballbuster, which was windier still, and noted the difficulty of picking up divers in such conditions.  This was the first time in recent memory when I thought we might actually have to call it after going out.  Then we headed back in to Kawika's Garden, which was also pretty dang windy, but not as scary as Deep Ballbuster.  It seemed like conditions were improving, but it might just be because Kawika's is closer in.

Everyone decided to leave their scooters on the boat, given the site.  Rob and I also decided to leave our O2 bottles on the boat, so we were going in light :)  We were the first to splash, and the viz looked good on top.  We swam over to the downline, and started our descent.  The first thing I noticed was how silent it was.  We should leave the scooters on the boat more often :)  The viz got worse as we descended, and by the time we were on the bottom, it was pretty bad.  Maybe 15 feet.  Maybe 20, but very green.  Rob was shooting macro, so we began inching along the bottom.  It was reasonably surgy at times, though not so surgy to make photography impossible.  But we didn't see very much of interest.  I was surprised that we didn't see any basket stars, since it was reasonably dark.  We did find one Tochuina, which was on a very pathetic little stump of a gorgonian, which looked like it had been run over with a lawn mower.  While trying to get a picture of it, it ended up flying around in the water column, getting knocked too and fro by the surge.  Rob made a valiant attempt to get it to grab on to a gorgonian, but it just wasn't interested.  Then he tried to get it to hold on to the reef, or another gorgonian.  But it was curled up like a rolly polly bug, refusing to hang on to anything.  So he tried to sit it on the bottom, though I'm sure the next bit of surge had it flying again.

There were some fish.  Some interesting juveniles, the usual assortment of adults, and the school on top.  But we only encountered the school once briefly during the dive.  Eventually we thumbed the dive, and after moving a bit shallower, I pulled the bag out.  I looked down, and from there, we had an excellent view of the school.  It looked really cool from above, and we watched them through our deep stops.  Deco was pretty uneventful for the first few stops.  As we got shallower, the viz improved, and we started to see some interesting little deco critters.  At 20 feet, Rob decided to try to get some shots of the critters.  He gave me a small jellyfish (a baby sea nettle, I think) with a little crab on its back to hold, while he got his camera out :)  Then after a few frustrating shots, he tasked me with using my HID light as a focusing light.  So we contorted ourselves around each other, as the jellyfish swam around, and he got a bunch of shots.  Just after he had stowed his camera, we saw a Scrippsia pacifica just below us, so he got his camera out for more pictures.  We ended up "overstaying" at our 20 foot stop for 10 minutes to get pictures.  This was probably the most fun part of the dive.  Then we finally ascended, still the first team to surface :)  When we surfaced, it was still whitecapping around us.  The boat came to pick us up, and as we were drifting past the back of it, Rob grabbed the ladder and I got just beyond it and was kicking hard, and stuck less than one body length behind the swimstep.  I asked the crew for a line, and Rob turned back to me, holding onto the ladder, and not making any attempt to help me and just said "why do you need a line?".  Jackass.  By the time the line was about to be tossed out, I had made it back to the swimstep under my own power.

There was not even any talk of a second dive, so we headed to La Tortuga instead.  It was a dive.  Not all dives can be epic.

BAUE Rec Boat

Photo by Clinton Bauder

Saturday was the March BAUE recreational boat.  Somehow I ended up organizing this one.  The forecast was looking pretty horrendous in the middle of the week... does this sound familiar?  So we were keeping a close eye on the forecast, to see if the boat should even attempt to go, but by Friday afternoon, the forecast was not too horrible.  8 to 10 foot swell and 10 knot winds, or something.  But building in the afternoon.  We also got a report of good viz in the bay, though, so I figured we could get a couple of dives in.  When we got down to Monterey, the flag was at attention, though once again pointing out to sea.  And it started to rain just as we got off the highway.  Jim said that it had been really windy, but the wind direction was changing and we were basically in the lull before it got really windy again.  So we were hoping to make it to Carmel for at least one dive.  The conditions turned out to not be too bad on the way down (at least I didn't think so).  We made it around Point Pinos without any problem.  There were fairly big, long period swells, but the wind was not too bad.  Just the occasional whitecap.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We pulled up to East Pinnacle and were told to get the heck in the water, so we could get out of there before conditions got too much worse.  So that is what we did.  I was diving with Rob and Clinton.  Rob was shooting macro and Clinton was shooting wide angle.  Clinton definitely made the better choice, at least for this dive.  The water color and viz were good, probably 30 to 40 feet.  I started to see fish (on top of the pinnacle) at like 20 feet on the way down.  It was crazy surgy though.  Not continuously, but every couple of minutes the surge machine would be turned on and we'd be dragged back and forth across the reef, and then eventually set back down, maybe where we started, or maybe not :)  So, needless to say, Rob didn't do much with his camera.  Clinton led us around on a little tour of the best hydrocoral spots at the site (all those rocks look the same to me), and then we circled back to the little school of blue rockfish that we saw at the beginning.  I just hung out atop the pinnacle in the washing machine while Clinton took pictures of them.  We had scooters (because Rob wanted to test out his just-back-from-service motor), which made it slightly less scary to be churned about next to the pinnacle, because if rock was rapidly approaching my face, I could always scooter out of it.  About 40 minutes into the dive, I noticed that all of the other teams had departed up the anchor line, and Clinton had just finished up taking pictures of a patch of hydrocoral, so we thumbed it.  When we surfaced, it was windier, but not so rough as to make reboarding the boat any big thang.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

Once we were back on board, we headed back to the bay.  Conditions had certainly deteriorated, but the worst thing about the ride back was that it was insanely cold, and the wind did not help in this respect.  I really need to get some giant ear muffs or a hat with ear flaps for winter boats (now that the winter is nearly over... I hope).  I was wondering on the ride back if it was actually colder on the surface than in the water.  I couldn't believe it was, but then as I was gearing up for the second dive, I noticed that on the surface, my gauge recorded a temperature of 44 degrees, whereas the water on the first dive had been a not too cold 50 degrees.  No wonder it was so freakin' cold on the ride back from Carmel!  We pulled up behind the aquarium, to Hopkins.  As far as I know, we weren't given any choices for the dive, but Jim said there should not be surge here.  And that the reports were that there was good viz.

Photo by Robert Lee

I jumped in first, and looked down and the viz was really good on top.  As we descended, there was a distinct layer in the water right around 30 feet, where it went from blue to green (and there was a lot of "stuff" in the water right around that layer) but at the bottom, the viz was still quite good.  Again I'd call it 30 to 40 feet, bright, but a bit green.  Definitely really good viz for the bay.  We just meandered around the site, looking for critters, and posing for pictures with the metridiums.  We had a lot more success on finding macro critters on this dive -- the lack of surge (for the most part) helped a lot.  I found a pretty small wolf eel just poking his head out of a crack.  I was above a structure that had a several feet deep crack running across the top and ending at the side.  So if you were facing the side, you would see a vertical crack.  Anyway, I looked down in the the crack from on top, and saw grey.  Hmmm.  I wasn't even sure if his head was sticking out of the side before I signaled Rob to point out that there was a wolf eel down there.  But sure enough, when I swam over to the edge of the rock and dropped down along the side, there he was, just peeking out.  Team Bunny was nearby, so we dragged them over to look at the eel too.

Photo by Robert Lee

Eventually we moved on from that and swam across some sand to another pile of boulders (maybe those rocks are too big to be called boulders).  Rob and Clinton swam right over a little rock pile on the bottom with a not-very-small red octopus among the rocks.  He wasn't really hidden at all, except that he was completely frozen with his legs tucked under him along the side of a rock, and he totally blended in with the rock.  I signaled Rob, who swam back. I circled the octo with my light.  He looked straight at it, paused, and then looked back at me like "huh?"  Then I circled it again and he finally realized he was staring at an octopus.  Then he started taking some pictures.  Once he was finished with some pictures, I got a little closer (didn't want to spook him before Rob got pictures). I did spook him a bit, but he just moved, out onto the sand, extending his legs and changing color to blend into the sand.  So then Rob took more pictures of him.  Eventually John, Carol, and Teresa came by and we showed them the octopus.  We eventually left him alone, and not too long after that, Rob found another, smaller octopus, which by the time I came along was totally hidden in a crack.  But I could peer into it and see him there.  We finally headed back to where we started, near the anchor line.  That area seemed to be filled with lingcod.  There was one really big one, which was either the same one we had seen on the way down to the site or there were two big ones, and lots of medium to small ones, and one really tiny one that was so cute I wanted to pinch his cheeks.  Clinton also found a big cabezon, stuffed into an odd position along a crack, basically head down.  He was a pretty strange color, almost a fluorescent green.  It was a pretty nice find.

Photo by Robert Lee

After that, we thumbed the dive, and headed up the line, which we were right next to.  When we surfaced, there were whitecaps all around us.  As I was waiting at the swimstep, Jim pointed out to me that I was trailing a little line of oil droplets, because my compass had been smashed.  I noticed a bubble in it before the first dive, which I didn't remember being there, but I didn't look at it too closely.  I guess that was fairly dumb of me.  Upon closer inspection, there was a web of small cracks emanating from the center.  I suspect it got smashed in my luggage on the way back from Florida.  I didn't notice it wasn't working in the water, because on the first dive I used the compass on my scooter, and on the second dive I didn't use my compass at all :)  Anyhoo, we got back on the boat and then headed back to K-dock, by which point it was raining really hard.  We headed to the Chowder House, and then to Anywater to, among other things, replace my compass.

All of the day's pictures are here.

Ted's Cave 2 Adventure

Rob and I were wanting to do a longer (full week) trip to Florida before the hot months come. Ted meanwhile was looking to take Cave 2 sometime in the winter or early spring. So we wanted to overlap so that we could dive with him the weekend after class. In the end we decided to just go the same week since there are certain conveniences associated with traveling together (although it does complicate the cat sitter situation).

In the past, I have bulk posted all of my reports for a trip at once, but with 10 whole days of cave diving (!) to write about, that doesn't really make sense.  So this time, I will trickle the posts, and update the master list below as I post.

Ginnie Shakeout Dive
Little River: the last room?
Manatee
Ginnie Springs: Main Land
Eagle's Nest, Upstream
Peacock Tour
Eagle's Nest, Upstream-er
Corrupting Ted at Ginnie
Double Domes
Ice Room-ward