Lobos Middle Reef

On Sunday we went to Lobos with Leah, and did two dives around Middle Reef. We managed to get there late (later than Leah), even though we stayed overnight in Monterey (thanks, Cynthia). Those Big Sur boats are kind of brutal. I don't think I am hard core enough to do two days of diving when one of them is a Big Sur trip. Anyhoo, it seemed pretty uncrowded when we got there, I'm not sure why. It never really seemed to fill up (in terms of number of divers). Matt and John were there too, and Al eventually showed up.

We decided to head out along the west side of middle reef, and then at some point to pop over to the east side, and come back in on that side. I suggested that we could swim out to transect 4, and cut over there, since there is that nice little cut through, but we figured we'd play it by ear depending on gas constraints. I was leading, followed by Leah and then Rob. We dropped in the sand channel just a bit north of the worm patch, and headed out along the sand channel until the viz cleared up a bit. Then we cut over to the reef. We just meandered along, pointing stuff out as we saw it -- various dorids, Hermissendas, and the occasional fish in a crack. We had told Leah we would try to show her the warbonnet, so when we got there, I used all of the tricks to find him, and I couldn't. I just didn't see any suitable warbonnet holes where he was supposed to be... then I noticed a starfish sprawled across the reef, right around where the warbonnet was supposed to be. Hmm. I asked Rob to take a look and he couldn't find him either, so we decided the starfish must be over his hole. Anyhoo, it was just about time to pop over to the east side and head in, and we just happened to be right by transect 4, so we cut through there. The viz seemed better on the east side. We swam back along the right side of the channel, hugging the wall, and peering under the various overhangs, looking at the fish, etc. that were hiding. As we got shallower and the reef structure became less distinct, I headed southwest, hoping I would soon run into something familiar looking from the west side. Then I saw some lights in the distance and realized it was John and Matt doing some drills on the worm patch. We killed a few more minutes at some right by the worm patch, while Rob went and harassed John and Matt, and then we ascended there. 45 feet, 42 minutes, 50 degrees

After a surface interval and some snacks, we headed back into the water. For the second dive, we decided to check out the reef on the other side of the sand channel. We swam out on the surface a little past the worm patch, and dropped in the sand channel, then Rob led us over to the left. We swam over the rubbly reef until we got to the bigger structures toward the west. Then we followed those out to the north. We stopped along the way for a few pictures, and to take a look at a couple of interesting critters, including a Hilton's aeolid and an interesting Limacia, which had very few cerata -- not sure what was up with that. At around 40 or 45 feet, we headed east and crossed the sand channel, to come back along middle reef. A bit further in, we then hopped over middle reef to the east side, and continued in. We ended up ascending at the worm patch again. 41 feet, 51 minutes, 50 degrees

Lunch followed at RG Burgers, where they really outdid themselves with terrible service.