Really Bad Viz

Saturday and Sunday, we were supposed to be videoing for a Fundies class at the Breakwater. The viz was incredibly bad, however, which resulted in the dives being called early on both days. It was particularly unpleasant when we first dropped down to setup the line course. Once we had the line in, it wasn't so bad, since at least we had that to follow :) By the time I was up for video'ing, the viz was so bad on the bottom that I gave up even attempting to video. I was able to video the ascents, however, since it got progressively better as we got shallower. From about 20' up, it was definitely video'able. Sunday we looked at Monastery and CRB but decided not to dive based on the conditions. That was too bad, since the viz looked way better on the Carmel side. When we went in to setup the line on Sunday, we were quite enthusiastic about how much better the viz. I would guess it was about 8', which is really plenty of viz for a class on a line. We got to the surface and met up with Beto and the students and told them the good news. By the time everyone got situated and we made it down to the bottom, the swampy less than 5' viz had engulfed the spot we were on. Hmph. We called it early, and the class had to be postponed to a later date.

Rob and I decided to swim in underwater after we finished on Sunday. There turned out to be really good viz (until we silted it out), from about 15' in. While we were swimming along, goofing off over the sand, I saw a little plume of sand which I couldn't identify the source of. Rob later told me there was a pacific electric ray that I had scared from the sand. Unfortunately I totally missed it! There were also lots of those little olive snails out mating in the sand. That was literally all there was to report.