Since Lynne and Peter were in town, Kevin setup a boat on Memorial Day. I dove with Rob and Lynne. Of course since we were on a boat, the conditions were crappy :( When it became obvious that we weren't going to make it to Carmel, we discussed Ballbuster. I stated my interest in not Ballbuster, since that seems to be where we always go when we can't make it to Carmel. I told Rob I would prefer Aumentos, but either was fine, and he promptly relayed to the wheelhouse that I had no preference. Nice :) But Kevin was on my side, so we ended up at Aumentos.
It was mucky on the surface, but the viz was alright on the bottom. Not as good as the last time I was there though. I was leading the dive. I didn't notice at first that there was a pretty stiff current. So I accidentally swam us with the current, then after a few minutes, when I noticed it, it was a bit of a huff to get back to the area of the line. Doh. After that, I pretty much just did a shot-gun pattern out a bit from the anchor line and then back, since I wanted to ensure that we would actually make it back to the anchor in the end :) I made a couple of exciting finds on the dive -- a wolf eel (yay!) and a medium-sized octopus. I was pretty excited about the wolf eel, and Rob didn't seem to care. I guess he was just pouting about going to Aumentos. He did, however, take some pictures of it. Aside from that, we saw several kelpfish, which Aumentos always seems to have a lot of, and quite a few Dendronotus albus. Eventually I called the dive, as we were approaching an hour. The ascent was in pretty icky viz.
For the second dive, we went to Shale Island. I thought this would be a good spot to find some nudis to show to Lynne. Unfortunately I don't think I lived up to her nudi-finding expectations. I just didn't bring my A-game I guess. I think the best thing I found was a Limacia, but I lost it by the time I got Lynne's attention. I also found two little octopuses. Both were out on the reef, so it's not like they were hard to find. One of them looked like he was standing up on his little tippy-tentacles. It was very cute. Unfortunately we didn't make it the whole way around and after about 55 minutes I had to call it. I have no idea how that happened, I guess we were just moving a lot slower than I thought! We shot a bag and watched the reef blow by as I was ascended. It was a bit of a swim back to the boat once we got to the surface. For the first couple minutes of swimming I was convinced I was not getting any closer to the boat, but eventually we made it back. I guess we drifted quite a bit. At lunch, Jim asked where we went on the dive (to which I replied "uh, Shale Island, isn't that where everyone went?") -- apparently by the time our bag went up at 30 feet, we had already drifted off of the site. Afterward we (plus some other buddies who didn't make it for the boat) went to La Tortuga for lunch.
Since Lynne and Peter were in town, Kevin setup a boat on Memorial Day. I dove with Rob and Lynne. Of course since we were on a boat, the conditions were crappy :( When it became obvious that we weren't going to make it to Carmel, we discussed Ballbuster. I stated my interest in not Ballbuster, since that seems to be where we always go when we can't make it to Carmel. I told Rob I would prefer Aumentos, but either was fine, and he promptly relayed to the wheelhouse that I had no preference. Nice :) But Kevin was on my side, so we ended up at Aumentos.
It was mucky on the surface, but the viz was alright on the bottom. Not as good as the last time I was there though. I was leading the dive. I didn't notice at first that there was a pretty stiff current. So I accidentally swam us with the current, then after a few minutes, when I noticed it, it was a bit of a huff to get back to the area of the line. Doh. After that, I pretty much just did a shot-gun pattern out a bit from the anchor line and then back, since I wanted to ensure that we would actually make it back to the anchor in the end :) I made a couple of exciting finds on the dive -- a wolf eel (yay!) and a medium-sized octopus. I was pretty excited about the wolf eel, and Rob didn't seem to care. I guess he was just pouting about going to Aumentos. He did, however, take some pictures of it. Aside from that, we saw several kelpfish, which Aumentos always seems to have a lot of, and quite a few Dendronotus albus. Eventually I called the dive, as we were approaching an hour. The ascent was in pretty icky viz.
For the second dive, we went to Shale Island. I thought this would be a good spot to find some nudis to show to Lynne. Unfortunately I don't think I lived up to her nudi-finding expectations. I just didn't bring my A-game I guess. I think the best thing I found was a Limacia, but I lost it by the time I got Lynne's attention. I also found two little octopuses. Both were out on the reef, so it's not like they were hard to find. One of them looked like he was standing up on his little tippy-tentacles. It was very cute. Unfortunately we didn't make it the whole way around and after about 55 minutes I had to call it. I have no idea how that happened, I guess we were just moving a lot slower than I thought! We shot a bag and watched the reef blow by as I was ascended. It was a bit of a swim back to the boat once we got to the surface. For the first couple minutes of swimming I was convinced I was not getting any closer to the boat, but eventually we made it back. I guess we drifted quite a bit. At lunch, Jim asked where we went on the dive (to which I replied "uh, Shale Island, isn't that where everyone went?") -- apparently by the time our bag went up at 30 feet, we had already drifted off of the site. Afterward we (plus some other buddies who didn't make it for the boat) went to La Tortuga for lunch.
No comments:
Post a Comment