Go Big and Go Home

Photo by Clinton Bauder

Saturday was another BAUE tech charter.  It was a light load today, with just John, Clinton, Jim and me on the boat.  The light load was mostly due to Rob and Kevin being in Florida, cave diving without me (grumble) as they celebrated Rob's (self-inflicted) unemployment.  The forecast was, as far as I knew, good but not great, so I was a bit surprised when there was talk of Big Sur.  Somewhere along the ride down, we came up with the idea of trying a new spot in Big Sur, Sur D.  It took a bit of scrounging around to find the numbers for the site (and in the process, I texted Rob and Matt, who was also in Florida, asking if they had the numbers with them), but in the end, Jim had them.  So we decided that if we could make it to Big Sur, that is where we'd go.  My desire to go there may have been just a little bit motivated by the fact that Rob, Kevin, and Matt were all in Florida, so going to a new dive site in Big Sur seemed like the ultimate revenge.  So, not the best reason in the world to motivate a dive plan...

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We got to Yankee Point, which was definitely diveable, though there was the occasional whitecap about.  However, we continued on down the coast, and maybe halfway between Yankee and Point Sur, conditions had deteriorated to whitecaps in all directions.  Every time the boat slowed down for any reason, we were sure that Mike and Jim were going to turn it around.  But astonishingly, we made it all the way out to Big Sur Banks.  There was a stiff wind, but barely any swell to speak of.  If we had this kind of wind on top of any swell at all, I'm sure we would have been deterred, but it kind of looked "flat" even though it was choppy as hell from the wind.  We got to Sur D, and found the spot, and dropped the ball.  As I was getting geared up, I was wondering if I would regret it when it was time to get back on the boat, which I was sure would be quite challenging in this wind.  Our plan was to dive as a team of four, but with primary buddies (me with Jim).  So Jim and I got in first.  By the time Jim had cleared the swimstep and I could jump, the boat had already drifted downwind of the ball.  Oops.  

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We got on the trigger and headed toward the ball.  We scootered for a while, at top speed, and we were still really far from the ball.  So we scootered some more, and we were still really far from the ball.  It seemed like we were making progress for a while, but then it started to seem like we weren't.  The second team was dropped, and they were actually upwind when they got in, but I think by the time they had scooters, maybe not.  Eventually we stopped to regroup and decided to give it just a bit longer, so we got back on the trigger, and gave it maybe another two minutes, and at that point, it seemed like we were further from the ball than we had been two minutes ago.  So at that point we gave up, and shortly after that, so did the other team.  Given the conditions, redeploying further up-current wasn't an option;  I knew that after getting back on the boat, I wasn't going to be up for another dive just right then.  The boat came around to get us, and I was a bit confused about whether I was supposed to wait for the boat, or scooter to the boat.  Jim scootered and I waited, so we ended up separated.  When he got to the swimstep, I realized there was no way I could catch up with the boat in this wind, so I just had to hang out and wait.  The boat was drifting away really fast, and I was getting further and further from it, so I put up my bag.  There wasn't much in the way of swell, but whitecaps were breaking over my head occasionally.  Finally the boat spun around and got me, and actually staying with the boat was not as bad as I expected, but it was still not what you'd call a graceful exit from the water :)  

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We retrieved Clinton and John, and then we went to retrieve the ball.  That was a whole other ordeal.  They were at it for a while, I'd say 15 or 20 minutes, and eventually the line came up without the ball... with a sheared off boltsnap at the end of the ball.  And it wasn't even sheared off at the hollow part of the shaft, it was at the solid part!  So that was an extra eff you from the ocean; not only could we not dive, but we lost our ball (good reason to go back though!).  So, we headed back north, thinking we'd hit Yankee Point, which had been just lovely on the way down.  But of course, by the time we got back up there, conditions were terrible.  But more shocking, conditions were terrible the whole way back up to Monterey.  And it wasn't just rough; it was SLOW.  I swear it took like 2 hours to get from Lobos to Pinos :)  Okay, that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but it felt like it took that long!  Coming around Cypress Point took forever.  It's like we just weren't making forward progress.  And it was strange, because if you looked out across the water, it didn't look "rough".  The swell wasn't bit, and yes there were some whitecaps, but not insanely many.  But those little swells were super steep, and the seas were very confused.  When we finally made it to Pinos, we were all just relieved to be back.  When we got into the bay, we were offered our choice of dive sites.  Our choice of two, that is :P  There was some talk of just calling it a day, but after being on the boat for 6 hours, I was going diving!  So we ended up at Kawika's, since we'd just been to Mile Buoy the previous weekend.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We decided to dive as a team of four, and to leave the scooters on the boat.  Thankfully, it was very flat at Kawika's.  The visibility on the bottom was pretty good (for Kawika's) but not excellent.  The fish life was quite good on the dive; we saw a bunch of big lings, including one super monster lingzilla.  And I saw another brown rockfish.  It wasn't an awesome dive, but we were just all happy to get a dive in after the journey.  We were visited by a bunch of sea lions on deco, which was fun :)

After our short ride back to the dock, the sun was already low in the sky.  Long day for a dive at Kawika's!