Another Rocky Day on the M.V. Sammet

Team Kitty was back out on Phil's boat again on Friday.  I'm trying to cram in as much Friday diving as possible right now.  The forecast looked pretty good, though the reality was somewhat different from that.  It was pretty rocky once we were outside of Whaler's, and as we headed around the point, it just got worse.  At some point, a bit past the E3 area, it was sort of scary rough, so we stopped there to discuss.  We decided to peek around the point, to see if the conditions were any different there, and then turn back if they were not.  After a rough ride around the point, conditions actually calmed down a lot, much to my surprise.  There were still whitecaps around, but it wasn't scary big.  There was some patchy fog around, which was a bit of a concern.  Based on that, we decided to go to Birthday Wall, and come up the main peak (rather than scootering to one of the other peaks).  This way we could come right back to the line to shoot our bag, in case the fog moved in over the area.

When we got to the site, we drove around looking at the depth sounder, as usual, and we found a slightly shallower spot than usual, in the 130s.  We can never usually find that spot.  So, we dropped anchor, got geared up, which was only mildly barf-inducing, and rolled into the water.  We headed down the line into sort of murky but bright green water.  I wouldn't call the viz bad, but there was a good bit of particulate in the water column.  It cleared up as we got deeper, but then it was darker.  Not as dark as it sometimes is at the start of the wall there though.  Overall I would call the viz pretty good.  It was also pretty cold.  We hit the structure shallower than usual, which came as a surprise as I descended.  I think there are two peaks right next to each other, and one comes a bit shallower.  I'm pretty sure the first time we ever went to the site, we anchored on the shallower of the two (which comes to about 130'), but since then, we've always ended up on the deeper (which comes to about 150').  There were a lot of juvenile rockfish on the pinnacle; more on that later.

We headed down the wall, and pretty much right after we got to the bottom, Kevin's scooter crapped out.  Doh.  He did not require a tow however, since we were moving with the current at that point.  There is often a current in that direction here, and it was a bit more than usual, but not ripping or anything.  Since we were just drifting with the current, and we'd started at the further (from the deep wall) pinnacle, I wasn't sure that we'd make it to Flaggle Rock.  But before you know it, I recognized the rock pile where they like to hang out.  I looked around for them a bit and couldn't find any :(  So I looked around at the wall next to it a bit.  There were the usual assortment of juveniles and "red rockfish" and some lings.  In the deep portion of the dive, the fish life was good, but not particularly epic, compared to how it often is.  Then at some point I looked back to the rock pile, and a flaggie had appeared!  He was just sitting there, tucked against a rock, waiting to be admired.  I pointed him out to Rob, who got to work taking pictures.  It was pretty much time go to, so once we head done, we started up the wall, when a ratfish appeared!  I thought it was a pretty big specimen, though Rob and Kevin didn't really agree.  He was swimming down the wall, bumping along, as Rob got a few pictures.  Then it was really time to go, so we headed up and in along the wall.

Now we were going against the current, so I figured eventually Kevin would ask for a tow.  He swam for a while, we eventually stopped to go onto our 190' bottles, and then finally after a bit more swimming, I think he got a pretty brief tow from Rob.  We returned to the shallow pinnacle, which was completely engulfed in juvenile (err, YOY) rockfish.  It was completely disorienting to be in the swarm.  I took some video of it, and then I had to extricate myself, so I could get my bearings.  Then I just hung off of the pinnacle for a bit, watching them.  We were right next to the anchor line at this point, so when the time came, we headed up the line, and shot the bag somewhere during the deep stops.  We stayed on the line through the 70' and 60' stops (which was fairly annoying, because there was a little current), and then started to drift.  The viz got markedly worse at about 50'; it was still really bright, but there were lots of particles (which looked white to me) hanging in the water.  It got a little warmer too, but not by much.

When we surfaced, the sun still hadn't really come out, but the wind had completely laid down.  The ride back was crazy flat, though foggy.  I couldn't believe how much it had changed in just a couple of hours.  The super sporty ride around the point was dead calm, but then there was also fog basically right up to Whaler's Cove (making the ride back a bit scary in a different way, especially with Kevin driving :P).  While we were waiting for Phil to bring the trailer back, we noticed that the rock off to the south of the ramp has a nesting sea gull on it.  The babies were still fuzzy and apparently couldn't fly.  Very cute.  She was not too appreciative of us buzzing around her rock though.  (That reminds me, on the way out, we also saw a sea otter with her baby, in Whaler's Cove.  Maybe the same one I saw there two weeks ago.)

Bob's Birthday Boat

Photo by Robert Lee

Saturday was Rob's birthday, so we went on the Cypress Sea Big Sur trip to celebrate. The sea conditions were not stellar, but the ride down was mostly fine. Until we got down there. Beto and Rob had some sites (including Los Piedras Wall) they wanted to go to on the north of Point Sur, and then Phil came up with an alternative which he claimed was somewhat similar. We got to Phil's site, and then he spun around the site a few times, making me want to barf. He decided it wasn't diveable. We continued on to Los Piedras Wall, and took a few spins around it (at which point, I slid off of the bench and laid on the deck, trying not to barf), and Phil decided that it too was undiveable, so we would have to go south of Point Sur. Once we got going, I felt a lot better.

Photo by Clinton Bauder

We ended up at a new (I think) site in the vicinity of Portholes, which had two peaks next to each other, coming up to about 50 feet and going down to 100-ish. The water looked pretty green when we hopped in. As we headed down the line, we encountered an egg yolk jelly which we swam over to take a look at. The anchor was laying a little ways off from the pinnacles, so we swam in the direction of the pinnacles and picked a direction to go (right, but I have no idea what cardinal direction that corresponds to). We slowly worked our way around the pinnacle, with Rob shooting wide-angle and Clinton shooting macro. The viz was probably around 40 feet, but there was a lot of particulate, and it was green. The highlight of the dive, for me, was finding a Cadlina limbaughorum. Rob and I have seen this slug once at Lobos, and I think Clinton had also seen it exactly once, at Lobos. I knew neither of them had a good picture, so I was glad at least one of

Photo by Robert Lee

them was shooting macro! When I pointed it out to each of them, they each looked at it like they didn't know why I was pointing out some boring Cadlina to them, and then it suddenly hit them what they were looking at. I have been wondering if we'd ever see another one around here. But I think they are common in SoCal, so I guess it's not that surprising that we would see it in Big Sur. Aside from that, I saw a lot of cute little sculpins, tons of trilineatas, and several Aegeris. Rob pointed out a treefish hanging out in a crack, and there were oodles of copper (I think) rockfish. The reef had a lot of neat little crevices and overhangs, that were good for fish to hide in.

Photo by Robert Lee

When it was time to head back, we swam back around the pinnacle, it was impossible to see where the anchor/line were, so we decided to just ascend along a piece of kelp, instead of searching for the line. During the ascent, we poke around at the kelp leaves, looking for nudibranchs and such. There were a bunch of Corambe, and I have a feeling there was something else cool that Clinton got some shots of, but I no longer remember what it was. When we got to the surface, the boat was not too far away. During the briefing, Phil had told me that he had lowered the swimstep a few inches (the last time I was on the boat, I spent the ride back complaining to Phil about the swimstep :P). It was WAY easier to board -- I could actually pull myself completely up on it without a tug on my manifold. 97 feet, 64 minutes, 48 degrees

Photo by Robert Lee

We motored further south, because a lot of us wanted to go to Compost. We noticed that the water was a gross shade of brown, but then it suddenly cleared up -- you could literally see a line from the surface where it went from brown to greenish-blue. Right around there, we also passed a pod of Risso dolphins. We got to Compost, where the water was a bit clearer and bluer than the previous dive. We started at poking around on the boulders on the bottom just off of the pinnacle. I was swimming around, not really even looking for slugs when I noticed a Eubranchus on a hydroid. After pointing it out to Clinton, I realized they were everywhere and he was almost certainly already looking at them :) I also found one of the yellow slugs which we thought was Aldisa sanguinea, so I pointed it out to Clinton. Afterwards, he agreed that that's what it was, so I guess that solves that mystery. Eventually we headed back to the pinnacle, and started swimming around it clockwise. Rob found a cool little jelly (or piece of a salp chain maybe?) off of the pinnacle, and I swam over to take a look. Eventually Clinton joined us to take some pictures. Then we noticed that there was a not-insignificant current, as we drifted away from the pinnacle :)

Photo by Robert Lee

We continued around to the other end, where there are some bigger structures off the end of the main pinnacle. It was over here that we saw a wolf eel last year. Sure enough, as we came around, someone signaled to me and I swan over and saw a wolf eel, completely out in the open. Of course he scurried under a rock before Rob could get any pics. Then we poked around there for a while. Rob was chasing a cabezon, who hopped from rock to rock, pausing long enough for Rob to get a shot or two off before he moved on. I was looking through the kelp at the various cute little sculpins skittering around. Eventually we decided to continue around the pinnacle. We passed Beto and Susan we hanging out under a really pretty overhang, covered in the cotton-candy colors of Corynactis and various sponges. We were swimming against the current, which was actually a bit of a fight, and then we finally came around a corner, so that we were now going with the current, and we basically got dragged around the end of the pinnacle in short order and taken for a ride back up to the other end. By this time it was time to begin our ascent. Compost comes up to about 30 feet, so there was nice scenery on the way up, and even on top, there was kelp, so we spent our 20 foot stop looking at the Corambe's on the kelp (there were tons of them!). After that, we headed over to the line and spent the ascent kicking slowly against the current to stay with the line. 99 feet, 66 minutes, 48 degrees

Photo by Robert Lee

For the third dive, we headed back north close to where we did the first dive. I'm not sure what exactly transpired, because after eating some tasty croissant sandwiches, I took a nap on the deck. It was quite cozy, especially the metal parts which were nice and warm from the sun. I have never understood how anyone could sleep on the deck, but now I finally get it... once I found a suitable pillow (Rob's leg), it was a great nap (and a great way to get sunburned). When we got to the site for dive 3, I really didn't feel like getting back in :P I got the feeling that everyone sort of felt that way, since it had been a long day already. We ended up at a site with 2 peaks, the shallowest of which came up to around 40 feet. I think the viz was a little better than the first site (in terms of the water being clean) but it was still fairly dark at depth. Right where we dropped, there was a wall from maybe 50 feet down to about 100 feet, which was pretty cool. We swam along it and eventually that petered out to a lower-lying reef from about 80 feet to the bottom. While we were poking around there, I saw a Dirona, but lost site of it because of all of the kelp flapping in the breeze. Clinton found a pair of Ancula gibbosas, which I was very excited to see (I think I've only seen one once before, also near Big Sur). Clinton also pointed out a stalked jellyfish to me, which I had never seen before.

Photo by Robert Lee

This section of the reef was a little deeper than I wanted to average, so I suggested we head back to the earlier wall part, which came up shallower. We headed back, and passed John and Matt, who pointed something out to Clinton. When I swam over to look, Clinton indicated that he didn't know what they had pointed at. Apparently they saw two Dironas. We continued along, stopping at a little ridge off to the side of the pinnacle, which had a few nice hydrocoral bushes. Then we headed back to the wall and a little shallower. We passed the anchor, and while Rob was taking some pictures, I signaled to Clinton that we should head up when he was done. In the meantime, Clinton found a really cool new-to-me slug, Doto amyra -- it was tiny! After he finished taking pics, we headed up. Once we got above the pinnacle, there was significant current. I was alternating between hanging onto the line and swimming against the current just off the line, but eventually settled on hanging onto the line :) A variety of jellyfish drifted by us while we were there, including a lot of egg yolk jellies. It was fun to watch the jellyfish parade, but not so fun hanging onto the line, so I was pretty happy when we hit the surface ;) 96 feet, 66 minutes, 46 degrees

Photo by Clinton Bauder

On the way home, we had cupcakes for Rob's birthday. Rob said later that it would have probably been better to save the cupcake for after the hellish trip home. It was definitely bumpy in spots, but not the worst trip back from Big Sur that I've had. Definitely worse than average though. I rode back in the wheelhouse, where I listened to John and Phil take turns telling jokes. The highlight was definitely the Menachem joke :)

Mutiny on the Cypress Sea

On Saturday we went on our first Cypress Sea Big Sur trip of the season. The idea was to do a farewell boat trip with Jonathan, since this would be his last weekend in town :( As a result, our dive clique had nearly all of the spots on the trip. Even some of the more elusive boat divers (like Don and Elissa) made an appearance. The festivities really started the night before. Given the 6 AM boat departure, no one wanted to have to drive down in the morning, but the Monterey Blues Festival made hotel rooms crazy expensive. Since all of Jonathan's furniture had already been moved out, we had a slumber party (sleeping bags and all) in his living room. We also had a bonfire on the beach on Friday night, which was fun.

Anyhoo, after boarding the boat, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5:30 AM, we headed down the coast. The water was crazy calm. It was like we never left the bay (or the harbor for that matter). On the way down, I enjoyed some oatmeal -- they have a fabulous new cinnamon roll flavored oatmeal on board which I highly recommend. Rob bossed Phil around and convinced him that we should go to a site we went to last year, that was a long crack that we thought would be fun to scooter. But we would do a site north of Point Sur first. The whole Big Sur coast smelled like a campfire throughout the day. We ended up at this site which Phil called "Castle Rock" (which is apparently the site that Beto calls "Las Piedras Wall"). This pinnacle goes from about 70 feet down to 140 or so feet, and is long and thin. It's about 500' long and maybe 100' wide. After we saw the bathymetry map, we decided it would be a good site to scooter, since the navigation would be trivial. We hopped into the water, and swam back to the swim step to grab our scooters, which was pretty crowded with 5 scooters on board. But mine was easy to identify as the one with the Death Kitty on it (care of Ken Gwin). There was a bit of current at this site, so scootering was nice. We headed down the line, and it was quite easy to stay with the line and with each other on the way down. This was my first scooter dive from a boat. It was very nice to be able to pause to clear my ears without either having to hang on the line or kick kick kick while waiting for my ears to cooperate. The visibility was not spectacular from the surface, and it was pretty green. By the time we got down to the pinnacle, it was quite dark, but the visibility was really good.

The anchor was on the east side of the pinnacle, near the south end. We decided to scooter down to the south end first, to check it out. Down at the south end, there was a cool overhang at about 120'. We continued around the tip and it got much less pretty as we came up the west side, so we turned around and headed back to the overhang, where we poked around. The wall and overhang were covered in pink corynactis (which looked just smashing next to my pink drysuit), so they were impressive just to look at. There were some rockfish hanging out under the overhang, including a treefish and a China. Across the sand at the bottom a little to the south was a rock with a bunch of metridium on it. We eventually continued scootering back north on the east side, where we seemed to pass pretty much all of the other divers. We made it to the northern tip and then meandered back along the east side. There were scattered hydrocoral shrubs. Rob stopped to take some pictures of them, and I was poking around, when I found the smallest clown nudi I have ever seen. Kevin also pointed out some pastel purple corynactis to me (my favorite color corynactis :P) which I guess he'd never seen before. Before long, it was time to head up. The line was pretty crowded on the way up, with Jonathan and Kevin zipping around on their scooters (we had ours clipped off... so much more civilized). We eventually got sick of having to stay with the line and left it after we left 20 feet. Then we surface scooted back to the boat. 127 feet, 63 minutes, 46 degrees

After the dive, I was really cold, and it didn't seem to improve on the surface interval. I finally figured out why when I took my suit off to go to the bathroom (I can just hear Rob chastising me for not calling it "the head"), I was super wet! The backs of my legs from my butt to my knees were soaked. That's a new development :( I downed a cup o'noodles and some tea to try to warm up. Anyhoo, for the second dive, we went to the site Rob wanted to go to, which Phil calls "Monte Sur". Or maybe it is a site near Monte Sur. I'm not sure. The water was super flat and there was no current there. There was lots of kelp, and it was just lying lazily on the surface. We got into the water (I am perfecting the giant flop off of the Cypress Sea, which used to be a source of great stress for me), and got our scooters from the back. We descended at the swimstep because of all of the kelp, and headed over to the line in about 10 feet. The line was amazingly vertical. As we headed down, it was like we were on a different site than the last time we were there. Why? Because the viz sucked today :( I have memories of near tropical viz in blue water, where you could see the canyon/crack stretch out in both directions. Today, you couldn't even see across the channel in some spots. Oh well. We headed off in one direction and the wall sort of petered out pretty quickly. So we turned around and went the other direction. We scootered for a few minutes, getting the lay of the land, and eventually we stopped and clipped off and kicked from there. We passed a lot of blue rockfish and some olives. We moseyed along the reef, Rob taking some pictures, while I looked in the cracks for anything interesting. I found a few nice slugs -- trilineatas (including some "big" ones), several Aegires, and a mating pair of Adalaria jannae (or are they Onchidoris muricata?), plus lots of Hermissendas in different shades.

We eventually decided to head back to the line. Rob asked me which way the line was, and I told him, and confirmed his suspicion (we had actually meandered past it, I think, but it was across the crack so we didn't notice). So we headed back in that direction and after scootering a couple of minutes, we both started doubting ourselves. I told him let's go for another minute before we turn around, and then we saw a bunch of lights from the other divers (we had moseyed a lot further than we realized!). Nils had found a red (young?) wolf eel in a crack right next to the line. We checked it out and Rob took some pictures, and then we headed up. The line was pretty crowded, especially since once we got past the top of the crack, there was kelp everywhere on one side. I think I beaned someone in the face (who was above me) as I was ascending. When we got to 20', I noticed that a big dense school of blue rockfish had appeared in the kelp on the other side of the crack. I asked Rob if we could swim over and hang with them. So we went over and pretended to be rockfish, hanging with the school, for the rest of our hang. It was a very pretty scene, with all the rockfish and all of the kelp in the background. We swam to the back of the boat underwater (since there was kelp everywhere), and I found a little hole where I could ascend. I couldn't really even see where the back of the boat ended, so I was hoping this would be close enough to board. Nope. I was sent back under and had to clear some kelp with bubbles (actually, Rob cleared the kelp and I shared the hole in the kelp with him -- very romantic). Getting up on the swimstep, covered in kelp, was a slippery proposition. 96 feet, 68 minutes, 48 degrees

After dive two, we had sandwiches (a variety of meat and cheese on croissants) for lunch. Croissant sandwiches definitely get the Cold Water Kitty stamp of approval. A big improvement over the sandwiches from last year :)



For the last dive, we headed back to the north, since the viz was apparently better up there. We went to G spot, a pinnacle that tops around 40', and is about 100' at the bottom. I warned Rob that this would have to be a shorter dive, since I was really cold. We decided to leave our scooters behind for this dive. As soon as we started to descend, I sort of regretted that, as there was a bit of a current to swim into on the way down. Nothing terrible, but probably the worst of the day. As we got down the line, almost to the pinnacle, a really pretty egg yolk jelly appeared. I swam over to look at it, while Rob took some pictures. I felt a little bad to stick my face in the frame, but I really wanted to get a look! But alas, it was headed up, and I didn't feel like following it, so we continued down. When we got down to the pinnacle, there was a big vertical crack through the pinnacle right near the line. I wanted to go check it out, but first we had some business to attend to. Cynthia had been wanting a photo shoot with Rob for some time, and it kept not working out. So we met up with Cynthia and Al at the bottom of the line, and Rob took some pictures of Cynthia. After he was finished and signaled to move along, I suggested he get some glamour shots of Al too, so he did, and then we headed off. I wanted to check out the crack but for some reason, Rob whooshed past the crack and along the outside of the pinnacle. Whatever.

We continued along the side of the pinnacle, and eventually hit some rocks off to the side. We stopped at one of these rocks, which had some hydrocoral, which Rob of course wanted to shoot. So I looked around. I found another treefish in a crack on this rock. I noticed a lot of hydroids that were some different kind that I haven't seen around here before. Then I realized they were crawling with trilineatas (at first I pointed a couple out to Rob, and then I realized how ridiculous that was when I realized they were everywhere!). There were also some very pretty Hermissendas with bright red tips on yellow. After Rob was finished with the hydrocoral, I signaled that we should turn around because I really wanted to check out that crack. We headed back to the line, where the viz had deteriorated significantly -- there was a lot of particulate in the water, and the current direction seemed to have changed. When we got back to it, I am pretty sure Rob was expecting me to head for the line, but instead I swam into the crack. I went a little further into it than I should have (I was thinking I could ascend a little, since it widened higher up, but that somehow didn't quite work), so I had to back out until I was far enough to turn around (which required contortions). Then I figured once I was jammed in there, I might as well pose for some pictures :) Then we headed back to the line. During the ascent, I was constantly kicking to stay with the line, but it wasn't too bad. When we got up to 20', Rob finally gave up and decided that hanging on the line so he could face me would be easier. When we got up to about 15', I noticed that the granny line was heading in the opposite direction of the boat. I'm pretty sure it wasn't like that at the start of the dive :) Swimming to the back of the boat against the current was a bit of a chore. Rob wouldn't hand over his O2 bottle to Phil while he caught his breath. I was, however, in a hurry to get out of the water, since I was really cold. I was also sort of pooped, but Phil picked up the slack and lifted me out of the water by the manifold :) 94 feet, 52 minutes, 46 degrees

We had an incredibly smooth ride back to Monterey.

All of the day's pictures are here.

Big Sur Slugfest

Today was our last installment for the summer of Big Sur diving off of the Cypress Sea. Or at least our last planned trip down there. The wind and swell forecast was looking good for doing some diving north of Point Sur. On our previous trips, we had to go south for some protection. John suggested Flintstones, which Rob and I immediately seconded. We had been talking about trying to get back down there on one of these trips. Phil complained a little that it wasn't far enough south, but he admitted that it is rare for both the conditions and the divers on the boat to align such that he can go there. So, he went along with it. As an aside, the Cypress Sea has a new system on it so that you can see where you are on the bathymetry maps while the boat is underway (there is a screen in the cabin). It really takes all of the mystery out of the trip -- if you fall asleep and wake up, wondering where the heck you are, it's easy to find out! Once at the site, they show the 3D projection of the site, which is pretty sweet.

John, Rob and I were planning to dive together, but Cameron was buddyless, so we ended up diving together. We broke up in teams of 2 (I got stuck with Bob, boohoo), but the plan was to keep the two teams together for the dives. So, after a few delays, we still got to Flintstones pretty early (funny how a 6 AM departure will do that). It didn't look too too currentful from the surface, even though Phil mentioned the potential for ripping currents. (I don't remember it being that bad last time, so I was thinking... what did we just talk Phil into? :P) We could see a bunch of moon jellies in the water, and I noted to Rob that this time, we would not pay more attention to jellies than the line and get swept off the line :) We hopped in, headed down the line, and the current seemed okay (although the viz got quite hazy around 20 feet, then opened up at 40 or 50 feet). When we got down to the top though, WHOOSH, there was a ton of surge. At this very inopportune time, I realized that my ears required a significant pause before I could go any further. So I was hanging onto a piece of bull kelp on the edge of the dropoff, while the rest of the team was 5 feet below, where there was essentially no surge. Once you were on the side of the pinnacle, it was fine. I was clearing my ears for what seemed like forever (but was probably not very long at all) and then finally I dropped down and joined them.

We headed along the side of the pinnacle and worked our way down to 90 to 100 feet. It was quite dark at this depth, I guess due to the layer of particulate from 20 to 40 feet. There was also a little surge even down here. There were a bunch of small to medium stalks of hydrocoral, which Rob immediately starting taking pictures of. I saw a small orange nudi (which I suspected was an orange Peltodoris) and pointed it out to John. But I spent a lot of the dive looking down into the abyss (well, it's not that deep at the bottom, but in this viz, you couldn't see the bottomm so it still looked abyssal). John found a bunch of gorgonians growing in a vertical crack starting around 90 feet. We didn't think we'd see gorgonians here, since you supposedly have to go deeper to see them at this site. I guess we were misinformed; they were pretty small gorgonians, but there were a bunch. There were also some small elephant ear sponges. I saw a really cute little gopher rockfish (maybe 3 to 4 inches) in a wide crevice. When I signalled to show Rob, he retreated a bit :( But Rob could still see him, and he gave me the universal signal for "cute" (pinching his cheek). And then the wall of Corynactis of course was worth looking at :) And the usual blue rockfish school hanging out off the wall. We also saw a little wall of metridiums, across from a small valley between it and the main pinnacle, and a little deeper than us. We worked our way up shallower, to maybe 60 or 70 feet.

When we got to the agreed upon time to start the ascent, we headed up to the anchor line. Whoosh. As soon as we got above the pinnacle, there was some serious current. I swam over to the line and held on, but with the up and down motion on it, that did not seem ideal. So I let go and swam towards it into the current. I was basically swimming as hard as I could (arms included :P) and was slowly moving away from the line. Rob and John were right at the line, I think maybe they were holding on. Cameron was right next to me, so I turned to him and suggested we shoot a bag and drift. (Phil always says that we can shoot bags and drift if we want, as long as we don't mind waiting on the surface for a pickup. However, I have never taken him up on that.) While we were working that out, Rob and John appeared (apparently they decided they liked their buddies more than they liked the line) and John shot a bag. Phew, much better than swimming hard into a current. The ascent wasn't exactly textbook; there was a bit of leapfrogging over each other and not really keeping a good formation. But we made our stops and got to the surface. There were some moon jellies on the ascent and at the surface. We were a decent distance from the boat. Let's just say I wouldn't have wanted to have to swim back to the boat :) After we bobbed around for a minute or two, with John trying to convince us we should swim for it, the boat headed our way. After a little teasing over the speaker, they picked us up. I thought the drifting ascent was really fun, even if our formation could have used some work. 102 feet, 62 minutes, 49 degrees

We headed down further south for the next dive. There was a south wind, so Phil did not think we could make it very far south. That was fine with me, I honestly don't think that Partington Canyon is really worth the drive :) We puttered around near Portholes, which is just south of Point Sur. We eventually went a little further south, to a new site. There was a small patch of kelp on the surface, and some interesting looking structure on the bathymetry. Basically a big pinnacle next to a small pinnacle in about 100 feet of water. The top of the taller of the two pinnacles came up to around 40 feet. We decided on the boat that we would shoot a bag and drift on this dive (whether it was necessary or not). I was leading the dive. Rob and I usually let the non-leader run the ascent, but since Rob had his camera and he said I "need practice" shooting a bag (one of Rob's adorable traits is how he is always planning skills into dives that he thinks I need to practice), so I was on bag duty.

We headed down to the pinnacle, and while the viz was not stellar (maybe 30 to 40 feet, but filled with particulate and green), it was a neat site, and quite calm. Just as I pass the top of the pinnacle, some diver swooped past me, dive bombing down the pinnacle face head down. It was very odd. Anyhoo, much to my surprise, the cool thing about this site was not spectacular pinnacle vistas, but the macro life. It was nudibranch heaven! Pretty soon after descending, we saw a small rock just off of the pinnacle, which had some nice-looking hydrocoral. So we swam over to it, so Rob could get some shots. While he was taking pictures, John and I noticed a bunch of Hermissendas, and two Spanish shawls (pretty small ones). Then I noticed what looked like Hermissendas, but had bright red tips and a orange-yellow below the red. They were really pretty. We weren't really sure if they were Hermissendas, but I looked in Alicia's new book (Opistobranquios de Mexico). The book is all in Spanish, but it has more photos (and color variations) of the species that it covers than Eastern Pacific Nudibranchs has, which I hoped would one day come in handy. Indeed, this color variation of the Hermissenda is in there. Another notable thing about this site, and that rock in particular was that there were lots of nipple sponges, some in huge aggregations. We eventually hopped back to the main pinnacle and continued along. We came around a corner and I noticed another rock just off of the pinnacle with a big Dendronotus albus on it. And another, and another. So I signalled everyone and swam over there and pointed them out. There were quite a few on this rock, at least 8, of all different sizes. There was a bigger rock right next to this one, which had more of the red Hermissendas, as well as some Triopha catalinae. Plus there were all of the usual dorids (San Diego, Doriopsilla, Peltodoris). Rob also found a Dendronotus frondosus on a piece of kelp. It looked very photogenic, because the piece of kelp was pristine. Of course Rob was not shooting macro though :( We eventually went back to the pinnacle and kept swimming around. I saw an Acanthodoris hudsoni (not sure if I've seen one of those before), and a couple more Dendrontus albus's on the main pinnacle.

At this point, I decided I was cold and since we were about 3 minutes shy of when we were supposed to start the ascent, I thumbed it. I've never shot a bag "for real" before, e.g. in more than like 25 feet of water to practice. So it was quite an exciting moment. I had a little trouble inflating it with my cold lips, but I figured it was alright since I was shooting it deeper so it would inflate more on the way up. Then I became quite fascinated with watching the line unspool -- 70 feet is a lot of unspooling. In fact, I was quite entranced by it, and when it was finished, I realized I hadn't been paying any attention to the rest of my team -- whoops. Our ascent was much smoother this time although perhaps a little slow; we kept a nice diamond formation on the way up. There was a school of blue rockfish hanging out with us on the ascent. Every now and then, the would all suddenly turn in one direction. Apparently there was also a sea lion buzzing me, but it was behind me, so everyone else saw it, but I did not. When we got to the surface, we were only about 100 feet from the boat. We swam back to it, I swam a lot faster than the others because I had to pee. When I got to the swimstep, I mentioned this to Phil, so he told Josh to strip me out of my gear really fast when I got on deck. Before I had even thought about getting out of my rig, I was out of it. Talk about full service :P Then I mumbled how it would probably take me another 5 minutes to get out of my drysuit :) 96 feet, 62 minutes, 50 degrees

We headed back up just north of Point Sur and puttered around there a bit before settling on Ventura Rocks. Phil was pretty excited to put us just north of the rocks, because usually (due to the wind direction), you have to go in south of the rocks. There was a little plateau at like 50 feet, and then a wall down to 100 feet. So he dropped the hook on the plateau and down we went. Phil told us that we really didn't want to surface on the other side of the rocks, so we decided that unless something unforeseen happened, we would come up the line. Boohoo, no more drifting for us. Just as we were about to descend at the anchor line, some other diver swooped past Rob, and started down the line, hand over hand, head first. He almost kicked Rob in the face. It was very odd, wonder if it was the same mystery swooper that almost kicked me on the second dive. Anyhoo, the viz was pretty crappy at this site (20-25 feet, but really chunky) and it was dark even at like 50 feet. But this site was also full of nudibranchs. We saw more Dendronotus albus, Triopha catalinae, red Hermissendas, and some Flabellina trilineatas (Rob found a really nice small one on some kelp, and then I found at least 2 others later on). I also saw a white dorid with black speckles, which was perhaps Geitodoris heathi. John found two Ancula gibbosas, which I have never seen before (but recognized from Clinton's pictures :P). John also found two San Diego dorids mating, with a frisky Peltodoris that seemed to be trying to get in on the action. I also found some tiny little aeolid, which I couldn't see enough detail on to ID. I also couldn't get Rob or John's attention, and I knew if I left it, I would never find it again :) There were also a bunch of ochre stars at this site, which were pretty colors :P We didn't actually make it too far away from the anchor, because we were mainly looking at small stuff. When we turned, I noticed a little bit of current that we were swimming into.

But we made it back to the anchor just in time for our planned ascent. So, Rob was stowing his camera (well, folding in the strobe arms and putting the cover on the dome port), when I hear CLANK CLANK CLANK. Then I see the anchor line falling. We were literally right next to the line, when the anchor slipped off of the plateau (50') down to the bottom (100'). With the 20' viz, we couldn't see the anchor or the line. We all looked at each other like "what the heck?" and decided we'd have to drift, since who knows where the anchor slipped to. So, John shot a bag and we did our ascent. It was pleasant, but there was some current, it kept knocking me into John :) When we ascended, I was looking around for the boat, and I was sort of shocked for a moment when we realized we were on the other side of the rocks. Whoops. The boat immediately headed in our direction, and then Phil directed us one by one to get back on the boat (in case the wind started to push it into the rocks, the rest of us hung back). The wind didn't cause any problems, and we all got back on the boat quickly. 75 feet, 54 minutes, 51 degrees

The ride back was very smooth, for a change. In fact, I was standing for most of the return trip, and my feet never left the floor :P

I have never done drift "deco" before, but I have to say, it's totally fun. I'm hooked :P Last night I told some diving buddies that I don't ever want to ascend an anchor line again, even in moderate current :)

Rob's pictures from the day are here

Big Sur on the Cypress Sea, Part Deux

On Saturday, we did another Cypress Sea Big Sur trip. First, let's start with a recap of the weather forecast:


PIGEON POINT TO POINT PIEDRAS BLANCAS TO 20 NM-
232 PM PDT FRI AUG 17 2007

...GALE WARNING NOW IN EFFECT THROUGH SATURDAY EVENING...

.TONIGHT...NW WINDS 20 TO 30 KT...WITH GUSTS TO 35 KT ALONG THE
COAST SOUTH OF POINT LOBOS. WIND WAVES 4 TO 7 FT.
NW SWELL 3 TO 6 FT AT 8 SECONDS. PATCHY FOG AFTER MIDNIGHT.
.SAT...NW WINDS 20 TO 30 KT...WITH STRONG GUSTS TO 35 KT SOUTH OF
POINT LOBOS. WIND WAVES 4 TO 7 FT. NW SWELL 4 TO 7 FT AT 7
SECONDS. PATCHY FOG IN THE MORNING.


Hmm, not exactly what you want to see when you are going on a long range boat trip. But we'll get to that later. Anyhoo, after the 3:45 AM wakup (I wanted to set the alarm to 4:00 but Rob would not budge, temper tantrums notwithstanding), we headed down to make the 6 AM departure from Monterey. I managed to get a nice spot for snoozing on the ride down, although I wasn't really able to sleep (which was okay, since I slept in the car). The ride down was pretty uneventful. The weather did not really allow us to stay north of Point Sur, so we went further south. The first dive was at a site called Compost, which Phil said would probably be undiveable later in the day.

This site is a pinnacle pretty much in the middle of nothing. The sand is around 100 feet, and from there, this pinnacle sticks up to 30 or 40 feet. It is not very big around, so it is a pretty dramatic looking, towering pinnacle. We descended to about 80 feet, and started to circle it. The visibility was great, probably 80 to 100 feet. Almost immediately (maybe even on the way down, actually), we saw a small salp chain. As we started circling the pinnacle, I was looking in nooks for tiny things. After we came around the first corner, I noticed an egg yolk jelly a little bit off of the pinnacle. We swam out to check it out; it was pretty cool. When we swam back toward the pinnacle, I realized how beautiful this site is, and that I was wasting my time sticking my head in cracks looking for nudibranchs :) The pinnacle was like a tall skinny skyscraper that was covered in color, and you could see all the way up it, to some very pretty kelp at the top. Off of the pinnacle, there were tons of rockfish (blues, blacks, olives, and I'm sure some others). So for the rest of the dive, I spent more time looking up and around at the scenery. On this side of the pinnacle, there was a little canyon with another peak around 60 feet. As we were swimming through the canyon, Clinton signaled us and just from the way he and John looked and where they were hanging out, I thought... wolf eel? Indeed, they had found a wolf eel. He was in his crack, probably swearing at us as we each took a turn shining our light at him. I signaled Kevin and Nils and they came over to look too. After that, we continued looking at the peak on the other side of the little canyon. I saw another egg yolk jelly, this one bigger than the last, but it was heading away out over the sand. I signaled Rob and we decided to go after it. We swam out over the sand and looked at him, and Rob took a zillion pictures. When we went to swim back, I realized there was an itty bitty current to swim against. We got back to the pinnacle, and as we came around another corner (yes, lots of corners :P) we saw a nice big metridium. It was very nicely opened up. Next to it was a little stumpy one that was closed up. I also noticed that at the bottom, there was another one that was also closed up. Aww, a little metridium family. While Rob was playing with the 'trid, I noticed a nudi on a rock, that looked sort of like Cadlina luteomarginata, but a lot lumpier, and I think it had some blackish spots in addition to the yellow (though that could have been sand particles). I pointed it out to Rob and told him to remember it (after the dive, he said "why did you want me to remember that Cadlina luteomarginata?"). I still need to figure out what it was.

We ended up circling the pinnacle more than once, because we eventually ended up back by the metridium family. But by the time we came around the second time, we had worked our way up to about 50 feet. On the side with the 'trids, there was a peak with a shallow sloping side that sort of formed a shelf on that edge, and there was lots of kelp growing there. The thin stuff that likes to wrap around manifolds and cause other sorts of general mischief (Pepper's favorite past time too). In the midst of that, we saw a much bigger salp chain. We looked at it for a bit, and Rob got some pictures. At some point not too much later, I decided I was past my cold threshold, and we turned back and headed up near the line. At our 20 foot stop, we found John and Clinton looking at teeny tiny nudibranchs on the kelp leaves (surprise surprise). After Rob took a look at what they were looking at, Rob handed me a kelp leaf and I saw a tiny Dendronotus frondosus on one end. I was peering at it, when Rob then pointed to the other end of the kelp leave, which had tons more! Pretty cool. Then we headed over to another stalk of kelp and Rob found a tiny Flabellina trilineata on it. Clinton later told us that he saw oodles (my word, not his) of them in that kelp patch. When we surfaced, the conditions seemed to have picked up a little, nothing too bad, but just not as flat as when we started. But those big waves did a nice job of pushing me to the boat with little effort. Before I could even try to be a non-wimp and haul myself up on the swimstep, Phil grabbed my manifold and pulled me up. Hehe, I guess he has figured out I am a big wimp. 70 minutes, 86 feet, 47 degrres

I was so hungry after the first dive, because all I ate on the way down was a piece of cantaloupe. There was soup on the boat, which looked so tempting, but also looked like it was a good candidate to cause heartburn on dive 2 (how can anyone eat tomato based soup and then get back in the water!?!). Then a little light bulb went off over my head and I remembered that there is instant oatmeal on board! Last time I was on the boat, I didn't discover this until the end of the day. So I had some strawberries and cream oatmeal, which was a disturbing shade of pink. Mmmm, so warm. We headed further south, and Phil was perusing various areas of Partington Canyon. After a lot of driving back and forth, we finally settled on a spot that is further north than the spot we dove last time. Everyone likes to make fun of Phil for always going to Partington Canyon (which isn't exactly the most spectacular site along Big Sur, but it is SO FAR SOUTH, or at least I think that's why he likes it). But today, I think that Neptune decided where we were going.

We stayed pretty shallow this time, since last time, we liked the shallow part the best. We actually didn't go very far, because there was plenty of neat stuff to look at pretty close by. It was pretty dark and green because of the dense kelp cover. But the beams of light shining through were so pretty. This site is very fishy. Lots of different rockfish (blues, blacks, olives, coppers, some nice sized vermilions, and one really cute little copper, I think). We also saw what must have been the largest sheephead known to man. It was HUGE. I did a little nudi hunting at this site, since it was pretty good last time. I found tons of Rostangas. While Rob was shooting a black and yellow rockfish, I got a little bored, so I started staring at a nearby rock. It has some orange sponge on it, and found about 4 Rostangas, and maybe 3 egg masses. The next time Rob was taking forever to shoot something (can't remember what this time), I looked at another rock. This one had that orange-pink sponge with a star pattern on it, and the Rostangas totally stuck out. There were little patches of orange without the pattern and when I looked closely, sure enough, they were all Rostangas. Rob also pointed out a nudi which he thought was a Rostanga, but it had a white gill plume. It also looked like it had a bit too much texture. Looked like a small orange Peltodoris to me (although I wasn't sure if they came in orange -- Clinton said they do though). I also found a nice sized Dendronotus albus. We saw a bunch of these at Partington last time as well. I also noticed these clusters of orange tunicates (I think) all over the place at this site. They looked like really tiny light bulb tunicates (but you had to look really close to see that). I have never seen those before. I pointed them out to Rob and told him to remember them, but afterwards he had no idea what I had been pointing too. Near the end of the dive, I found a very cute little sculpin (haven't gotten around to ID'ing it yet). He blended in to the rock he was on amazingly well. After I found him, I pointed it out to Rob and he was looking, looking, looking. I thought, he must have seen it and just been unimpressed. Then finally I could see the lightbulb go off, and he saw it. He actually seemed to think it was really neat when he finally saw it. Shortly thereafter, I signalled to Rob that I was getting cold. We headed back to the boat, killed some more time and then headed up. Of course by this point, the boat had swung into the kelp, so we ascended right beside the boat, but couldn't get through the kelp to the swim step. So we descended and swam to the back, and I used the purge your regulator to clear the kelp technique. Then my purge button stuck and my reg was free flowing. Doh. In the commotion, I hit my head on the swimstep... twice. Ouch. Then someone on the boat managed to drag us out of the kelp's grasp and all was well. 59 minutes, 48 feet, 48 degrees

We headed back up north a little bit, and got a small taste of the rough ride back. Meanwhile, Phil kept telling us how terrible the ride home was going to be. Anyhoo, we ended up at Unicorn Harbor, which we dove on our previous trip (it was also our third dive, and at that point unnamed). We were anchored in a different spot, but we wanted to get back to where we were last time. So Rob talked to Clinton about where he thought that was, and we headed in that direction. Of course we didn't end up finding it, and Clinton and John (who weren't really looking for that spot) did :) But it was still a nice spot. The water was nice and blue with viz of at least 50 feet I think. There was rubble reef with scattered bigger structures. We saw a variety of jellyfish -- some medusas, some tiny unidentified ones, and one that looked like another unidentified one I saw at Lobos a few months ago (when I was diving Three Sisters with Rob and Ted). While we were looking at a medusa, and Rob was taking pictures, he started gesticulating at me. I thought he was trying to pose me for a picture, then I thought he was trying to tell me not to point my light where he was shooting, then I thought he was telling me that a backup light was on. Finally, he basically turned me around and showed me a wolf eel in a crack right behind me. Turns out he was telling me to cover my light and turn around to look at it :) Apparently he was somewhat out of the crack but then we scared him back into it. He was still a cutie. I also noticed a bunch of hydroids that were the same kind that Clinton had found Eubranchus on last time. So I looked very closely at some of the hydroids, and eventually I found several Eubranchus. After turning the dive, we ascended a little and swam in through the kelp. At one point, Rob showed me a tiny little jellyfish (not sure what kind). About 15 seconds later I felt a painful stinging sensation on my lip. Ouch! I guess I have officially been stung by a jellyfish now. 77 feet, 54 minutes, 47 degrees

So, after all the talk about the horrible ride back, it really wasn't too bad. There were a few bumps, but it wasn't scary like I feared it would be. Certainly nothing to lose your post-dive Oreos over. I think that sitting in the wheelhouse is key, so that you are notified before a big bump comes. The only part of the trip back that was bad was in Carmel, from Cypress Point to Point Pinos. But I was expecting it to be terrible from Pt. Sur on, so no complaints here.

Selected pictures from the day from Clinton and Rob are here.
All of Rob's pictures are here.

Big Sur

We dove off of the Big Sur Coast (off of the Cypress Sea) on Saturday, for the first time. We had heard very good things about the diving there, so we braved the 4 AM wakeup and the potentially vomit-inducing boat trip to go there. The 4AM wakeup totally sucked (especially how Oreo scowled at me in the morning and refused to take my pets, she seems to hate the alarm clock), but the boat trip was actually not bad at all. Well, I slept on the boat ride down there, or at least for the first hour and fifteen minutes. Then I woke up and changed into my drysuit (I took it as a hint when Rob and Beto emerged from the wheelhouse and started putting on their suits), which wasn't too annoying. Sometimes I find putting my drysuit on on a rocking boat to be really painful. But luckily the boat was not rocking too much.

Dive 1 (Unnamed site near a site called Portholes). Beto picked this site out based on the bathymetry maps. It looked like some sort of canyon, where the reef started at 40 to 60 feet and dropped down to 120 in the middle. The visibility looked good from the surface, and the water looked pretty blue. There were some patches of kelp, but it wasn't super thick and it wasn't everywhere. I hopped in (using my stellar giant stride in doubles, which I recently perfected in the Channel Islands), and immediately drifted into some kelp. There was a little bit of current on the surface. I fought my way out of the kelp and joined Clinton at the anchor line. Then Rob got in, and also immediately drifted into some even thicker kelp. After a couple minutes watching him trying to get through it and claiming he didn't need any help, Clinton swam over and disentangled him.

Then we started the dive. I was having ear troubles on the way down (from about 30' to 50', I had to drop foot by foot -- pretty weird that I had trouble at that depth but not shallower). But once we made it to 50', which is about where the reef started, it was fine. The anchor was basically right near the edge of the "canyon", which was really more like a crack -- there were two parallel walls running east-west, with sand between them at 120'. Well, I guess it was 120', we didn't go down there, but that is what Phil said it was. Beto and Susan were scootering, and it seemed like an awesome site to scooter. Scootering down the crack would be really fun. The sides of the walls were very colorful. And the visibility was great -- I would say at least 60 feet horizontal (Rob guessed 80') and at least 80' vertical. From 80', I could look up and see the ripples on the surface clearly (probably could have seen them deeper, but we didn't go any deeper). And the water was really blue. Near the end of the dive, I flipped over and looked up... it was pretty cool to see the sun, the ripples, the kelp, and some diver silhouettes hanging by the anchor line. It looked almost tropical.

We hopped across the crack to the other side, and started looking for critters on the wall. Clinton was shooting macro, looking for nudibranchs (of course :P) and Rob was shooting wide-angle. Certain portions of the wall (especially the top edge before it dropped off) had small kelp stalks growing on them, so you sort of had to fight your way between them to see what was under there. Rob was hoping to see big bushy hydrocoral, and while there was some hydrocoral, it was not big and bushy -- on par with what you can see at Cannery Point at Lobos. Parts of the wall were covered in patches of strawberry anemones. As for little critters, we saw some cool stuff. First, I found a nice-sized Hopkins Rose, which I was excited to see since they are so pretty (what can I say? I like the color). I was finding them pretty frequently in fairly mundane places (Breakwater, MacAbee) for a while, but there has been a dry spell lately. Then I found what I thought was 2 clown nudibranchs mating, and when I showed it to Rob, he pointed out that there was actually a third one under them. I later found another solo clown nudi. Clinton showed me a Dendronotus albus, which I've never seen before. I brought Rob over to Clinton to show it to him, but oblivious Rob didn't see it. I think he was like... why the heck did you bring me over here? I also found an Aegires (I guess I have perfected my Aegires detector, since I seem to find them every time I go out these days) sitting next to a Geitodoris heathi (which I can now identify thanks to my recent nudibranch counting experiences). Plus there were lots of the usual dorids (Doriopsilla, Peltodoris, Cadlina luteomarginata) and a couple of Hermissendas. Apparently Clinton found a Limacia, and I later whimpered that he didn't show it to me. I noticed a big lingcod swimming by, and then I looked over and signalled Rob, to show it to him. Then I looked back and couldn't find it; I eventually did, and couldn't figure out how I'd missed it. It was just laying on the rock under a little overhang. There were also a few baby metridiums -- well, not really baby metridiums, but Metridium senile, which look sort of like baby Metridium giganteum. I also saw at least three kinds of jellyfish on this dive. On the descent, I saw what I think was a medusa. On the ascent, I saw several moon jellies and another kind I need to lookup. Also on the ascent (when we were hanging at 20'), I found a little orange nudibranch on a kelp stalk. I gave Clinton the "get over here!" signal and showed it to him, and he got some nice pictures of it. He told me afterward that it was a Triopha maculata (which I have never seen or heard of before). Some other people apparently saw Dironas, which I have never seen before. I was jealous :P. 84ft, 65 minutes, 48 degrees

Dive 2 (Partington Canyon)

The wind had picked up by the time the first dive was over, so we headed south for some protection. We went further south to Partington Canyon, which is apparently one of Phil's favorite Big Sur sites. It was super calm on the surface. There is a steep dropoff very close to shore. It drops from 40-ish feet to over 100 feet pretty suddenly. The dropoff however is basically all boring sand, so it is above the dropoff that is an interesting dive. You could tell from the surface that there was a lush kelp forest in the shallow area, and then no kelp at all a bit further out from shore (where the boat was sitting). On the descent, I felt a bunch of water come in through my neck seal. I instantly knew what happened -- between dives, I pushed my seal down a little because it was rubbing against my still-sore neck seal hickey from last weekend. I never pulled it back up to where it likes to be to make a good seal. So I did my best to push it back into place underwater (under my hood), but I think it was still leaking throughout the dive. It was cold!

Anyhoo, we started out following along the edge of the dropoff, until we eventually turned around, but headed in shallower for the return portion. The water was more green than the previous site, and the vis was maybe 30 to 40'. Not as good as the last site, but pretty decent by Monterey/Carmel standards. I don't think there was any hydrocoral at this site (poor Rob). I found a little orange nudibranch that looked like a Rostanga (but I was not sure), and pointed it out to Clinton. He confirmed later that it was indeed a Rostanga. I've never seen one that is not on an orange-ish sponge before. Later on, Clinton pointed out an Aldisa (which looks sort of Rostanga-like) on some orange sponge. I've never seen an Aldisa before, but now I know how to distinguish the two. Clinton found an unbelievably small trilineata on a piece of kelp. Part of this kelp stalk had some fuzzy stuff growing on it (not sure what), and among that he found this guy that was a few millimeters long. I could not tell what kind of nudi it was, but he told me afterwards what it was. I also saw a white nudi with yellow speckles which I think was either a Cadlina sparsa or Cadlina modesta. Clinton found a rock with a couple of Dendronotus albus's on it. After he pointed them out to us, we kept noticing more and more of them, there were at least half a dozen, I'd say. They were of varying sizes, one was really small and cute.

Once we headed into the shallower area (about 30'), we were in probably the lushest kelp forest I've ever been in. The kelp canopy on top was amazingly thick, it was letting practically no light through. We found a skull of some sort, which Beto thought might be a cow -- it definitely didn't look like it came from a sea animal. There were lots of fish at this site in general. But as you know, I suck at fish identification. But there were at least plenty of the following kinds of rockfish: blues, vermilions, olives, coppers, and treefish. And we saw another big lingcod sitting on a rock, out in the open. He posed for some pictures for Rob. Near the end of the dive, a harbor seal swam up to Clinton and started bobbing his head at him; apparently he kissed Clinton. It was very cute, but he didn't stay for long (not long enough for Rob to get many pictures). Eventually I was very cold, so I gave the "I'm cold, let's get the hell out of here signal" and we headed in. We ascended very near the boat, but the boat was totally engulfed in kelp, so we descended and swam in under the kelp. Except we kept missing the boat, because it was impossible to see it from under the kelp. After popping up a couple times to look for it, we finally found the bow from underwater, and swam right under it (so we didn't lose it) to get to the swim step. The swim step was totally engulfed in kelp too, of course, which made getting out a huge pain. It basically involved me beaching myself on the swim step and one of the divemasters (not sure which one, I was too busy eating kelp) grabbing my manifold and hoisting me up. Not my proudest moment :P. I told Rob afterwards that I just don't get how you are supposed to gracefully get yourself up on a swimstep that doesn't have a ledge or something to put your foot on. He suggested I take a PADI Swimstep Diver class :). 68ft, 77 minutes, 49 degrees

Dive 3 (Unnamed site, near a site called Compost)

When we got to the next site, Phil told us to take our time getting in the water, but look at those whitecaps in the distance (it was pretty cool looking actually), they are headed our way and will be here soon (hint hint). So we decided we should probably get in the water sooner rather than later. After the second dive, I pulled down my drysuit to try to give my undergarment some time to dry (and hung the shirt I wear under it out in the sun). It worked moderately well, but I was still damp by the next dive. So I was expecting to get pretty cold. Based on that, the plan for the dive was that it might be a short dive, since I was likely to turn it on being cold. This was another site that was not previously dived, which I guess Beto picked out on the maps. We were supposed to report back on whether it sucked or not :P It did not. There were basically a few big reef structures and some baby pinnaclelets near those. We did not make it very far from the anchor, because Clinton spent pretty much the whole dive taking pictures of some tiny nudibranchs on some tiny hydroids. That was fine by me, though, because staying close to the anchor meant when I decided I was just too cold, we wouldn't have far to go. But probably not moving much during the dive didn't help with the cold factor (I warmed myself up by swimming back and forth between Rob and Clinton :P). The reef structure we were looking at was like a mini wall from about 45 feet to 60 feet. It was very well covered, it was sort of like something you would see at Point Lobos. The viz was around 60 feet. It was still greener than the first site, but bluer than your average day at Point Lobos.

So, Clinton was photographing the same spot for like 20 minutes, and finally I was like... okay, I have to see this. So I went over and asked him to show me, and it was the tinyest little guy I have ever seen, a couple millimeters. I never would have seen it :) But once he pointed it out, I noticed two more on the same hydroid. They were apparently Eubranchus. Clinton got some nice pictures, which he was excited about. I didn't see anything else too cool here, but it was just nice overall. There was lots of strawberry anemone cover, in various colors (including the pink-purple which I really like), at least one Geitodoris heathi, a Cadlina flavomaculata, the usual dorids, and aggregating nipple sponges in bigger aggregations than I have seen before. I also saw a couple cute little greenlings. We saw another big lingcod just hanging out on a rock, showing his teeth. That was cool. I may have seen a wolf eel scurry away during the ascent, but it was kind of far off, so I may have been mistaken (or hallucinating :P). I posed for a few pictures for Rob. Eventually I could not stand the cold anymore (I was shivering, worried my reg would fall out of my mouth), so I thumbed it. On the 20' stop, I noticed Rob playing with his camera out of the corner of my eye, and I turned around and there were Susan and Beto... they kind of scared the crap out of me. Rob was showing Beto how his camera rig now floats up because of the floaty arms that Beto had loaned to him. Rob decided his camera is just too negative (it's really really heavy, he's handed it off to me before and I sink) so he needs something to counteract it. He decided the floats would be perfect with the macro lens, but unnecessary with the dome port. Anyhoo, we again had to ascend into a thick kelp layer, and I shamu'd onto the swimstep again. Phil pulled me up while Rob was laughing at me in the background. What a bad teammate :P. 67ft, 58 minutes, 49 degrees

I have heard some stories about how bad the ride back from Big Sur can be, but I thought it was fine. There was a lot of splashing on the deck, but I stayed inside, and was perfectly comfy. Most people slept, and I dozed a little on and off, but I mainly stayed awake to watch the scenery. The Big Sur coast is even nicer looking from offshore than it is from shore. The cliffs are really cool looking. I wish Rob had taken some topside pictures, but he forgot :( We have another trip to Big Sur scheduled for August. I hope the conditions are as good then!

Afterwards, we went to dinner at Siamese Bay Restaurant, a Thai restaurant in Monterey, with Dionna, Beto and Susan. The food was very tasty. During dinner, I happened to mention my inability to make a hole in the kelp when I was ascending on dives 2 and 3. On the second dive, I ascended through Rob's hole (while he was still in it, kind of pushed him out of the way :P), and on the third dive, I reused Clinton's hole after he was out of the water. So everyone laughed at me (some on the outside, some on the inside, I could tell) and explained that you purge your regulator and the bubbles push the kelp out of the way. In hindsight, I have been told this before, but never had to do it, so I'd forgotten. Also in hindsight, I noticed two "strange" things at the end of dive 3... 1) where are all those bubbles around Clinton coming from (as he ascended through the kelp), 2) why is Rob breathing off of his necklace with his primary in his hand (a moment before he ascended). I guess I was too cold to put it all together :)

And to top off a great day, when I got home, my copy of the new Harry Potter book was waiting for me. Thank you, Amazon :)

Selected pictures from the day in the BAUE galleries.
All of the pictures from the day are here.