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Initially Ben and I had decided that we were going to try to hit Butterfly House. After meeting at the dive shop and informing Ben I had my 130cuft tank ready to go we decided to try and find Mono Lobo again. Off to Carmel we went!

When we got there we did a quick check on how the wave action was. We both decided that it was do-able and headed back to the cars to gear up. When I had opened the valve on my tank and checked my SPG I was disappointed to see that I only had 3100 PSI at ambient temperature (instead of 3442). Ben and I had a quick discussion and we decided that we could work with this and we were still on for the dive.

In the water on the way out we saw a group from the Monterey Bay Sea Otters club getting in as well. They were swimming out to do a South Monastery dive and man were they swimming out fast! They dropped and we were  still swimming navigating our way through the kelp. Before ascending we were trying to figure out what the Monterey Express was doing. They came over fairly close to where we were and then moved a little farther away over about 5-10 minutes. Looked like it was a private charter and that there was some kind of high dollar equipment on the back sitting on top of this wooden ramp. Finally we decided they were going to be there for a while and didn’t feel like we needed to worry about an anchor coming down, so down we went.

The first portion of the dive we were just going out over a sandy patch. It was cool however because we were in 60-70fsw fairly quick and once there we saw tons of Squid Egg patches. Then a few seconds later I spotted one of the squid, and had my light pointed right at it. We followed him for probably 15-20 seconds before he took off. Very cool, and I love how they swim/hover. Maybe 2-3 minutes later I see a large mass coming towards us out of the murky darkness, and I couldn’t believe what it was when I finally could see it. It was a Bay Ray with at least a 5-6 foot wing span! It seemed to be there to feed on the squid eggs, and I quickly got Ben’s attention and pointed to it with my light. I think all the lights eventually spooked it and it turned away from us about 10 feet out and went about its day, but wow was it big.

Finally were down at 90-100fsw and start hitting some big rock structure all around. I spotted a large red rockfish that was looking at us as if we had disturbed him. A few minutes later as we swam along we hit “the” mono lobo. We swam counter clockwise around its base admiring all the color and structure. There was a lot of big sponges of various colors and of course a lot of strawberry anemones. There was also a very cool anemone that I had never seen before. It was in the sand and had some very long tentacles. However it was a very pastel purple color and had these pink stripes on every tentacle, probably the coolest anemone ive ever seen. Then I saw what reminded me of a sea fan from my reef tank days. At about this time our computers were telling is we had 4-6 (I was on EAN34) min of NDL left. This is when we started coming around the back side of the pinnacle and started working our way up along the side of it. Back into the lower vis waters we went.

On the swim back Ben had hit deco so we spent a good long portion at 70fsw and then another long portion at 50fsw before we really came up into more shallow waters and lots of kelp. I should add that on the swim back we ran into three very large schools of blue rockfish at varying depths. As we entered the 40fsw range we saw Lingzilla’s baby brother (perhaps) which was at least a 4 foot ling cod just sitting there and didn’t even care that we were there. What was surprising to me is that in the kelp the vis appeared to open up again some. This is about where we found a flashlight, back in the rocky kelpy shallowish area right on the southern point of the cove at South Monastery. I was right at 500 PSI so we did our safety stops and came up. Only to realize we had a ton of kelp all around us, so back down we went and we headed under the kelp at about 10fsw until we made it through it, and it was a somewhat long swim. We were making our way back and realized that we still had a little patch of kelp that we needed to swim under. Between the last kelp swim and the safety stops I was now down to 300 PSI so I got Ben to let me breathe off his primary long hose while we did this last swim. Wow is the long hose setup nice for stuff like this. There was no intimate eye locking to be had, instead I just swam along side and checked out all the jellies (mainly moon jellies) that were there as well.

We then made our long swim back and had to time out exit a bit. Apparently the sea’s had picked up some since we went in, so we timed the swells and waited until it was a good chance to make a run for it. What an amazing dive, I would have to say that this was my favorite and best dive in Monterey. Sadly there are no pictures.

Dive #81: 108fsw max for 61 minutes. Varying vis, 20-25 feet in the open waters, 30-35 feet at 100+fsw, and probably a good 30 feet in the kelp. Diving EAN34 with a CNS O2 of 22% and a PSI Delta of 2518. Download the Dive Profile.

After hearing such good reports from people yesterday, and especially Bruce telling me that he had his best Monterey dive ever at Mono Lobo I had to see for myself.

I set out early this morning to meet up with Jeff, Cliff, and Ben at Aquarius and while there we convinced James to join us!

We decided to do an extra long surface swim to save as much air not really for bottom time, since we knew the NDL would hit us, but for the swim back. We dropped to about 12 feet once on the way out to swim under some kelp and save us from having to swim around. As we were approaching our drop point we were able to make out the name on the dive boat that was maybe 100 yards away… Cypress Sea! HA! You know you’re swimming way too far if your bumping into dive boats. We had a little joke amoungst us that we were going to use their anchor line to drop in right on the Mono Lobo (assuming thats where Phil had put it). Unfortunantly they left the site right as we were getting there, no anchor line for us.

At 10:00am on the dot we descended for the dive, in about 60fsw. We continued out on a compass heading of about 240-270 but had planned to stay at around 65fsw to conserve air for the way back. Thinking back I think this worked against us… with the 40-50′ vis we were probably just out of range to see the top of mono lobo, and the swim may have been too far putting us past it.

While swimming there really wasn’t anything other than blue rockish out and about. I saw one maybe 2 foot cabezon but that was it, other than some random array of jellies and tons of anenomies. I was very pleased however, with how well my light was illuminating the bottom about 40feet below me. After we had swam for a while with no metridium sightings Jeff gave the turn back signal. I looked at my computer and still had almost 2600 psi and pleanty of NDL time remaining. We decided underwater that our 2 / 3 man teams would split up. Jeff and Cliff turned back, while James, Ben, and I headed almost due north to check out this black thing we could see in the distance. This is where we dropped to the 100fsw range and I was hoping it would be the “wall”, but it was just a cool looking rock structure. We hung out there for a few minutes and started on our way back.

The way back when we were in maybe 40-50fsw I noticed some seals had started to swim around it, and that was fun to watch. However, due to the blazing fast split fins that James had on, and me waiting for Ben we lost James. So we looked around a bit (longer than 1 min, but there were several large boulders to peak around) and decided to do our stops and head up. On the surface we realized we were a ways out and we were able to make contact with Jeff and Cliff letting them know to look for James. Ben and I headed back under to swim under all the thick kelp and popped up on the other side with Jeff and Cliff. About this same time I see James… and where is it.. ON SHORE giving us the OK! WTH!! How did he get there so fast? Either way we all just finished our swim back and had a pretty cool dive none the less.

Back on shore Ben wanted to top up his doubles, and Jeff and Cliff were all in one car so they went back to the shop for Lunch and fills prior to heading to Butterfly House for their second dive. I decided to sit it out and spent the afternoon loitering around the dive shop ;).

Dive #80: 103fsw max for 54 minutes. 40-50′+ vis. diving EAN32 with a PPO2 max of 1.32 and a PSI Delta of 2448.

This was a highly productive weekend… in several aspects!

First and most important we celebrated my wifes Birthday! Took her for a day filled with shopping and then up  to roaring camp railroad for a full moon train ride and BBQ. Was a little cold but still fun.

Sunday I assisted with a Rescue Diver class and completed two of my last few requirements. One was assisting in a continued education class, another was completing a rescue, and I re-did my 100m tired diver tow (only got 2 points initally thx to bad seas and 3 breaths or snorkels full of water). That left only my divemaster conducted program and 800m mask, snorkel, fin swim.

Got the 800m done today and now all thats left to do is my divemaster conducted programs, in my case most likely discover local scuba diving (aka tour). Its looking promising that this weekend Friday/Saturday there will be one to do and ill finally complete my class and be able to submit my application to be a PADI Divemaster!

Brandons MSD Certificate

Yup, I have been diving. Nope I haven’t had time to do reports recently. I have been working pretty hardcore on getting through my Divemaster work. Almost all of the book work is done (sans going over a few knowledge reviews) and im just finishing up some of the diving related requirements. Hopefully in the next month or so I will be done! Quite excited about it honestly.

Also I have completed my 5th Specialty diving course and have submitted my Master Scuba Diver application to PADI. Not sure how long that process takes, but im betting that it takes a bit longer than a standard C-Card does. I am also quite happy with that achievement and there are still several specalities that I am interested in getting.

Thats all for now!

Gina and I took a day trip down to Big Sur. It appears the economy is not hurting at all there from the fires. There was an odd crowd around today but the weather was great. We watched some whales swimming by while eating lunch. Next time I’d like to explore some of the state parks.

This is basically my job. Expanding, maintaining, and evolving the backbone framework that makes all this possible.

Net works: an introduction to peering and transit

5 Guys in a Limo

The most famous voice over talents of our times. Its say to say that Don LaFontaine has passed and will be greatly missed. RIP.

Saturday at North Monastery

Just wanted to share what my desk at work looks like. This is also known as my dive funding station.

Since I have ended up coming down with a cold, for the past four days, I was not in the water this weekend. What is even worse is I have felt so crummy that I haven’t studied any more either.

There are a few good things with this weekend too. I’m getting my on call requirements out of the way, & it’s my one year wedding anniversary tomorrow!