Today was finally the day that I would venture off to Butterfly House.
I met up with Cliff at Aquarius for some quick pre-diving air fills and then we made the drive down to Butterfly House. Got a little later start than we had planned but it worked out in the end. While we were driving down the coast I was very impressed with how blue the water was looking. When we got there we did a quick site survey, the conditions looked more than okay, and Cliff gave me the quick tour of the “easy” way to get to the beach. Then it was back to the cars to gear-up.
We were both diving double today, so it took us a little bit of time to assemble all the gear. Once complete we made our way out to the water and let me tell you, its a fun walk with all the weight of the scuba gear down that hill. The real humorous part was when I started to walk my way into the water. See there was a lot of kelp bits for probably the first 20 feet out, and the tide was VERY low. Well apparently towards the right where we were entering there are a lot of underwater rocks. I think I managed to step onto every single one of them, which of course were all very slippery. After two unsuccessful attempts to walk out I just laid in the water and Cliff gave me a little push out to where I could stand up again. It was comical because both of us were falling victim to these rocks.
Once underwater we had a new challenge… the surge. There was a considerable ammount in the shallow waters near the short and pinnacles. We prettymuch dropped as soon as we got in since the kelp on the surface was somewhat bad, being that its starting to grow again and the tide being so low. Eventually we made it out past the last big rock to the left of the beach and continued to head at about 210 Degrees from there.
All I can say about this site/dive is WOW! WOW was it cold (46 mostly) and WOW was the rock structure amazing! We continues our way out, going over each successive ledge, gaining depth each time. I was in total awe of the huge rocks under water, and all of the growth they had on them. Several large fish were out today as well, most could have cared less about our presence. Something I was surprised by, since this isn’t a protected area. When we finally got some depth, id guess around 60-70 fsw, we swam through a gap between two rocks that was just COVERED in hydrocorals. They were beautiful, the purple and pink was so deep when I light them up with my light. Plus these were fairly large, id say about the size of a football. Of course there was also a blanket of strawberry anemones surrounding these hydrocorals. Made me wish that I had brought my camera. Right about now is when I noticed I needed to catch up with Cliff.
Moving out farther the landscape changed dramatically. We went from a rocky bottom to a sand bottom, with much larger individual rock structures stretched out all around us. Plus there was the perfect amount of kelp stocks going up around us. Right before we went to turn the dive in about 85 fsw with probably 15-20 fsw below us Cliff pointed to something in the distance. After I cleared the fog out of my mask I could see what it was. TWO Metridium, just happily growing on the corner of a fairly large rock. However, the swim up to them was just as impressive. We swam across a giant sand valley with dramatic walls of rock all around towards shore and smaller but still large rocks in the distance, surreal.
By this point we were about 45 minutes into the dive and in about 85 fsw, so Cliff and I agreed that it would be a good time to turn the dive. We started making our way back along the backside of some of these large wall rocks, and that’s about when Cliff asked me to drive. Unfortunately I hadn’t been paying very much attention to my compass, fortunately I had been paying attention to landmarks and such for my natural navigation. Back to shore I lead, seeing much more of the beautiful rock structure covered in all kinds of colorful coralline growth. Finally in about 30 fsw I signaled to Cliff that we should do our stops and go up to make sure we were on track. He agreed and up we went, only to discover that I had brought us back exactly in front of the mouth of the cove! All we really needed to do was drop back down and head straight in for shore, piece of cake! I was just glad that I hadn’t taken us to Carmel River Beach or something 
.
Te rest of the swim back had us find we were in much more surge again. It really wasn’t too bad because we were having fun riding the surge in, and using kelp stocks (which there are an excess of) to hold us in place while we waited for more forward motion. I guess we also both learned a valuable lesson from our entry, WATCH WHERE YOU STEP! Plus I have since heard that the south side of the beach is better for entry/exit as its less rocky, and that’s just where we happened to make our way out. This time taking much smaller, careful steps. It was quite exhausting with all the additional weight of the stray kelp holding you back though.
Once out of the water we quickly readied ourselves for the hike back up and out and to the cars. About halfway there I was day dreaming of how wonderful it would be to finally be there! All things considered, in the end this was a great dive! I’m not ure I would suggest the site to a first time shore diver, but it really is a poster child for why I love diving Carmel.
Dive #106: 83fsw max for 88 minutes. Varying vis, 25-30 feet in the shallow waters, 60+ feet at 70+fsw. Diving EAN33 with PSI Delta of 1945 (on Double 100′s). Download the Dive Profile
