Monterey!!

[Gooch]

We're diving in Monterey, CA this week as part of a shop trip with 7C's. We did our first dives today; my first time here diving. It was a hoot!

We saw tons of nudies including a nice spanish shawl and big lemon peel. Lots of life all over with so-so vis-15ft or less: maybe thats good here. The water was a bit rough with several dive operators moving toward more mellow waters.

A big sea lion buzzed us-a first for me as well. It was all a lot of fun; I can't wait to see what we will find tomorrow!

Water temp is running around low 50's- skys are clear and mostly sunny with the everpresent fog hanging on.

I'll upload some pix soon

[spatman]

sounds great, gooch! keep the pics and reports coming.

[oregondiver]

Hey Gooch...I will be there Thursday afternoon ready for some diving. ANy chance you can pick up an extra diver for Thursday night and Friday morning (before I leave for my next city to dive in)? I will PM you my digits...

SHell

[dwashbur]

I'm so jealous! We dove Monterey for 3 months last year and didn't find a single Spanish Shawl. Where was it?

[Gooch]

It was on the 2nd dive of our first day; I forgot to log the name of the site and the bad part is our captain sometimes has his own names for sites. I'm asking them right now where it was and will post it as soon as I know.

We also did Point Lobos-all I can say is its a really spectacular dive on that middle reef. I could have dove there a lot more. Looks like it might be best to do some of those dives via boat or scoots. Lobos was littered with nudis....

[dwashbur]

We didn't do any boat dives. We did the breakwater a lot, McAfee Beach one time, Coral Street once, Otter Cove a couple of times and several dives at Lobos. I wholeheartedly agree about that middle reef; we spent multiplied hours exploring it, and my daughter started making a name for herself because she discovered a chiton that hasn't been found in that area before. But no Spanish Shawls. Several people at a local shop told us we could find them at Wharf #2, but we discovered that what they were calling "Spanish Shawls" were actually Hilton's Aeolids. A lot of the folks around Monerey aren't as precise about their critter ID's as we are up here........