And now for something completely different...

As my shutdown week sadly wound down to it's end, the torrential rain we've been experiencing for the past several days finally let up and we got a couple of gorgeous days of sunshine and warm weather. I got in a nice long swim and bike ride on Thursday, and by Friday I was ready to take a break from my triathlon obsession and go diving. Both Andy and Kreso were able to go, so this was something we definitely needed to take advantage of, as we haven't dove together as a team in a long time.

I woke up early on Friday and got my Masters swim in the morning, and then ran home to pack up the dive gear, which has been sitting neglected collecting dust in the garage. Andy and Kreso came by around 10:00, and we quickly packed up Andy's truck and headed off to Pt Lobos. We arrived at the Whaler's Cove parking lot to find gorgeous sunny sky and a pretty calm-looking cove. Despite the wave models and swell predictions of mediocre diving, this looked like it was going to be pretty nice. Well, everything except low tide at the boat ramp. I hate trying to get in the water at low tide. It turns what should be a simple task into a circus act. Right where the water line is in the photo there's a algae-covered drop-off, so rather than being able to don fins on the ramp in waist-deep water and kick out you need to jump in with no fins and about 150 pounds of gear on, and then writhe around like an eel as you try to put your fins on while your gear tries to flip you onto your back. Despite this, however, we were giddy as we surveyed the scene and planned the dive.


Despite the fact that the three of us still need to do a LOT of skills work in order to pass our tech checkout and move on the tech 1, we had agreed on the car ride down that today would simply be a fun dive. It had been way too long since we'd all dove together, and it was too nice a day to be stuck in the cove doing valve drills and deployments. After finalizing our plan we quickly geared up, ran through pre-dive checks, and hit the water.
We decided that since Kreso had never led a dive out to Beto's reef, and could barely use his compass, we'd make him lead the dive, and I would be the deco captain. We'd keep the drills to a minimum- maybe a valve drill and bag shoot at the end of the dive, depending on how cold we were and how bad the vis was in the cove. Once in the water we did bubble checks and descended to find some moderate surge, but better than expected visibility in the cove. As we made our way out of the cove, past the familiar landmarks at 'hole in the wall' and 'sea mount' the visibility opened up to a very descent 30' and the swell died down quite a bit below 60'. As we made out way out to Beto's reef, the nice sunny day and lack of kelp really provided some descent ambient light, even at a depth of 110'. It seemed like out time at Beto's reef flew by, and soon it was time to make our way back to the cove.

All in all, it was an awesome dive with great teammates. It's dives like this that leave you wanting more! I can't wait to get out there again. Soon.

Details:

Dive time: 70 minutes
Max depth: 110 feet
Avg depth: 67 feet
Water temp: 52.2 degrees (thank God for drysuits)