Two awesome dives in Monterey at the weekend.
First one was at the breakwater, with a friend who's getting back into the water after a break.
Great diving. Visibility is the best it's been in a long time this month in Monterey. Almost like being in a swimming pool. We could see the anchor (*1) as we swam past it, a good 20 feet away. Played around on the sandy bottom doing mask exchanges in 25ft. Hardly felt the cold, got sea water in my eyes, didn't hurt in the least (*2). Played around in the shallows, rocks and reef, towards the center of San Carlos beach, on the swim back to the beach.
After a short surface interval we were heading back out, to play some more on that same reef, when we had a mask problem, so I bailed on that dive. It would have been my 100th dive (*3). Disappointed I had to skip it, but I was happy to see my buddies make the dive.
Did an internship in a rescue class after that. Rescue classes are fun. Especially when you're the one being rescued! That kept me busy from about 10am to 2pm.
After a few hours of being rescued I managed a dive out to the Metridium Fields. Yeah! 100th dive! Metridiums were not the best, but the views of Mola-Mola, Jellies, rock fish was wonderful.
I learned after we returned to the beach that there are two fields of metridiums, and we've been diving the wrong ones! Oh well, I look forward to find the the right ones sometime soon :)
First dives using Nitrox too this weekend.
Awesome.
(*1) There's an anchor in the sand just off the breakwater in about 15ft-20ft of water. Not going to tell you how to find it :)
(*2) I'm sure someone will point out that getting sea water in your eyes is a bad idea as you could get some kind of aquatic infection. I seem to remember someone saying that in the past!
(*3) I've already exceeded the 100, but I didn't have 100 logged.
Breakwater/San Carlos Beach, Monterey
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