Two dives at Monolobo, Carmel Bay, 12-11-13

Greg Hoberg and I had two outstanding dives at Monolobo last Wednesday.  Sea conditions were exceptionally calm so on our second dive we went in shallow around some wash rocks and shallow pinnacles which would normally present "washing machine" conditions.  We enjoyed 40 to 50 ft visibility and 50 degree water temperature.  We saw many cabezon, several protecting eggs, and maybe 100 ling cod.  Its great that this is now a protected area.

I posted way to many pictures because conditions were way too beautiful for me to edit below are a couple, to see the rest please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5957376424710523921?authkey=CPnqnNCersqSGQ

 Beautiful lingcod, bold, confident.

 Blue rockfish above one of the pinnacles we found.

 Clear water, bright sunshine, no surge, incredible dive conditions for central California.

Bull kelp forest in shallow water.

Two dives first on the Pinnacles, second off Pescadero Point 12-10-13

Greg Hoberg and I enjoyed two excellent dives last Tuesday.  The first was on the Pinnacles, the water looked like Hawaiian water but not unfortunately as warm....  We could see the bottom from the boat as we decided to anchor and dive.

 Bright, clear, water, all too rare in Monterey/Carmel.  It felt like the Channel Islands!

 We were visited by a curious, but very cautious, sea lion, so no closeups...

A small, declining swell was running and we had sunny skies and 40 ft visibility and 50 degree water.  It's great diving on the Pinnacles when you can see far enough to pick different ridges and canyons to explore.  We saw the usual mix of rockfish, lingcod, cabezon, and both kelp and painted greenlings.  Right after we finished the dive we enjoyed a new treat for our dive trips - hot cocoa - wonderful.  While we were enjoying our cocoa a Gray whale surfaced in the kelp quite near to us, we sure wished he'd come along while we were still in the water...
For a few more photos go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5957352203550319329?authkey=CJC6zqzP1qXjzAE

Our second dive was off Pescadero Point.  We had 30 to 40 ft visibility.  Another great dive.

 Diving in kelp forests is magical when the water is clear and you have sunlight, a very rare combination in these parts..

 Supremely confident large ling cod stands its ground while we flash away with our strobes.

 Another cabezon guarding eggs (to its left in this picture).

Beautiful diving scenery.
For more:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5957377333199306529?authkey=COT-8tXt7falwAE

A second day of exceptionally calm seas. Boat ride to Point Sur, dives south of Point Lobos and washrock SE of Cypress Point.

Greg Hoberg and I had another fantastic day south of Monterey on Monday, November 25.  We saw several groups of Humpback whales off Pt Pinos and in Carmel Bay and also a large group of Rizzo's Dolphins on the Carmel Canyon.  We cruised at high speed on flat water down to Point Sur and then dived near an offshore rock about a half mile south of Pt Lobos (best combination of rock, kelp, and clear water we found).  Not quite as clear as the previous day but still 35 ft visibility, beautiful.
Big Sur surface photos

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5952121465709635633?authkey=CO3lofuat4qdcA

Offshore rock dive photos

 We anchored in the kelp bed in 45 ft of water just to the south of the offshore rock.

 Numerous lingcod.

 Nice sized vermilion rockfish.

Cabezon tucked into coraline algae.  Need to take a picture like this with natural light to show how well the cabezon matches the coralline algae color in normal light (no red in algae color normally at this depth)
For more pictures from this dive:
.https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5952140117786884609?authkey=CJ-V2-_OubbB9gE

Our second dive was off a wash rock to the south and east of Cypress Point.  You can't get to this rock when summer kelp is present and you wouldn't want to dive it except in exceptionally calm conditions.  We've wanted to try this spot for a couple of years.

 We found a nice sized cave with a horizontal entrance and a vertical chute exit.  Pretty cool.

 Greg with a lingcod.

Greg with another lingcod.
For more pictures from this dive:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5952146700964730641?authkey=CNWGlIbA58q1pwE

Incredibly calm seas and two dives, one off Cypress Point, the second north of Hurricane Point.

Greg Hoberg and I had wonderfully flat seas today (Nov 24).  We made dives on sites that require very calm conditions to be safe and enjoyable.  The first dive was WSW of Cypress Point on a pinnacle that comes close enough to the surface to cause breakers at low tide with a sizable swell running.  We had been waiting for months to get calm enough conditions and the right tide to try this site.  The pinnacle we anchored on was next to the shallow pinnacle (the visibility was good enough (40 ft or so) for us to see the adjacent very shallow pinnacle top).  The top of our pinnacle was about 25 ft down and around 75 ft in diameter.  The sides were nearly vertical with the surrounding bottom 70 to 80 ft.  We saw several ling cod, several cabezon. lots of blue rockfish, black rockfish, black and yellow rockfish...Also, sadly, quite a number of spiny sea stars dying from wasting disease (but still lots of healthy looking ones too).

 The pinnacles have great vertical walls.  Here Greg is looking at a white metridium anemone.

 I spotted this kelp crab climbing on a palm kelp.  He was...crabby...about my close approach.

Greg getting a lingcod closeup.
For more pictures, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5952120579619221969?authkey=CJT2ptqim_uIEg

On the way south to our next dive site we saw over 100 Risso's dolphins coming out of Carmel Bay.  Really fun to see.

Our second dive site was new to us as well.  We anchored inside a pair of large mansion sized rocks just offshore north of Hurricane Point.  We again had nice 40 ft visibility.

 Ideal calm seas let us run Greg's boat way down the coast to near Hurricane Point.

 Greg getting a closeup.

 Friendly lingcod.

Bull kelp grew behind the large rock.

For more pictures from this dive please go to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5952123350729592321?authkey=CJys4aDGx7LyogE

Whale watching off Moss Landing and a dive off Pescadero Point 11-13-13

Greg Hoberg and I took his boat up to the Monterey Canyon off Moss Landing.  We first encountered a huge school of Rizzo's dolphins - perhaps a hundred or so.  Off Moss Landing we saw a couple dozen humpbacks feeding while being followed by a hundred or so (in separate groups of 30 to 40) sea lions.  What an incredible year of humpback whales it has been.

Next we cruised down to Pescadero Point in Carmel Bay.  Pescadero point gave us decent shelter from the predominantly western swell with northwesterly wind and chop.  As always Pescadero Point's rich invertebrate life was amazing and included many nudibranchs (I was shooting wide angle not macro...) and we saw lots of small lingcod and several cabezon.

 Small octopus just to the right of the orange bat star

 Treefish

Horned nudibranch

To see more pictures from this dive please go to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5946353118922656545?authkey=CJ6c1Ju0lIqtZg

Dives on Monolobo, Carmel Bay, and off Point Joe, Asilomar on 11-12-13

Greg Hoberg and I dived on Monolobo and off Point Joe this week.  November is known as the time of year that lingcod congregate to reproduce and we saw lots of good sized lingcod and cabezon.  Our visibility was around 20ft, a little disappointing for this time of year, but still a good dive.

 Greg spotted this small cabezon as soon as we went down the anchor line to be sure our anchor was both well positioned to keep our boat around and also well positioned for when we wanted to pull it up.  Sometimes bad things happen when we fail to do this...

 Greg spotted this second nice sized lingcod but then he swam to its tail so I could get a face shot.

This is a 25 -30 lb lingcod.

To see more pictures from this dive please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5946281940663156049?authkey=CPCKiML7sriHag

Our second dive was off Point Joe on our way back from Carmel Bay to the Monterey harbor.  We were both chilled from our first dive so we made this dive a swim hard and scout a new area dive vs focusing on pictures (so to speak...).

 Beautiful red sea anemone.  It's about 7 inches across.

 Another dying spiny (aka knobby) sea star done in by sea star wasting disease.  So far it seems to be mainly hitting this one species in Monterey/Carmel and there are still lots of healthy spiny/knobby sea stars around.  Scientists don't yet know the cause of the disease.  Hope it isn't caused by acid water upwelling which is already screwing up oyster harvests in Washington.

Safety stop in the kelp.
I only took a couple more pictures on this swimming to keep warm and see what we could see dive:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5946287468851136193?authkey=CKmQl9-mgp_TQg

Monolobo 11-8-13

Three consecutive days of diving last week has me struggling to catch up.  Greg and I dived Monolobo at the south end of Monastery Beach, which is at the south end of Carmel Bay, just before you hit Point Lobos State Park (one of the most beautiful places on the planet, if you haven't, plan a day of hiking there).  Monolobo has very rich invertebrate life and now that it is a no take zone the population of nice sized lingcod and cabezon is really fun to see and photo.

Curious blue rockfish

 Lingcod waiting on his perch.  This is the time of year that lingcod congregate to reproduce.  We saw lots of them, several together.

Greg and I both got closeups of this patient Cabezon.

For more pictures please follow this link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5945889655801354753?authkey=CJmflrDBqNaiigE

A second consecutive day of diving on the Pinnacles, 11-7-13

Greg and I dived the Pinnacles again last Thursday, Nov. 7.  We had decent but not outstanding visibility.  We covered a new (for us) part of the Pinnacles.  Saw several Lingcod - its the time of year that they congregate for reproduction, glad the Pinnacles are protected.

 One of several lingcod we saw on this dive.

 Always encouraging to see abalone - these look a bit vulnerable to a hungry sea otter.

 A congregation of black and yellow rockfish.

Kelp Greenling.

For more pictures from this dive please see:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5945548587471097233?authkey=CILmlu_6-5XUPw

Two dives on the Pinnacles, Carmel Bay, November 6, 2013

Greg Hoberg and I dived the Pinnacles again yesterday.  There was a 4 - 5 foot westerly swell running so other sites were washed out.  We had great dives - we could see the bottom 50 ft below us while still up in the boat so vertical visibility was easily 50 ft and horizontal at the bottom more like 40 ft.  With the large long period swell we got moved around a lot even down 60 ft.  When a big set came by when we were in one of the many narrow canyons we'd get shot 10 -15 ft in each direction.  Lot's of blurred photos for discard...
We were buzzed by sea lions, saw tons of fish, big schools of blue rockfish, black rockfish, gopher rockfish, tree fish, black and yellow rockfish, greenlings, cabezon, ling cod, and sheepshead.  We also saw three octopus (octopi?), Greg's wide beam spotter light is superb for spotting cool invertebrates.  Two of the octopus were with sea stars dead from the wasting disease - we wonder if they were feeding on them or could they somehow be associated with the sea star's demise (seems unlikely but scientists don't know the cause of the sea star wasting yet).

Below are a couple of pictures, for more, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5943391340567401825?authkey=CKfcsNiw5qzEQw

 Entertaining sea lions kept moving fast.

 I moved too much in the surge so I've scared this lingcod before Greg could get close enough for a shot.

 Greg spotted this octopus on the Palm kelp after he first spotted the sea star below the octopus that had died from wasting disease.  We saw a number of dead/dying sea stars of a couple of different types but many many more healthy ones.

 I've got my hand in this photo to show the size of the little octopus.

Purple striped sea nettle.

Dives on Pinnacles and Ling Cod Reef on October 30, 2013

Greg Hoberg and I had two good dives last Wednesday in Carmel Bay.  The first dive was on the Pinnacles.  We had very good visibility - at least 30 ft horizontal, 45 ft vertical.  In addition to all the usual beautiful invertebrate life on the rocks and the usual blue and black rockfish and lingcod we saw a couple cool China rockfish.

 Purple striped sea nettles are common on the Pinnacles this time of year, in the top 20 ft or so of water.  We could see lots of tiny critters (copepods or ??) that were getting gobbled up by the jellyfish.

 Cool China rockfish let me get close.

Greg gets a shot of a lingcod that I've gotten too close to...

for more pictures from this dive please go to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5942545526903664401?authkey=CJmf9aqWxZ3EhgE

Our second dive was off the "Castle" house on the north shore of Carmel Bay.  We anchored in 60 ft of water about 150 ft from the waves braking on the north shore cliff.  We had very good visibility - 30 ft of so - on this dive too.

 Red sea anemone with a kelp holdfast that has been ripped free from the bottom suspended above it.

 Here is a huge kelp holdfast ( see Greg in photo for perspective)that has been ripped free of the bottom by the rough seas in the days before our dive.

 Greg gets a photo of a lingcod.

We saw several sea star legs left over from sea stars that have succumbed to the sea star wasting diseased that is underway up and down the US and Canada west coasts.  Scientists do not yet know the cause.  I hope it isn't due to ocean acidification...

For more pictures from this dive please go to:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/5942554462565694113?authkey=CNDm2MCc_cKdWg