Two Good Dives off Cypress Point, Carmel Bay September 10, 2020

 Last Thursday, September 10 Greg Hoberg and I took advantage of very calm seas to take his RIB Zodiac around the Monterey Peninsula, at high speed, down to Cypress Point at the northern entrance to Carmel Bay.  The surge from the tiny swell that was running was small and we spotted the bottom 30 ft under the boat so we decided to dive there.  The sky was dark with a combination of smoke from California's awful wildfires and marine layer, in fact, when we left Greg's place about 8:30 we weren't sure if the air visibility was going to be so poor that we'd have difficulty seeing to cruise to our dive site.  The dark sky limited ambient light during our dive - though it wasn't all that dark for our eyes, but it limited my wide angle photos even though the visibility was 35 ft or so.

Our first dive was a circumnavigation (and a half...) of the outer rock at Cypress Point.  Below are some pictures from the dive, to see more, please go to:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/ibvkyhFCpXW1g93K7

On this dive we saw lots of blue rockfish but not many of the other varieties we usually see, we also saw two Cabezon but they didn't let me get close enough to photo.  We didn't see any lingcod.  Cypress Point is getting a lot of fishing pressure from shore launched fishing kayaks on top of the usual boat fishing...

Our second dive was just inside the pair of wash rocks just off Cypress Point, again, we did a circumnavigation.  We were buzzed by a sea lion but I wasn't able to get a shot of it.  Below are some photos from this dive, for more, please use the link below: https://photos.app.goo.gl/hWUHEEDJJkZEnPwo8

                     Greg being observed by a Kelp Rockfish

                     Large Spiny sea star with my hand for scale.  Kelp is recovering at Cypress Point, finally, still less that normal and more dominated by Bull Kelp than in the past, but some Giant Kelp present as well.  Still way too many urchins.

                     Greg getting a photo of a Black and Yellow Rockfish.  Still way too many urchins, as you can see, which is why the rock is so bare.

The ride back was as nice as the ride out, high speed, flat, very easy.  Hope we get out again soon.