Charlie's Diving Blog: Two Very Good Dives at Mono-lobo October 23, 2018

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Two Very Good Dives at Mono-lobo October 23, 2018

Because of the great water visibility we had on our dives the day before, Greg Hoberg and I decided to dive a second dive. The marine forecast was a bit better for the morning but it had not calmed overnight as much as we hoped. We went on down to our favorite dive site, Mono-lobo, in Carmel Bay. Our plan was to make one dive there and then our second somewhere on the way back to Monterey Bay. The wind at the site was brisk but from the NE, which was unusual, usually the wind is from the NW or W. Visibility was variable on the dive, between 30 and a wonderful 60 ft. Water temp was 51 degrees. Unfortunately, somehow, on the second day of using my newly refurbished drysuit, I got a little leakage on our first dive, more on the second, not enough to chill me, but really annoying! We covered quite a lot of ground in a big circuit through Mono-lobo's happily regrown (maybe 70 percent of normal) Kelp forest. Greg demonstrated his superb underwater navigation by putting us right back to the anchor line as we ended the dive....Then, unfortunately, we couldn't get our anchor up despite numerous attempts, so we decided to just make our second dive right there, you never run out of places to explore at Mono-lobo. The wind came up more and shifted to the NW just before our surface interval was over so we decided to shorten our second dive because it looked like we were in for rough conditions for getting back to Monterey Bay. Starting the second dive we went down the anchor line to find out why we couldn't raise the anchor and to make sure we'd be able to at the end of our second dive. The anchor had dragged into a deep rock crevice and we'd have never raised it without diving to get it out....Both dives were really good, below are some pictures, for more, please go to: https://photos.app.goo.gl/mS99fXVJRqRHw2NP7