In this edition:
Diving in Monterey We dove off of North Monastery beach in Monterey. I must have had good diving karma. Seas were relatively calm and our entry/exit was fairly easy. This is a site known for being a rather advanced entry/exit. Bruce took me on a tour of part of the Monterey canyon. As we decended near the kelp, we passed through a swarm of fry. We're not sure what they were, but there sure were a lot of them. We were diving enriched air, with a max depth of 111 feet and that's where we went. We saw some Metridium anemonies (white, looking a lot like overgrown brocolli) that were huge, tons of corynactis (strawberry aneomonies) lingcod, sponges and nudibranchs. It was cold water (about 47F) and I wish I'd been diving a drysuit. I was using my new 7mm wetsuit, but after about 30 minutes I was getting cold. The wetsuit material significantly compressed after about 60 feet, so I lost insulation. One downside of getting cold was that I burned through my air faster than usual. That meant cutting the dive short. We made a very slow ascent and once we were above about 60feet, I was much warmer. Unfortunately, my air had been used. We made an extended safety stop; our total dive time was 43 minutes. Enriched air and dive computers made the dive possible. (43 minutes at 111 feet on air? Tables would say no way!) A dry suit would have made it more comfortable, and the dive probably would have been more like 60-70 minutes long. I didn't take my camera on this dive because it was a new site to me and doing a shore/surf entry outside of my typical diving. The next day, I hung around the dive shop while Bruce was conducting some confined water training. After he was done, he took me around to some of the other dive sites. We visited the Point Lobos park, which looks to be an awesome dive site. This is the time of year when seals have their pups. Good karma again, I guess--we actually saw a seal give birth. I even captured a video: Pretty mind-blowing and very awesome. Here are some photos from the other sites Bruce showed me: Click here Congratultions! Congratulations to Lincoln for finishing his Advanced Open Water Diver certification. We had a great time at Blue Lake. It was a trifle windy and chilly on the surface, but the water was warm. We played around with my new DPVs(Diver Propulsion Vehicles) for one of the Adventure Dives. Good dives and lots of fun. May 2009: Dive Medicine for Divers, DAN Instructor Qualification Course(IQC) June 2009: PADI Rescue Diver, Peak Performance Buoyancy, DAN Dive Medicine for Divers Instructor course, DAN Dive Emergency Management Provider(DEMP) Instructor course Please be sure to allow jon @ webscuba . net to send you email. You may need to add this address (without the spaces) to your address book, friend list, white list, etc. March/April 2009 Newsletter February 2009 Newsletter January 2009 Newsletter 2008 Newsletter archive 2007 Newsletter archive 2006 Newsletter Archive | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
