Posted by RaiderKarl on March 22, 2001 at 09:56:58:
In Reply to: Re: P/S: Monastery is NO PLACE to take a "new" diver posted by brianc on March 21, 2001 at 10:33:05:
Butterfly House would be intermediate from a boat, and beautiful anytime. Its the beach in-gress that makes it advanced. You have to be a pretty good navigator to get in and out of Butterfly House cove, very tiny about the size of your back yard, with rocks, surf, and serge on either side of it. And you have to climb down a rocky trail, and scoot down rocks at the bottom to get to the beach too.
For an AOW class, divers often go to Del Monte, McAbee, South Monastery, Lovers, or on any boat dive with easy boats like the Cypress Sea (the Cypress Point is a very advanced boat, for teks and for master divers).
Some instructors like Breakwater for AOW, but this is generally a crowded beach with lots of silt stirred up by the beginners, so I personally dont like that beach, unless you get there really early in the morning at 7 a.m. before the classes start, or else you dive there at night after the classes have gone and the water has cleared up.
McAbee is a great beach site for either OW1 or AOW because it doesnt trap the silt like Breakwater does. It also has spectacular underwater scenery, and it mostly stays around 25' feet deep, so your beginners cant get themselves into too much trouble, even if they tried!
You would have to swim or snorkel a long, long time at any of the Monterey beaches to get into water deeper than 40'. I have swum out to where the depth is 50', but you have to swim on a straight azimuth a long, long time. And then it all turns to sand, with a few interspersed small reefs, and a few metridia here and there. You might see a skate or ray, but nothing much else.
Coral Street in Pacific Grove is an advanced dive for the same reasons as Butterfly House in Carmel. Tiny cove, serious underwater serge, rocks on either side, cross current, sometimes a rip current too. Same is true of Lovers Point (beach #3).
I did my very best nav dive at Coral Street once, went straight out on an azimuth, used air pressure PSI, turned around, came back on a reverse azimuth, used air pressure PSI again, stopped in 15', offgassed for safety, surfaced, was smack in the exact middle of the cove that we left from! It was thrilling to be that good on an u/w nav dive!!
Have fun diving!