Posted by JRM on August 27, 2001 at 12:20:50:
The subject pretty much says it all Vis varied from less than a foot to about 6 feet (being generous). As such, we did only one dive.
Due to a comedy of errors involving last minute additions of people to our trip, we didn't arrive until near midnight. Night dive cancelled.
Due to additional comedy of errors involving the added people, we didn't get out of Marina until 11:am. We had added a new diver (this would be his third post-cert dive), we nixed the original plan to dive Monastary. Since we got such a late start, we had to nix Lover's. The breakwater was packed, so we ended up diving "hidden beach." near San Carlos.
We hit the water about noonish, and head out to the kelpline. The kelp is pretty thick, and there was only one other group even remotely close to us. We agree to go out and back on a bearing, and to split up. My wife and I would dive together, and the three of them would dive together. While at the kelpline, an otter decides we look interesting, and comes over to play. OK, that made it all worthwhile, the rest would be gravy (literally ;-).
We drop and head off. The vis was 1 ft at best, and only by luck and navigation are we able to stay together. At about 25 fsw the vis opens up to about 3-4 ft. The surge was noticable, and my wife ended up introducing the top of her head to a rock on the way out. When we got to about 35-40 fsw, the vis opened up to a respectable 6-7 ft. Out there, it was a great dive. I saw a big ling (at least three footer), several large rockfish, juvies, senioritas, perch, and the usual macro stuff. There were some beautiful jellies, which I almost ran into (tough buggers to see).
After a while, my wife gave me the "cold" sign, and we headed back in. The vis continued to worsen on the way back in. We did our safety stop in a soupy cloud, and then surfaced for the rest of the swim in.
I rather enjoyed myself. My wife was a bit upset about the rock encounter, and further re-affirmed her aversion to beach diving. This actually is a plus in my book, because we're back in the market for an inflatable of our own (so we don't have to depend on friends). We managed to stay a buddy team in the soup, while our other team were doing their best impressions of corks (submerge, lose each other, surface, regroup, repeat).
It wasn't the Empress of Ireland, but it was fun.
JRM