Penny and I took a trip up to Monterey. the area from Big Sur to Monterey is very pretty. And cold, frigid. bundle up, bring hat, gloves, etc. yes, even in august! brrrrrr

Upon arrival we shore dove at Point Lobos. they only allow 30 divers per day, but we were divers #18 and #19 (we arrived around 1:30PM on a wednesday). entrace fee was $9, with a map.

The entry at whaler's cove was the easiest entry I've ever done. water was freezing (50 degrees), but we had bundled up (diving wet), so it wasn't too bad. the surface swim out wasn't as far as I thought it would be, but going through the kelp was really hard. it didn't help that we didn't bring snorkels. we were swimming on our backs and kept getting wrapped up in kelp. we ended up dropping down into 35ft of water, but we swam out eventually to 75ft of water, diving cannery point wall, and a little bit beyond. vis was 30ft in the deeper areas.

here's some photos from my dive, I didn't use my strobe that day. in the beginning of the dive we saw a beautiful 2ft female kelp greenling that slowly swam away from us while we followed it for a minute.

Decorated Crab. We saw three of these amazing crabs, they each had 2 species of sponges growing on them!

Anemone. The sponges and anemones here are very colorful.

unknown nudibranch. we found several species of nudibranchs.

Vermillion Rockfish. We saw many rockfish, including a few vermillions and one huge canary.

Blue Rockfish

Cadlina Luteomarginata

Coonstripe Shrimp

Cabezon (one of 2 we found).

Tall Kelp. The kelp here is very tall and wide in girth. Missing however was schools of fish such as opaleye, senorita, etc. It made the kelp forest sort of lonely.

Phil and his boat. Phil was very helpful and knows the area well.

Penny and I. The area we dove is behind us in the photo.

the next day we kayaked at elkhorn slough with monterey bay kayaks. they were great, and we saw dozens of sea otters and harbor seals. the last day we went to the monterey aquarium, which is an unbelieveable aquarium. the bluefin tuna were gigantic. we were one of the 1st people to see the white shark, but it was small and we didn't think much of it. Monterey was a nice town, although it shuts down very early, and the restaurants seem quite overpriced. I'm sure the locals know where to go (and not go). Altogether a great trip! thanks Chuck, Clinton for all the advice - Scott