Two of my buddies and I decided to go up the coast and find a place to dive. We wanted to try one of the beaches along Sea Ranch but I spaced it out and didn't get a hold of my sister-in-law in time to get the parking pass. She was out of town.
So we decided on good 'ol Gerstle
One of our fellow North Coast Divers was camping out and the Gerstle campground right in the entrance to the park so we went to his site and raided his coffee. He was there with a full load of students and they were doing their second day of ocean skills.
The water looked good in the cove, a bit milky but calm enough. The topside weather contitions were stellar. It was already very pleasant by 8:00 am even though the sun had not risen yet due to the time change.
After all the gearing up we decided to head out of the cove on the surface and drop down in about 25 feet and head out to the pinnacles. When we got down to vis was terrible; 1-2 feet at best. One in our group disappeared after a few minutes, and the other buddy wound up hanging on to the end (sling side) of my pole spear as I went along. The vis was so horrble and it was so dark that I signaled to turn around and head back to the cove. The other buddy knew the plan and that was: If we get separated you're doing a solo dive, have fun.
After we got in a ways we surfaced and Jim, who got separated was on the surface waiting for us. We decided to go back down on our own and head in.

The second dive I stripped the wing off my rig and decided to try backpack diving. It was great. By this time the tide had brought in better water and vis was starting to open up. I was using a low pressure 72 and I had it filled at a shop which will remain nameles and all I tasted while using it was compressor oil. It became so annoying that I had to cut my dive short and besides I was getting concerned that the air was toxic it tasted so bad. Last I heard that particular dive shop had to shut down their compressor and have it rebuilt.

By the time we packed up and left the vis looked like it improved by 8-10 feet.
Andy told me yesterday during his class they had 30 foot vis in the cove. It'a amazing how fast a bloom can come and go.

• I miss Gerstle! brianc 18:36:19 03/14/08 (2)
  • Re: I miss Gerstle! gonphishing 11:47:41 03/16/08 (0)
  • Re: I miss Gerstle! Eric S 10:48:42 03/15/08 (0)
• Re: Gerstle Cove today seahunt 19:03:47 03/09/08 (0)