CopyRight @ 1998
I had just started school at UCSC, Uncle Charlie's Summer Camp,
and it was time to check into some of the local diving of the Monterey
Bay area. The scuba club and classes were going to go across the bay,
to Monterey for the class and some diving. So here I was after dawn,
walking across campus, through the redwoods, with a gear bag and my
weight belt on my waist. Since I was checking things out, I just
planned to free dive. I still had my 2 hose regulator and 1800 psi
tank at this time.
At the field house, I met up with Bob Widman and some others.
Bob was the schools scuba instructor and a regional director of NAUI.
He was macho enough to give a bad rep to 20 instructors. I said that
I would just free dive and for some reason, he said that wasn't good
and that I should use scuba. They had gear, so that was fine.
We got to Monterey and parked at the main part of Cannery Row,
about 50 yards west of the big antennae there. Parking and other
things get nasty later on in the day. There are lots of divers and
even more tourists.
The area on land and in the water is beautiful. It was clear
enough to see across the bay to Santa Cruz. The shore is rugged and
the houses along it have great flower beds that like the cool marine
weather. The water was flat with a bunch of Sea Otters swimming around
the place. The kelp starts about 25 yards from shore and continues out
in patches to perhaps 80 yards from shore. The divable area, just goes
for miles down the beach. The beach is sandy with various rocks. This
is a spot for a full wetsuit. Expect perhaps 65 degree water at best,
but it can be much less.
The plan, I was told, was for the class to do its thing and then
there would be time for another dive after that for anyone that wanted
to. Some of the club members were going into the water at this point,
but I was going to bird-dog the class. Bob had 2 people on small rafts
for this purpose. Any problems and we were on the spot for a quick
assist or rescue.
In the early morning it was so nice, calm, quiet and uncrowded.
I just trotted on into the water. There were no waves big enough
to notice. Even in 5 feet of water, there was thick growth on the
rocks. It is an area well protected from most swell, but not all. I
took up position, say 60 yards out, in 30 feet of water and watched
the show. Class divers were bouncing up and down, birds were flying
by and a number of otters could be seen nearby doing their thing.
Towards the end of the class, I asked another diver to watch the
float while I did a quick free dive. I knew that Bob was pretty much
under me, so I shot straight down to where he was with 2 students.
Well, that raft I was on, it had some ropes tied along it, to hold
onto. I had sorta flopped off the raft directly into my dive and
hadn't noticed that my weightbelt buckle had caught on the rope. This
was a thrill for Bob, I am sure. I managed to free dive down to right
in front of him and the students at about 30 feet. As I stopped and
turned at the bottom, my weightbelt landed on my head. I grabbed it
there and looked around a bit before surfacing.
I didn't know yet what a pain Bob could be, but he came up
complaining about me leaving the raft alone. I informed him that I had
asked someone to watch it. This was not the last of our disagreements.
After the class moved in, I was puttering around in about 15 feet
of water. There is sand and car sized rocks. They are covered with
algae and quite a bit of invertebrate life, especially in the cracks.
There were otters all over the area, but they kept about 50 feet
between themselves and the divers. Here, closer to the edge of the
cove, were 3 otters hunting in the rocks. Vis was probably no more
than 15 feet.
I was just groking the area some and watching them a bit. This
seemed to make them ignore me and I ended up pretty close to them. It
seems that they were tactile hunters. They feel in every little hole
and crack. They do not slide their "hand" along the crack, they reach
it in and out, rapidly, as if they want to land on something. From
what I know of animals, they probably really grab if they feel
something that might be edible. I wondered what they would think in a
moray eel area? At one point I was positioned above one such that it
had to swim around me to surface. That still didn't seem to bother it.
It was a great place to just float on the surface with an
occasional free dive to change position.
I later found out that it is considered extremely difficult to
get that close to otters to watch them while they are feeding, but
that was later when I went to Monastery Beach...
I went back in to get together for the scuba dive. Bob was quite
clear that he did not tolerate solo diving. Whatever. I went out with
Dave and we dropped down in about 30 feet.
The water there had about 20 feet of vis. It was a rocky bottom
with lots of different algae. As is common in the Monterey Bay, the
variety of invertebrates was amazing and that is even considering that
the otters have eaten everything that they can get their hands on.
Actually, nearer to shore, I had even seen some Black Abalone in a
small, deep crack, out of reach of the otters. There was lots to see
though. There are some huge barnacles growing down there. There are
also quite a few human artifacts from the long history of the area.
These were blocks, pipes and some rope. It is fun to follow them to
see where they go. They tended to be crusted with coralline red algae,
barnacles, anemones and various worms. There were lots of various
types of stars as well. There were a number of different crabs to see
to. The algae under the kelp made for very pretty diving. The
area is lush enough, that there is very little bare rock. It's all
covered with life.
There were lots of fish as well, but they are not large. There
are a lot of divers and fishermen in this area. The bass and the perch
are common, but there are not urchins and so no Sheephead. The lack
of both of these made it quite different from the diving at the
Channel Islands that I was used to.
It was still early when we got out of the water, perhaps 9 AM.
Now though, a lot of other divers were starting to show up. Many of
these were with classes. The otters were no where to be seen. They
figured the crowds could have it now.
One thing that is amazing to see. In the Monterey area, surf
entries are the rule rather than the exception. The area is pretty
rocky, which makes entries more interesting. Beaches are actually
rather rare up here. The preferred entry method taught here, is the
crawl entry. Just as it sounds, the divers have on all their gear
and start crawling at or before the water line. It seems like a good
idea, except that the water was like a lake today. A cautious standup
entry should have been fine. That's all well and good, but you should
see what it looks like when there are a lot of divers. There are far
more divers in this area, per foot of shoreline, than I have seen
anywhere else. At any moment there are a couple of groups of 2 to 6
divers, crawling in or out across the beach. It's really something to
see.
The diving in Monterey is lush and beautiful and makes for great
sight seeing. It is not really a hunting spot, cuz if you want it, the
otters already ate it. They don't get the fish though, but I didn't
see anything big during any of my dives there. That could just be me
or it could be all those divers. The otters are interesting enough, I
guess, but I tend to consider them to be furry pests. They eat what I
like.
You have to get it on a good day though. It can get really rough
if there is any weather. Late summer and fall have the most good
diving. At that time, 30 feet of vis is common enough and that is
plenty for that type of diving.
On shore, there is a lot to do. Shopping and sight seeing are
great. There are lots of interesting shops for the tourists. The wharf
is great for walking around and there is lots to choose from to eat.
The only drawback can be the crowds. Lots of people like the place.
The best place in the world to watch a sunset is at the shore in
Pacific Grove, where the shore turns south to the open ocean. Monterey
is a really special place above and below the water.
There is plenty of dive area and much that would be fun for exploring. I would like to do some more diving there.