Old dives

New Year's Day Dive Report: Point Lobos
by Susan Carter

Well, gang, this is a report on tradition. Traditionally, Alacostans spend the New Year at Point Lobos, and once again, New Year's Day proved to be a great one for diving for the Alacostan Club. Winter is often the best time for diving in Monterey, particularly before a storm, and this year was no exception. There were plenty of empty spots on our Lobos tickets, perhaps because of the dire weather reports..but those of you who missed it, missed a good one! Hopefully you can join us next time!

The day started with the traditional pre-dive breakfast at Baker's Square in Carmel. Alacostans present all played their traditional roles: including Joanne McDowell, who repeatedly reminded us that even non-divers coming from the bay area have to get up at five a.m. for the joy of breakfasting at Baker's Square, and Dive Chairperson, Susan Carter, who, along with a flu-convalescing non-diving John Purnell, slept in at her cozy hotel room on the Breakwater and skipped breakfast altogether, per her own tradition, ..

Once we re-grouped at Lobos, we were quite pleased with the conditions.particularly the almost total lack of any swell (one foot or less).Inspired by the traditional walk up the cliff, we put the Latex Queen together in a hurry and headed out to the Outer Pinnacle.Tom Whitaker and Peter Lasell didn't dive, but saw us off and got a few good pics of the gang in the boat before heading over to their own traditional New Year's Day Visit to the Aquarium...Of course, once out of the cove those of us on the boat remembered that none of us had bothered to check the GPS coordinates for the pinnacle, and unlike our last dive there in July, kelp at the surface was relatively sparse..Fortunately, after a small delay we found the spot (and boat Captain John Beland now has at least approximate coordinates on his GPS). If we had known that it was Sea Lion Central we could have used that as a marker, but more on that later...

John B. checked the anchor on his way down, but that didn't keep it from coming loose, possibly after a slightly positive Susan yanked it loose on her way down the line.in any event, by the time Susan got down to the anchor to wait for her buddy Bill McDowell per their dive plan, she and the anchor were both in 120' feet and drifting loose in a slight current running away from the Pinnacle, with at least another twenty feet below to get to the bottom..Fortunately for Susan's air supply and computer pixels, John showed up again just in time to help lug the anchor back over to the Pinnacle and secure it tightly in a crevice at about 80 feet.

After that initial excitement, we looked around and realized that conditions were truly outstanding. Water temp 52, Horizontal vis was about 50 feet, Vertical vis more than sixty feet, and the sun even came out for about five seconds! There was some surge at the top of the Pinnacle (in about 50 to 60 feet), but overall it was a very flat, and very clear. The pinnacle walls were covered with Corynactis and hydrocoral, along with many lemon nudibranchs, cowries, blue top snails, orange cup coral, tunicates, crabs, and too much other life to catalog.and we were accompanied by a very large male Sheepshead. Blue Rockfish and ling cod were also spotted..As we came back around the pinnacle, we spotted some type of salp, or at least we think it was a salp, that Bill described as a 'miniature transparent whale shark': it had a mouth, two fin-like appendages on its rear, and was completely transparent, with internal organs, including what appeared to be an intestinal track, completely visible. It seemed to be feeding on the kelp, or on something on the kelp...Bill promised to look it up in his invertebrate book, so maybe he will have an update at the next meeting.

All of this would have made for a wonderful dive, but the fun wasn't even over yet!

At the end of the dive we were greeted by a group of at least eleven sea lions...they buzzed us a few times and then settled in to do an extended dance to entertain us on the our safety stop...John B. , Rob Vedovi, Rob Vermuelen, and Mike Daily even joined the sea lions for a little game of 'buzz and dance' on snorkel once their air ran out...We all agreed that the sea lions seemed most impressed with John B's moves, but of course none of us had a camera!

The good weather held for a picnic lunch, followed by another dive at the same spot, with similar wonderful conditions and pinniped shenanigans (the wetsuit divers that chose to skip dive number two were able to see the sea lions splashing around the anchored boat from the cliff top above the parking lot!).

All in all, a wonderful Alacostan tradition upheld in truly spectacular fashion. Don't miss out next year: mark that new calendar you just got for Friday, November 1, 2002: the day to make your Pt. Lobos reservations to join us for great diving on January 1, 2003!