Monterey California

[Neil]

I'm in San Jose on business and I get to go diving this weekend in Monterey. Woohoo, lucky me. I'll get to dive in a kelp forest. I'm so lucky.

If you guys are good I'll let you know how much fun it was ;)

[Dale]

I'd love to dive in one!

First...must - get - certified

[Neil]

Well the waves were too big to go to Carmel, which was supposed to be the place with the good viz, so we dived in Monterey bay. The viz was only about 5ft, but there were lots of starfish and weird sea-plant funny-looking thingies (i'll have to read about them and find out what they were). I took pictures with a disposable camera, but the elastic broke and it floated away :( Oh well, the pictures on the MOnterey websites are a lot prettier.

Oh and the locals seemed to consider kelp forests just an advertising gimick for 'diving in seaweed' apparently. Lol. The kelp is a lot neater looking there than our seeweed, and iwth good viz i bet it would be interesting to see. It was so-so with the Ottawa-river type viz.

I was feeling sick (something I ate, not seasick) so couldn't dive the next day.
At least I got a taste for Monterey diving. They don't seem to have specific destinations there, like shipwrecks or a wall, just kind of drop you off at a general location and you find a rock with sea life on it. It was fun

saw a few of these:
http://www.montereyexpress.com/images/Gallery/GiantStarfish.jpg

and these
http://www.montereyexpress.com/images/Gallery/MetridiumAnemone.jpg
http://www.montereyexpress.com/images/Gallery/AnemoneUrticina.jpg

we did our safety stop with a bunch of brown jellyfish and people got their faces stung.

[Neil]

saw a few of these:
http://www.montereyexpress.com/image...ntStarfish.jpg

and these
http://www.montereyexpress.com/image...iumAnemone.jpg
http://www.montereyexpress.com/image...neUrticina.jpg

we did our safety stop with a bunch of brown jellyfish and people got their faces stung.

[scubagirl]

I'm getting "Access Forbidden" errors for those links, Neil.

[Neil]

I'm getting "Access Forbidden" errors for those links, Neil.

Oh, here's the page that links to those pictures. I saw Metridium Anemone, Giant Starfish, Anemone Urticina, and other things.

http://www.montereyexpress.com/Gallery.htm