Club Dive - Carmel River Beach 9-20-25
Derek Suring | Published on 9/22/2025
Excellent conditions. Full sun. Wave model said 4' NW at 9 seconds. Carmel Point did indeed break the swell for us to enable easy entry. Four divers in. We took a heading of 210 and went up and over the reef, finally dropping on the backside towards Butterfly House at about 40'. Reef itself had surge and low visibility, opened up quite a bit on the other side. We were treated to an assortment of giant nudibranchs, copious aged rockfish, cabazon and a ling. Kelp was abundant. On the return we took a wider arc but still needed to cross the ridge of the reef into surge at 20'. All four of us found no shame in doing perfectly executed crawling exits. On future dives I would consider heading further south and circumnavigating the shallower structure, maintaining a 30' depth, rather than crossing over.