The May club dive on 5/14/2022 was scheduled for Coral Street. Gian Garriga and Dave Chervin were the only club members who showed up. Gian wanted to have a check out dive for his dry suit. Conditions at Coral Street were flat close in but the surf was up beyond the point creating a potential longshore current that we would need to fight. After watching the current for 15 minutes, we decided to relocate to the Breakwater for a safer dry suit check out dive.
There was re-paving at the Breakwater parking lot and no parking. We planned to re-locate to McAbee, but found a couple of parking spots at Hidden beach. Hidden beach is a block west of San Carlos beach There is sometimes metered parking on Cannery Row in front of a flight of stairs that provide easy beach access.
The kelp was extremely thick and with the morning fog we had a near night dive during the day. Viz was 5', but our lights revealed many invertebrates and fish. We saw oversized star fish including Giant Spine, Ochre, Leather and Bat. We encountered multiple kelp rock fish, black perch and Kelp Greenlings.
The sun came out for the second dive which increased ambient light. Gian practiced using the dry suit and I practiced fish size estimation for the ReefCheck survey season.
The dive was fun and proved that even in low viz we experienced marine life and practiced our dive skills.