July club dive report 2022
Oliver Edwards | Published on 8/4/2022
July 16'th 6 Tooters gathered at South Monastery for the monthly club dive. Attending were: Dan and Nicole Kaplan, Eric Hoagland, Alan Stanek, Neil Benjamin, and Oliver Edwards, the point of contact for the dive. This was the first dive at Monastery for Dan, Nicole, and Eric.
The ocean conditions were decent. Entries tucked behind the reef on the South end of the beach were easy with most waves less than one foot in height. Visibility close to shore was poor for Monastery - about 15 feet. Further out in depths greater than 40' visibility opened up to 30 feet or so. The waves grew somewhat as the day went on. On the second dive there were some two footers when we exited.
Oliver gave a dive site briefing as well as coaching on how to safely enter and exit Monastery beach.
On our first dive we all descended just off of the reef's edge in about 20 feet of water. There were a good number of jellies about (I would call them egg yoke - I think Neil more specifically identified them). We swam out staying close to the reef's edge, flitting in and out of the reef and through the kelp. The kelp is growing back nicely at South Monastery. Last year there was almost no kelp there; we dove at North Monastery instead. This dive there was a nice growth of bull and macrocystis along the edge of the near reef. We also spotted a small amount growing on the reef extending away from the point. We ended up swimming quite a ways achieving 70' depth. Here the visibility was actually quite descent and the surge much less. The dive time was 53 minutes.
Between dives there was animated discussion about what we had seen and what we did. Some divers were cold (51 degree water temperature at 70') so only three divers: Oliver, Dan, and Neil went on the second dive.
The second dive we swam a bit further out before descending, perhaps in 30 feet this time, although we didn't go as far. Dive time was 44 minutes. Neil spied a big weight belt on the bottom so he and Oliver decided to bring it back on shore. NOT EASY (and not recommended that most readers try this as it can be dangerous without the proper training and equipment). After a seemingly long swim with both divers holding onto the belt, we crawled out, the waves thwacking us up onto the beach. Very exhausting and very fun! Lots of smiles and talk all around after the dive.
It was a great day. We hope to see more club members joining us on the club dives.