monterey98

Monterey, October 1998

In October I spent 2 weeks in Sunnyvale (aka Silicon Valley), as I had recently joined a US software company and was there on training. With a weekend spare I went diving in Monterey, about an hour and a half's drive south from the Bay area. I booked the diving with the following dive shop:

They have a boat 'Silver Prince' which goes out at 7AM and 12PM (although on the Saturday there was no afternoon trip as they will only go if there are 4 or more divers booked). The boat visits 2 dive sites and 1 tank is provided in the $65 charge; a second tank costs $8. I also hired a DUI membrane suit and undergarment at $25 for the suit and $10 for the undergarment. The DUI was OK, but the undergarment resembled thick felt and wasn't particularly warm. I'd advise bringing your own or wearing thermal underwear as the water is fairly cold (13C according to my computer). A good hood and gloves are necessary.

The dive shop is very helpful and well stocked. They didn't seem too ready to hire drysuits ( they seem less used in the US) and needed a bit of convincing to hire me one. I think the inflator hose on my regs helped there. The dive shop opens at 6AM on Sat/Sun and if you're hiring gear you need to get there on time, as once you have it you need to drive to the pier, load your kit on the boat, then go and park. The boat goes on the dot of 7AM, and in my case it was just leaving as I was coming back from the car park! Fortunately I managed to get another boat to radio the Silver Prince and get them to come back and pick me up...

Dive sites are around the Monterey Bay / Carmel Bay area. Quite honestly I don't think there's a lot of difference between them. The underwater topography consists of large rocky outcrops maybe 5m high, with sandy gullys in between at 15-25m. On the rocks can be found a large variety of starfish, anemonies, soft corals and fish life. It reminded me a bit of the Manacles in Cornwall, only no wrecks.

Then there is the kelp.

No ordinary kelp, this stuff grows from depths of more than 15m to the surface, and apparently can grow a foot a day. It forms 'forests' which are fascinating to swim through. It's also quite handy for ascent references - you can use it like a shot line! Just don't try swimming on the surface through it though - I was told it would be hard work.

Off the Pacific coast can be seen humpback whales, and we saw quite a few from the boat. In fact we got to within about 100m of one. Also sea lions are very common, although we didn't see any underwater. The viz was about 3m on the surface, but below about 10m it improved to 8-12m. A good torch is useful, it was a bit gloomy probably because of the bad weather above. Although the previous week had been clear blue skies, come the day of diving there were heavy grey skies and (for part of the time) torrential rain. Bit like the UK really.

Silver prince deck I buddied with an Engligh couple who lived somewhere up near the Great Lakes and had all their own kit. They were BSAC trained and seemed pretty competent. They had a video camera in a housing with a torch mounted on top which was more like a searchlight. We just bimbled about for about 40 minutes on each dive until we got cold/bored. Navigation was not really essential as there was no current to speak of, and we managed to surface within a couple of minutes swim from the boat - we didn't bother trying to find the anchor line. Although I took a DSMB we never used one as the kelp could be used for visual reference and we weren't doing stops or anything.

The boat had an aluminium ladder at the back similar to the ones found on UK hardboats. Once back on board you could warm up in the cabin with hot coffee and doughnuts. The boat appeared to be well equipped with first aid stuff, oxygen, life jackets etc.

If you're visiting the Bay area of California, Monterey is definitely worth a visit both for diving and for general sightseeing. UK divers will find it a home from home!