BCD Dive and Picnic Monterey by Dan Schwartz

It was a sunny at the Breakwater with the lots filled with instructors, their classes and us. We had a nice turnout. Me, Roy, Polly, Josh, Jean, Curt, Carol, Pete and Kaii all brought boards for the outing. Most were going halibut hunting around the Del Monte beach area. I was going to photograph the Metridium fields and find the barge. A few months ago I was told someone had made a rope trail to the barge from the Break, except that day when I went to the dive shop they told me the guy took it down because he thought it was too far for fairly newbies to try it on one tank. I kayaked out to the Metrids where I thought it was line up the bathroom with the gray house, I say thought because when I dropped there wasn't a field in site. I kicked out north finally found a pinnacle and surfaced to get my bearings. They gray house lined up one way but it was more to the Coast Guard shack up further on the Jetty the other way. Viz was pretty good, maybe 25 ft. I played around with lighting, composition and I was going for blue water behind the image versus trying for a black background like I usually do.

versus

an unfortunate egg yolk jelly got its tentacles caught in some metrids

The next dive was to the Barge. I tied off on some kelp near the end of the Jetty and headed to where the spot lined up with the main Breakwater stairs. I didn't see any barge though, lots of squid eggs in the sand though.

Eventually I did see some pieces of wood - so I think I was near there,

and an old aluminum capsized boat.

Afterwards we had a picnic up on the beach where we were joined by the Monterey Emergency Rescue teams. They weren't there for us, but for a kayak diver that seemed to be in the water just a leeeetle too long. Turns out he was ok, just slow moving.