Yesterday was my wedding anniversary– our sixth. We had our Advanced SCUBA class (with our last Basic dive, too) during the day, followed by a dinner at Bittersweet Bistro at night.
SCUBA was great, as usual. I gave John his anniversary present before we left– he got 26 lbs. of lead weights (SCUBA gear). The 6th is the iron anniversary, but we don’t golf; lead was a good runner-up.
We initially went to the left side (south) of Lover’s Point, but the waves were way too high and unpredictable. Matt called the surf conditions “dangerous,” and declared that we wouldn’t be diving. What’s cool about Matt is that he then went through, in detail, why would not be diving that site, what conditions were too dangerous, and the fact that other divers sometimes do it anyway. He also pointed out to sea at a dive boat and explained that that meant Otter Cove (down the coast a little ways) was also undiveable; if it hadn’t been, those divers would have been diving from the beach (boat rentals being somewhat pricey).
So he decided we should go to Del Monte Beach and dive there. Del Monte Beach is a very flat, sandy beach and dive area. I mean, there’s nothing there for a long ways out. It’s to the immediate north of Del Monte Wharf (which is probably called Monterey Wharf, now that I think about it). Because it’s very flat, there’s a long surf zone, but the surf never gets very high.
What’s cool about Del Monte is that there are two wrecks at the site. Matt taught us where the sailboat wreck was, and how to navigate to it using landmarks (on land). John asked if there would be a wreck buoy there, but Matt said no– he was either pulling our leg, or wanted us to learn the landmark navigation technique.
Anywhere there’s a wreck, something to hold onto, there’s life. Since the rest of the area has no kelp, the kelp beds at Del Monte are pretty much the best surface indicator (other than the wreck buoys, which were there, of course) that there’s something worth looking at down below. We navigated using the landmarks, and went down.
Or tried to. Once again, I couldn’t get down the 15 feet needed to compress my wetsuit enough so I can dive. I thrashed around at the surface A LOT trying to go down. John went down, then back up after it was clear I couldn’t descend. Then down again, etc. I tried climbing down kelp, but it was too thick and surgey, and I kept getting tangled instead. Finally, I swam around in circles, pointed downward, until I was at the bottom with John. We started exploring the sailboat.
We went around the bow and then over the hull. There were two portholes in the hull which I shined my flashlight into. The second one was toward the deck of the boat (the highest point of the wreck, since it was on its side) and unfortunately, that meant I was up to 15′ and lost control of my buoyancy. Fuck. Again, more thrashing at the surface, this time with no success. Also, John was still down below, and I didn’t know if he knew I was gone. Needless to say, it was very frustrating, I swore. A lot. I got frustrated. And worried. When John finally got there, I cried like a baby.
None of which is what you are supposed to do when you’re having trouble in SCUBA, by the way. I handled it all wrong. On the other hand, I felt better after crying– it was like my emotional pressure relief valve letting some pressure off.
John and I discussed some strategies for adapting our dive plan and for our descent and navigation. We had drifted closer to the second wreck (a military half track that had probably fallen off of a navy boat sometime) and decided to descend, navigate back to the sailboat (which is due NE from the half track), and then turn south toward shore. We knew we had a limited supply of air, so we decided to focus on the navigation skills part of the dive, rather than the much more fun part of looking at cool stuff.
So, we descended, again with quite a bit of frustration on my part, but John managed me well. We followed our plan, but I think John was holding the compass off to his left a bit too much, because we got off course and never found the sailboat. We headed too far East. At 500 psi, we started heading directly south towards the beach. Our navigation test had failed, but we made it back and surfaced at 300 psi (we did octopus breathing for our surface, as required by the last part of our skills test). Total time and depth: 13 minutes and max. depth of 29 feet.
At lunch, I decided to write up my notes on all the dive sites we’ve been to so far, so we can refer back to it and know where the good entry/exit points were, and where the interesting stuff was. For instance, John and I already want to return to the wrecks and get a better look.
The afternoon dive went much better. Our instructor got permission from the harbormaster for us to dive the wharf, so we made a plan to kick out to the end of the concrete portion of the wharf, then navigate to the second set of pilings under the pier, and then navigate back to shore (or as far as we could get, given the shallowness of the area).
Which we did. Perfectly. Again, John led our buddy team, giving him a chance to redeem his navigational skills and me a chance to prove that I can keep my head in the water (to be fair, I only got upset AT the surface….) One dive plan change we made– I would descend *first* and wait for him at the bottom. This worked incredibly well, and we will probably do it in future dives. Him being at the surface calmed me quite a bit, and since we’re both confident he can sink when he needs to, I didn’t worry about him needing my help.
Navigation was also a dream, and we saw many great critters under the sea, including a little thornback ray, a couple of fish, tons of starfish, many anemone (try saying that fast three times!) and some different types of kelp and seaweed. The wharf has certain obstacles to watch for, of course, including not running headlong into a piling (which I almost did a few times), but it’s otherwise much more safe than I had initially suspected.
Everything was fine until John accidentally hit me in the face with his arm. This broke the seal on my mask and knocked it off-kilter. I spent much of the rest of the dive dealing with saltwater leaking in at my right eye, and trying to clear, trying to get it out, often just trying to deal with it and get it to stop. It was a little annoying, to say the least.
We had agreed to start navigating back to the shore at 800 psi, but I was having so much trouble with my mask, I told him I had 800 psi when really I had 1000. I just wanted to head back, really, and I don’t know the sign yet for “let’s go home.” We swam out of the pilings and headed south. At about 14′ depth, I again lost control over my buoyancy, and floated up to the surface; we had spent about 5 minutes swimming along at 15-16′, although we did not do the safety stop. Maximum depth was 25′, with a total dive time of 43 minutes. A much more successful dive, I felt.
On the way home, we stopped at a dive shop to see if they had ankle weights, but they didn’t have the right ones (Aqua Safaris, our local shop, sold out of the 2 pounders). We debated going back to a dive shop to get them (John had decided these would be his anniversary present to me), but I said we should get going instead; it’s about an hour drive back, and we still had to rinse and return our gear.
Dinner was wonderful, of course, as it always is at Bittersweet. Being physically tired helped our appetites as well. We ended the night with an almond tiramisu and a nightcap.
It was a wonderful 6th anniversary. For reference:
Honeymoon: Jamaica for a week. ‘Nuff said.
1st Anniversary: Sedona, Arizona
2nd Anniversary: Paris, France
3rd Anniversary: Out to dinner– again, not much [it was 2001, and the suck year. I was sick all year, and Harry had just died that February.]
4th Anniversary: Out to dinner at Peachwood’s [the car died on the way out to our reservation, so we had to change plans.]
5th Anniversary: Camping in Mendocino Nat’l. Forest in cold, rainy conditions with the dog.
6th Anniversary: SCUBA diving in Monterey.