A bit of an eventful weekend for us all up at Russian Gulch.  We had a few campsites reserved for the weekend and were able to fit 11 campers and a few friendly canines Friday night.  The weather was surprisingly windy through the little campground valley, but there was plenty of fire to go around.  We had the fortunate coincidence of camping across from Reef Check California (http://www.reefcheck.org/california/ca-overview), whom, throughout the weekend, we exchanged some good conversation and information.  Lucas was dive master and built a kayak cart to be given as a prize for the diver with the most fish points the following day.

        Everyone was up and moving by 7am.  It was split 50/50 between shore divers and kayakers, with a total of 12 divers.  Sal was in the water for the first time after his hip surgery, and was able to stretch out his legs a little with Jim K.  The launch was a little staggered, as a few kayaks took a while to make their way from camp. ​

       We made it into the water around 9am.  Most of the kayakers went south, and passed a few shore divers exploring the northern side of the small Point Frank peninsula.  We kept paddling and eventually met up with a few shore divers at 500D.  I stopped there with Gregg, and hopped in the water on the northern face of the wash rocks.  Lucas and Wasen kept moving south to dive the northern wash rocks of Slaughterhouse Cove.  We dove for 3 hours in tolerably rough swell.  There was not much to see, and I would run into pockets of small blues, and found a few Blacks and Black & Yellows under rocks, but nothing worth taking home for dinner.  Plant life was minimal, and there were pockets of dense urchins all around the wash rocks.  You can view this from the short video below.  Eventually as I took to the southern side of the wash rocks, I ran into Josh T, Jason, and Leo, who had just found a large Octopus in 15ft of water.  This is also depicted in the video below. 
 
         By 11am, most of us were exhausted from fighting the current, and we all realized that the wind had picked up significantly and was dragging our kayaks all over the place. We quickly headed back into the cove and vegged on the beach for a few.  Most people came out of the water with a small payload, but Wasen and Lucas both came in with decent fish.  Wasen took the win with a well-rounded stringer of a Ling, Cabezon, Black, and nice chubby 7.8lb Vermilion.  He left that day with his kayak cart prize, and the most points on the board for the annual cumulative competition.  

​Author: Justin Yasutake
Location: Coral St./Otter Cove, Pacific Grove
Divemaster: Justin Yasutake
 
Weather: 65-68˚ in the morning, 70-75˚ in the afternoon, wind picked up in the afternoon. 

Ocean: Water Temperature 56˚.  Swell 4-6ft at Coral Street, swell 1-2ft at Otter Cove, some surge in shallow waters.   

Visibility: 8-10ft, silty with a lot of kelp debris, typical of Otter Cove.
 

Soon people started trickling into the water. Most of the new divers stayed close to shore diving in around 10-20 feet of water.  They came out saying there were a lot of rockfish to be seen.  I ventured further northwest toward oceanside with Jason.  We hit about 35 feet of water, it was patchy structure with a few fish-heavy sections.  I lost a ling and bounced a couple of rockfish off the rocks. ​

Author: Justin Yasutake
Location: Albion
Divemaster: Josh Thorndike

Weather: Mornings and evenings 48-58˚F, mid-day 60-70˚F.  Showers Friday night and Saturday morning.  Sunny most of Saturday and Sunday, with intermittent clouds.  

Ocean: Water Temperature 51˚F.  W swell, 2-3ft inside the cove with heavy surge, 6ft outside the cove. 

Visibility: 15ft at 30ft most of the dive, dropped to 8 ft viz by the last few dives.  

  We had quite the weekend up in Albion, a bit of crazy weather, and some combative swell, but a festive and enjoyable weekend with the crew.  
 
I arrived on Friday night around 7:30, just in time for the sun to set. Alex arrived earlier that evening, and he had already set up camp and was taking a nap.  Mervin came shortly after me and set up a palace of a tent. Gregg showed up with his truck camper and the dogs, and opened an EZ-up in anticipation of rain. Josh, Lucas, and Travis trickled in later that evening. Rain started around 8, and spit on our camp for an hour or so.  We attached a tarp between Gregg’s camper and the EZ up, so we had plenty of space to stay dry.  The rain let up to an open sky with a lot of stars, and stuck around most of the evening. The fire was lit, and we conversed and shared some steaks that Gregg brought and prepared.  Around midnight, it started to rain again, and we all turned in.
 
Saturday morning, I woke up around 630, and got up to organize the campsite and get ready for the dive. Jim K showed up to dive for the day, but was not camping.  Sal M made an appearance as well, around 730, but was not feeling well and chose to sit the dive out.  He had dove the day before, so he had his fill.  Most of the people started poking their heads out of tents and campers around 8am, and Gregg had bacon'n'egg Coissant-wiches ready for everyone. Albion has quarter-operated showers, so most of us ran over to put our wetsuits on in a hot'n'steamy shower, instead of suiting up feeling like icicles.  By then, it had begun to rain again for an hour.  People slowly trickled over to the shore with their kayaks, and most of us were in the water by 10am. 


​

     As soon as I jumped off the kayak, I knew it would be a short dive.  My Suunto clocked the water at 47˚, and it felt colder than that.  My dives averaged 35ft for the first hour where I found a 27inch Lingcod at the bottom of a pinnacle 20 yards off the headland wash rocks.  It started raining around that time, and lightly persisted for an hour or so.  Josh finally caught up to us about a half hour into the dive.  He had a big tear in his suit, acquired from our dive trip to the Channel Islands the weekend prior, but got in the water anyway.  Cheers to his dedication in the cold weather. 
​

Author: Josh Thorndike
Location: Fort Ross
Divemaster: Wasen Van Ventura
Weather: Calm, clear in the AM; overcast, cool in the PM
Ocean: Calm in the cove, mild (3'-4') swell outside.
Visibility:  3'-6' above the thermocline at about 28'. Below, green and 3' vis.

     We got to the park at about 8am and drank our coffees and hung out in the parking lot. We put a small pot together of $40 to go to the biggest fish of the day. The ten divers split up into 2 groups (kayaks and floats).

Author: Justin Yasutake
Location: Otter Cove, Monterey Bay
Divemaster: Justin Yasutake
Weather: AM-Sunny, 64˚F; PM-Sunny, 72˚F
Ocean: Mildly choppy, small surge underwater, swell 2-3ft outside of breakers.
Visibility: 10-15 feet outside of breakers.  

     The crew met at Coral Street around 8:30am to assess the swell ocean side.  There were some breakers at Coral, with swell looking around 4-6 feet, but it was extremely choppy, so we decided to head more bayside to Otter Cove. Attendees were myself, Alex Watson, Josh Thorndike, Gregg Shimaura, Mervin Pan, Jason Demers, and Jason's younger brother Aaron. Several other members, Aaron Bever, Dennis Belcher, and Wasen Van Ventura took kayaks out of Stillwater South the same morning.  

     Once we all settled into the new destination, we assessed the water and enjoyed the sun, as it was warming up around 9am.  We started noticing an unusually significant amount of debris in the water, and Alex made a note that a sailboat had crashed nearby recently.  After suiting up, we started making trips down to the water to pull some of the garbage out of the water as we saw it shoring.  Significant items were taken, I pulled a full canvas sail out of the water, a black duffel bag, and an REI jacket.  I believe the jacket was still intact and Jason's wife wound up taking it home.  I took  home a mesh bottom bag which was used to hold the sails, which you see in the below photograph. There were even parts of the boat washing up on shore, so were able to pull some of those large fiberglass pieces out of the water.  

     We eventually made it in the water around 9:30-10:00am.   I immediately began to swim to the left where I found several curious harbor seals tailing me.  Most people made it about 100-200 yards from our launch point.  As we dove, we continued to find various debris floating around on the surface.  On several occasions, Gregg came swimming up to me wearing a newly discovered baseball cap.  He came home with two of them.  
     Around 11:30, the divers were starting to head back to shore, and I followed suit by noon.  I came in with 2 Grass Rocks, a Black Rock, and a Monkey-Faced Eel.  Several others came in with various Rockfish.  When walking to our cars, several enthusiastic tourists wanted to take pictures of our fish, so we happily obliged.  
     When everyone was out of the water and dry, we made our way a few blocks over to Lover's Point, and everyone grabbed a bite at the Cafe there.  It was a surprisingly sunny day, and people were out and about in swimsuits, a strange thing to see in the middle of January.  It was a long weekend for all of us, as we had our club's breakfast meeting the day before, we were all fairly worn out.  We said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways to end the weekend, and all in all was a great way to kick off our 2018 year.