April 19 - United States: Monterey, CA

The complimentary breakfast at the Best Western consists of cereal, cinnamon rolls, and orange juice.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky - probably a first for us here in Southern California - so we sat on the patio and enjoyed our breakfast in the sun.

The next task was to get toothpaste out of the trunk of the car.  This is a more intense process than it sounds like, because the trunk is completely full of stuff.  So we spent an hour unpacking and repacking the trunk as efficiently as possible.  At one point, we had everything we owned spread all over the parking lot.

Manta Ray Dive Shop

By 11:00, we had checked out of the motel and headed into beautiful downtown Monterey.  Without any difficulty we located our dive shop of choice: Manta Ray Dive Shop.  There, we spoke with Doug the Dive Master who gave us the scoop on conditions.  Doug is retired and works at Manta Ray for fun.  He told us that conditions were pretty dodgy recently.  Visibility is only about 3-5 feet, when usually they have 20-40 foot visibility.  So we chatted for a while longer and Doug gave us directions to "The Breakers" - the nearest shore dive.

We drove down to The Breakers Pier (only about five minutes away) and checked it out.  There were divers already in the water and some coming out of the water.  We chatted with a few of them about the water temp and the visibility (or lack thereof) and we decided to go ijn for a dive this afternoon.  While we were walking about the pier, a man with a HUGE beergut approached us to talk about diving.  It didn't take long for us to get a weird feeling about him, especially when he quickly offered to go to Point Lobos - a famous National Park for divers - and reserve a spot for us.  The New Yorker alarm bells went off pretty quickly in our heads.  So we managed to slither away from him, but not before he gave us his business card:

Fred S.

Dive Buddy

Phone Number: ....

WhatEVER!  Freak.

Laguna Seca Campsite

As we decided to spend the afternoon diving, we wanted to set up our tent before hand.  We took Route 68 east toward Salinas and found the Laguna Seca Recreation Area about 20 minutes outside of town.  The campsite was up a huge and windy hill and overlooked a gorgeous view of Salinas on one side and the Laguna Seca Raceway on the other.

Our Tent And The View On One Side

The View On the Other Side - The Laguna Seca Raceway

There were cars on the racetrack, but since the stands were empty we figured the cars were doing practice runs.  It was pretty windy on the big hill the campsite was on, and the rocky terrain made it difficult to secure the tent pegs.  But our little tent has been through some rough times already.  We figure it will hang in through the night.

Back at Manta Ray, we hired some wetsuits, tanks and weights.  Doug gave us a dive briefing, which was basically: "Dive along the wall".  Somehow, we mentioned to them that "Fred S." approached us.  Immediately, Doug told us to stay away from him.  They said Fred is really sketchy and always hangs out at the pier.  Apparently, he preys on couples and has been thrown out of Point Lobos more than once.  Freaky.  Anyway, we headed toward The Breakers and got suited up for our dive.  While we prepped the gear, Fred found his way back to us and wanted to follow on our dive.  Jon told him that we wanted to dive alone and we weren't interested.  It took him a little while, but he finally stopped hovering and left.  He left to search the pier for other prey.  So.  Onto the dive!

The Breakers Pier

Dive #1: The Breakers at Monterey

Time: 48 minutes

Depth: 25 feet

Temp: 13°C

We walked down the setps to the beach and waded out to the water.  Brrrrrr!  I doubt the Pacific ever truly gets warm.  After a bit of a surface swim, we descended - or tried to.  With our 7 millimeter wetsuits, hoods, and gloves, we were incredibly buoyant.  Even with 25 and 30 pounds of weight.  Finally, we descended and, after the initial shock of the cold and the five feet of visibility, we began the dive along the wall.  It was a completely different dive than what we'd been used to.  Instead of schools of fish, we were surrounded by kelp and lush plant-life.  And sea stars.  SO many sea stars!  In Australia, they were blue and very soft.  Here, they were orange or white and covered in tough skin that looked almost barnacled.  There were also crabs - very large crabs with long spikey legs.  And some tiny crabs too.  We saw a handful of fish, but mostly plants, sea stars, and crabs.  It was difficult to see beyond an arm's length in front of us, so Jon stayed right behind me the whole time.  On our way back, I felt Jon grab my leg.  When I turned around, I saw what he saw: a little sea otter was scooping up a snack from the bottom.  Then it quickly swam away.  Such a quick little glimpse, but apparently a rare one.  The dive shop later told us that divers never see otters underwater - only the surface.

At the end of the dive, we swam through the shallows and saw a few beds of sand dollars - which I've never seen alive.  After 45 minutes in 50° water, we were absolutely frigid.  As we waddled off the shore and up to the car, we found that our dextereity was absolutely shot.  It was really difficult to get our gloves off.  But we managed to disassemble the gear and thaw out.

We'd toyed with the idea of diving again tomorrow morning, but we were just too damn cold to commit to another dive.  So we returned the tanks and wetsuits and washed out our own gear at the dive shop.  We hung out and chatted with Doug for a while, and then headed back to the campsite to shower.  The camp showers didn't help in the thawing process.  They were the king where you have to hold the button in in order to get hot water.  Jon and I both decided that we would rather pay for the shower and have a constant stream of water.

Dinner at Lover's Point

We couldn't bring ourselves to cook in the cold because our bones were still shivering.  Instead, we went to Peppers Mexicali Cafe, which is popular with the locals.  It's on the tip of Monterey in an area called "Lover's Point".  

Lover's Point at Sunset

We took some pictures and then went to the restaurant and gave our names to the hostess.  The wait was an hour to be seated, so we sat at the bar and ordered sough to warm out insides.  When we were seated, Jon ordered the beef burrito and I had the mahi-mahi fajitas.  Very tasty!

Back at the campsite, it was cold and slightly windy.  We fired up the new lantern and crawled into our sleeping bags to read before falling asleep.