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We spent this last weekend in Monterey with our friends Steve & Anna. Anna was getting SCUBA certified and they invited us to come down and join them. While there, Steve, Tate and I decided to do some diving of our own.

We drove down Friday afternoon and arrived just in time for the Manager’s Reception with free drinks and appetizers. After a couple drinks, we wandered over to the real bar and got a couple more. Steve and I warned Tate & Anna about continuing to drink when we were diving in the morning…

Saturday morning, while Anna was off for the first day of her check out dive, Steve, Tate and I headed out on the Monterey Express for a couple of morning dives. We motored all the way down to south Carmel near Point Lobos where we shared a cove with two other popular dive boats, the Cypress Sea and Beach Hopper II. While on the way down, there were several whale sightings although I only got to see one tail and didn’t get a picture of it. We got to our first dive site and got ready to dive. The water was BLUE as could be and beautiful. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see a darn thing since my mask fogged up and I could not clear it to save my life. After a few minutes of trying, I gave up and headed back to the boat. In the meantime, Steve was having difficulty getting below 2 feet and ended up going back to the boat then back to find Tate & I but we were already gone. We must have passed each other without even knowing it. I was hoping to simply clean my mask and go back out but at that point, people were beginning to come back. We ended up staying out and waiting for the next dive site. I was very disappointed at having to come back so soon and I felt bad that Tate’s dive was cut short too.

The next site looked to be just as promising as the last site, although the swells started to get bigger and bigger. At one point, Tate wasn’t paying attention and one caught him by surprise and upset his stomach… we hopped in the water and thankfully, I was able to see! The visibility was great! They were saying maybe 40 feet. Man it was beautiful! I took my camera and got some great shots of some anemone’s, nudibranch’s as well as a cool little snail and even a shrimp hiding in a crack in the rock. The surge under water was pretty strong so taking pictures was quite difficult. I was able to snap a shot while flying past an object. The three of us stayed together this time and we were able to point things out to each other. As everyone started to head back to the boat, the wind started picking up so the Captain blew the underwater siren to get everyone else back in the boat before it really started to get rough.

We arrived back in Monterey Bay just in time for Anna to finish her day, and like my first day, she was miserable. Poor thing. She was especially miserable because the heavy waves caused her to be sick in the water. Funny… the two people who drank the most the night before were the two that got sick on Saturday… Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Saturday night we went for a nice dinner at the Fish Hopper on Canery Row and then back to the room for a movie and bed. Sunday morning was Anna’s final check out day and it went much better this time. She finished around noon and we headed home. On the way home, the rain really started to come down. The clouds were broken allowing some sunshine through and created the most amazing rainbow. It was the brightest I’ve ever seen. Then a second one began to appear. I was able to get a couple of nice pictures of it while driving down the road.

Click on the link below to see pics of the weekend and diving.

Yahoo! Photos – Monterey w/ Steve & Anna