North Monastery
January 22, 2003
Kevin posted this report on the www.baue.org website:There was a little bit of wave action when we checked it out. We watched a group of divers flouder around in the surf zone before we suited up. They tried to exit near the middle of the beach, tried to stand up when clearly they shouldn't have, and then stood around in the middle of the surf getting knocked around.
We were considering looking for some place that would have better conditions until we heard "40ft vis and no surge below 40 ft".
With that settled we suited up and dropped down near the wash rock and headed down. Vis and surge were as reported.
We headed down into the canyon a bit and then around to the right into the Carmel Meadows side. I like the Carmel Meadows side a lot. The terrain is interesting with rock walls and such. Also, when you are at the the 50-70 foot level it's kind of like being on a ski hill. You can see the sandy "ski runs" heading down and then dropping off between the rocks.
On the way back we stayed at the 50' contour around the reef and worked our way into shallower water where we did S-drills and valve drills and shot bags. On the way out it was borderline for walking out with doubles so we decided to take no chances and crawled out with no problems.
Afterwards as we were getting ready to leave some pretty big sets came though so I don't know how good it was in the afternoon.