Date: 2 October 2011
Location: Anchor Bay, north side
Estimated Air Temp: ~62*
Estimated Water Temp: ~55*
Time: 10a-12p
Max Depth: 16′ dive, 25′ bottom
Visibility: 2′
Equipment: 7mm med suit; TI med gloves; med booties; lg hood; snorkel; mask; 17lbs weight; ScubaPro JetFins. Note: First time diving with everything owned by ME

Hit this nice little tree across the road on our way to the coast. Set us back ~2hrs drive time, but helped us find a better road to the coast in general. Pretty amazing seeings this.

So this was my second outing for abalone. We (Rod + I) headed up to Anchor Bay (95445) to try our luck. Sonoma County has been closed since ~Sept 20th by CA DFG due to the invert die-off. Noted by me in my previous dive report. So we headed up to Mendocino coast, about 4 miles past the county line. This was Rod’s first time free diving and I’m sorry it had to be in these conditions. Wind was blowing about 5kts when we pulled up and payed the $9 day use fee for Anchor Bay campground. The usual cloudy and overcast skies made it seem a little colder too. Surf didn’t look too bad, but there were a few nice sets here and there. After gearing up, we walked north along the beach til we were almost next to the cliffs. Entry was fairly easy, just timed it right between the knee-waist (3′) waves. Swam out on my new dive floats, both are re-purposed boogie boards.

Basically stayed along the northern end of the cove in water up to 20′ deep. Visibility was horrible to the point where I couldn’t see my fins if I was looking down. Brownish water with a fair amount of pulverized kelp. It’s a reminder to check on the ocean conditions for the week leading up to your trip. Just because conditions let you get in the water doesn’t mean it’ll be good diving. At any rate, vis improved on the bottom to about 3′, maybe 4′. Using my dive light actually helped. There was a pretty good surge going, but nothing horrible. Holding on to kelp/rocks was necessary though to keep looking at one spot. I managed to see a good size ~14″ rockfish swim by me, looked like a blue or black but it happened too fast. That was about all of the life I saw that dive. Found one small ~4″ ab shell that I brought up for Rod to see. Only time I saw a legal looking ab was when I was running out of air on a dive ~12′, he was clinging upside down to the roof of a rock about a foot in. Didn’t seem like I would be able to get him so that was it. Other than that, was glad I could get out and go. Will probably try a different spot next time with less parking so hopefully there will be more abs.