Otter Cove 2/5/11 (pics added)

Went diving today at Otter Cove. Conditions were ok. Viz was around 10 feet or a little less, and there were some big sets of waves coming through by late morning. No wind though. I started diving at about 9:30.

I ended up diving with the NorCal Skin Divers who were having a meet. I met Dan Silveira and his family and followed them to a reef way out. I was shorediving, but almost everyone else had kayaks, so it took me a long time to get out to the spot. We dove in about 20-30 FOW I think. It's pretty amazing how much deeper it feels when the viz isn't good.

The surge was pretty strong, but there were some fish out. I shot a kelp rockfish (12"), and saw some greenlings. I also saw a nice ling, just sitting in out in the open. I went down and got a pretty good measurement on it before it swam back into it's hole. About 26-28".

I spent about an hour out there, and then started to head back to the shallows, because I couldn't get that much bottom time and my head was hurting on the bottom, probably because I'm catching a cold.

In the shallows I shot another kelp rockfish, this one 13". I was trying to get 5 species to enter in the competition, so I then went after some perch and shot a 13" pile perch.

I saw a nice cab, but spooked it before I could get a shot off. That's twice in 2 conscutive trips that I've done that.

I also saw a big monkeyface eel, but his hole was small, and at an awkward angle. He was looking straight at me from his hole, so I didn't really have much of a shot. I tried from an angle, but the tip glanced off his chin, and he went back in. And that was it for the day.

I ended up coming in last at the weigh-in's    and would've probably done better had I gotten one of the greenlings, the cab, and/or the eel, but it was good to be in the water again and compete in my first dive competition. Dan, who wasn't competing shot about 25-30 pounds of nice fish, including some cabs, olives, blues, perch, and an opaleye. It was really humbling and cool to dive with such a great spearfisherman.

The swell died later in the afternoon, so tomorrow should be a good day to dive if you can get out there.

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great repot, thanks for the update, well be out there tomorrow, if anything the weather should be great.. Its 10pm and a warm 68 degrees outside in Santa Cruz right now, amazing night!

Sweet report, I'm heading out there now to lovers.....

If it wasn't for my sons bday, I wanted to hookup with the skin-divers.  Maybe next event.

Nice report. Glad you had a good time