Spearfishing Big Sur this weekend

Hey guys,
Bloodbath here! Will be bringing the dive gear. Want to see what's below! Join in on the fun.

Big lings and giant sheepheads await you!

You da man Sin! Just what I wanted to hear. Can't wait!

scuba or freediving?

are you diving jade cove area? maybe check the cencal board for a recent "sighting" down that way by 2 seasonsed local freedivers as they spent the day collecting chunks of green rocks. apparently they saw "the man" and he was BIG. just an FYI.

here is from part of an email i received one morning not long ago :

"After filling up one 100 and one 50lb lift bag attached to the 220lb piece of jade, I lifted the jade and swam it to the surface. It was too heavy for me to stay there with it so I let it drop. I got another 50lb lift bag and attached it to the jade resting on the bottom and filled it with air. It came up easily. At the surface, both of the borrowed 50 lb lift bags had holes and were leaking pretty good. Now I attached a 100lb lift bag, filled it and removed the other two 50lb leaky bags. Now we were golden. The jade hung about 6 to 8 feet down, too far for my comfort, but it was what it was and there was no changing it.

 

Ahh, how fun it was to move the floating jade through the kelp. I had to move the jade through the kelp to get what I call “the slot.” The plan was to move the jade in open water with no kelp to hang up on. The slot is a section of open water leading from “Gem beach” in the north cove along the kelp between the north cove and middle cove. This slot goes all the way out to Plasket rock. Once out of the slot, you are out in open water and can maneuver around the kelp edge freely. My plan was to pull the jade with my kayak in open water all the way to Willow creek to land it on the beach. Carl was with me for inspiration and conversation and it helped immensely.

 

All was going well until I rounded the corner of the kelp bed off middle cove on the outside edge. There was a current in my face and for the next 45 minutes I just paddled like an idiot for maybe 25 yards to get out of the current…at least most of the current. I continued along this line for a while until it started to turn in a little. Following the edge of the kelp, it turned sharply toward shore near the south cove area. I was nearly ¼ mile off shore. Carl was in front of me hanging out and I said I had to take a break. I was cramping in my forearms, lats, stomach and sides. Not good. As I grabbed the kelp I noticed something long on the surface about 40 yards up in front of me and Carl was about 10 yards up in front of me. As I looked at the object, I saw a slight mottled color of what little was exposed. I wondered, Great White on its side doing a sneak approach to something with no fins showing? I looked directly in the kelp in front of this object and saw an otter on the surface doing nothing in particular. I looked down for just a second as I was grabbing extra kelp to hold on to and then looked back up. What I saw at this point was a diver’s worst nightmare. (A giant Great White shark charging right at us at high speed making a large wake). It wasn’t wasting any time to get to us. It was like someone just rang the dinner bell to some junkyard dog. As it sounded about 20 yards in front of us, I could see the back which was dark gray almost black color and that distinguishable fat section right before the tail of a GW. Right at this point, Carl yells back at me, “Did you see that?” I mustered up a “Yep.” I don’t know about Carl, but I was bracing for impact. The hair stood up on my neck as I looked around and down. We waited and waited for about 5 minutes and never saw it again. I can only imagine what it thought when it saw the kayaks and the large piece of jade hanging in the water. It probably circled us a couple of times and went back looking for otter hors d’ouvres.

 

I paddled a total of 5 hours to get to Willow creek which was only 2 miles away from our start. Ouch! I was pretty wiped out to say the least. When we were almost there, an otter was just swimming around in front of us with no worries. Nothing attacked it, so I figured the GW was off doing something else. I had to land the kayak first and then swim back into the water and return the jade through the surf line. The vis near the beach was a milky 1ft so it was extremely unnerving when I was kicking and thrashing around like an idiot trying to beach the large piece of jade. Well, I’m writing this, so I made it in and eventually got the jade to the vehicle as well. No easy task and a long day to say the least. Would I do it again? Very good question. "

- i dont know why it is but when i was working at Wallins we heard of more shark sightings in the later months of the year around aug / sept / nove than any other time.

weird.

Crazy story John. Thanks for sharing that.

here is from part of an email i received one morning not long ago :

9/17 to be exact.  Probably not a good idea to venture outside the kelp.  It's tax season!

Stuart

i dont mean to jack up someone's dive plans but i have been out on days when people had seen sightings real close to where i was diving near pacific grove, we all got in our yaks and paddled back to shore (otter cove) and they refused to go in the rest of the day. All this in under an hour of water time and these guys dived a lot in the area prior to Rickett's area being made off limits.

the description is always the same "big and black". one guy dove down right on top of it and described it to us real clearly.

i love diving and i always hope to read of a good report on this forum after a nice weekend but i think sightings are worth mentioning because nobody knows how long these can stay in the area for. i'd hate to hear later something happened and i had not found it in me to post something about info i had received a short time earlier. i love big sur and i love spearfishing but a recent sighting would keep me away for a bit.

dive safe and take care.

cool