Monterey Trip - Spring Break 2009 (March 7th-15th)

See our 2009 trip photos here!

Note: only club members who paid their membership dues ($15 for the 2008-2009 academic year) were eligible to participate in the Monterey trip.

The USU Scuba club led a dive trip to Monterey, CA for a week of fabulous kelp forest diving. The entire trip was 8 days long, with 5 days of diving in Monterey (Mon-Fri). It was during USU's Spring Break (March 7th-15th, 2009). We left early on Saturday, March 7th, and arrived in Monterey on Sunday. We dove Monday through Friday, and returned on Saturday. Monterey is about a 14 hour drive from Logan (see Google directions). We did between one and four dives a day, including two night dives. We also toured the Pacific Grove Hyperbaric Chamber and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Here's a table describing the dives we did (note: these data are from the club president's dive computer, and information for each individual diver will differ slightly):

Dive # Day Time In Dive Site Max. Depth Dive Time Club Divers
1 Mon 10:15a Breakwater 45' :26 Jesse & Dave, Weston & Kylie
2 Mon 12:50p McAbee Beach 29' :27 Jesse & Dave & Amy, Weston & Alyssa
3 Tue 11:52a Breakwater 45' :40 Jesse & Weston, Dave & Amy, Alyssa & Kylie
4 Tue 3:34p Metridium Field 45' :41 Jesse & Dave & Weston
5 Tue 9:18p Breakwater - NIGHT DIVE 34' :39 Jesse & Weston
6 Wed 11:57a Breakwater 45 :41 Jesse & Alyssa, Dave & Amy
7 Thu 10:49a N. Monastery Beach 76' :27 Jesse & Dave
8 Thu 12:57p Lovers #3 44' :31 Jesse & Alyssa & Kylie
9 Thu 4:03p Coral Street Beach 36' :42 Jesse & Dave & Kylie
10 Thu 7:44p Breakwater - NIGHT DIVE 36' :24 Jesse & Alyssa
11 Fri 10:32a N. Carmel River State Beach 54' :35 Jesse & Kylie, Dave & Amy
12 Fri 1:55p Whalers Cove, Point Lobos 48' :55 Jesse & Kylie
13 Fri 3:24p Whalers Cove, Point Lobos 37' :43 Jesse & Dave

Divers arrived in Monterey with all their dive gear. Directions, carpooling information, lodging, and options for gear rental were announced via email and at the February club meeting. Due to the extended nature of the trip, it was cheaper to rent gear in Utah for the entire trip rather than paying California prices. Hans Parkin (one of our local instructors) rented all of the dive gear needed for the duration of the trip to three of our divers.

The water in Monterey was cold (~50-54°F). Everyone had appropriate thermal gear, including a thick wetsuit, gloves, boots, and a hood or hooded vest.

Club members did not need to have prior ocean or shore diving experience to come, but were involved with the group while in Monterey for local site orientations, safety instruction, etc.

Note: we were shore diving. Shore entries are more physically demanding than diving from a boat, and required significant physical exertion during the week of diving. One comment I got from several of the people that came with us is that they didn't know how much work was involved in shore diving (I was expecting complaints about the cold water, but everyone was fine with that!). Not ever diver did every dive. Fitting in a few extra workouts at the fieldhouse or the campus pool helped some of our divers prepare for the trip.

Costs were kept low to facilitate maximum participation. The six of us stayed in a large room (two beds) at the Lone Oak Lodge, one of the nicest motels in the area. Costs for each room were $60 plus taxes each night, which equalled about $12 per person per night (a total of $70 for the six nights we were in Monterey).

Here's an estimate of our costs, excluding gear rental (if needed). Some of our members may have paid more than this, depending on their specific expenditures:

Expense Approximate Cost
Travel (shared cost of gas, per person) $50-100
Lodging (shared, total cost per person) $70 (motel, 6 nights)
Tank air fills $5 per dive
Food (groceries, fast food/restaurants) $90
APPROXIMATE TOTAL $275-$350

So, why would we drive so far to go diving? Well, while Utah has some nice dive sites, there were actually things to see in the ocean! We were diving with seals, sea lions, and sea otters; swimming with schools of fish, and seeing some of the most colorful invertebrate life in the world! Kelp forests contain an amazing variety of living things, most of which you'd never see without heading to the ocean.

Want to know what the trip was like in 2008? We were in Monterey from May 19th-23rd, 2008. You can read our trip report (note: very similar to this page) or see our 2008 pictures.


Additional Monterey information is available at the following sites: