Big Sur Trip

Big Sur, California, has got to be one of the most beautiful places in California. Maybe even the whole US. Tourists from around the world flock to this gorgeous gem to see its clear turquoise waters, with majestic rugged coastline, surrounded by tall luscious trees. I first fell in love with this place during my sophomore year of high school (2007) on a school trip. I didn’t even know that such tropical looking waters existed in temperate oceans.

Photo: Haruka Ito, 2007. No color adjustments, no filter. It’s the real thing taken by a little point and shoot I had at the time. Isn’t it beautiful?

 

 When I saw the trip listed on the OSDT 2014 calendar, I couldn’t be more excited. I wanted to be the first one signed up! Who wouldn’t want to dive in that stunning place?

The first day of the trip, we toured another beautiful city in California, Santa Barbara. We visited the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, where we got a special private tour by Gabriel’s professor from UC Santa Barbara. This museum houses the spectacular lens from the Point Conception lighthouse, hand crafted in the 1800s. A lens like that, built with numerous precise, handmade glass pieces, can no longer be made, even with modern technology. And the modern replacement cannot shine as bright as that one. The museum is filled with history, not only of the lighthouse, but also the history of how Santa Barbara is the birthplace of commercial diving. The exhibit also highlighted surfing, submarines, rowing, and shipwrecks, so pretty much anyone who loves the ocean will enjoy this museum.

After eating at a harbor side restaurant, which used to be Gabriel’s favorite places to treat himself after long study sessions, we headed to Morro Bay where the boat was docked. The boat is nicer than all the usual local boats we charter! It is the biggest boat, and the galley is so wide that no one has to worry about bumping into each other while walking through. We had a small group, so people had a whole table to themselves! There were very nice large shower rooms, not the usual cramped shower with a toilet taking up most of the space. The single bunks were the size of the usual double bunks. The back deck was so large that there was room to leave gear bags right there! They had dryers, freezers, and refrigerators for the guests to use. The food was amazing and probably the freshest meals I’ve ever had on a California dive boat. So should this be considered a local trip or an overseas trip? Well, I think the feel of it is very much like our local trips, but aboard a nice, huge boat with great food and awesome crew (kind of like a small-scale overseas liveaboard). I don’t think our California diving boats can get much better than aboard the Vision.

The dive sites were top notch. We went to pinnacles, underwater caves and canyons, and other hard-to-get-to spots. One of the highlights was swimming through Thomas’s Cave, which is a huge underwater cave with three entrances. After swimming out of the cave, I entered a spectacular little cove, where the light was shimmering through the water to the eelgrass and seaweed bed. My other favorite dive involved finding little pieces of real jade at Jade Cove, where I got a handful of jade that can be easily turned into nice jewelry pieces.

The Big Sur dives are definitely for advanced dive sites, with plenty of surge, swells, and currents (side current, down current, and currents going all directions). This means that life was abundant and the underwater scene was in full action. The reefs were teeming with life, including white plumose anemone, huge lingcod everywhere, nudibranchs I had never seen before, and purple hydrocorals. Since the water is colder, we saw many things that you can only see at deeper depths in the Channel Islands. There were vermillion and lingcod at fairly shallow depths, around 40 feet or less. This area is also unique, because there are two types of kelp in the kelp forest. From Southern California through the Channel Islands, you only see giant kelp. Giant kelp likes the warmer waters, so they’re not found in the colder Northern waters. From Alaska to Central California, you see lots of bull whip kelp that likes the cold waters. Big Sur is unique in that both types of kelp thrive in the same location. This variety of kelp creates a forest that can house a greater diversity of marine creatures. Things that can only live up north and others that can only live in the south meet and live together in unison. Another interesting marine life observation I made were the number of bat stars that scatter the sea floor in Big Sur. You might see some bat stars at Santa Cruz Island, but they are not the dominant sea star species in the Channel Islands. Also, if you are tired of seeing so many sea urchins on the local trips, Big Sur’s lack of sea urchins overtaking the landscape might soothe your eyes. (The sea otters keep the urchin population in check.) Since the Vision is the only dive boat that operates in the area, and only for two weeks out of the year, you can bet that not many people have a chance to dive in these hard-to-access pinnacles and dive sites.

Aside from diving, you can’t help but stare at the beautiful coastline. We passed by one the most photographed bridge one the West Coast (due to the beautiful design and location that makes it easy to photograph from land). This bridge, the Bixby Creek Bridge, is also the tallest single-span concrete bridges in the world. We also visited McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. This waterfall is the tallest freshwater waterfall (84 feet) that cascades straight into the ocean on the Pacific coast. Hundreds of tourists visit the waterfall, but since there is no beach access allowed, they go on a paved walkway and view the waterfall from high above the falls and far away enough to take in the whole scenery with the turquoise cove. Unlike those tourists, the Vision went straight into the cove, and saw the waterfall up close. I’ve seen the waterfall from the far away viewpoint. To see the waterfall from sea level was one of the most memorable and special moments of the trip.

There’s just so much to do on this trip, from touring Santa Barbara, sightseeing, diving, and simply enjoying the cruise. They also have kayaks on board, if just looking at the coastline isn’t good enough. What an extraordinary trip! You’d better not miss the next opportunity to go dive at this special gem in California, aboard the most comfortable local dive boat, the Vision.

 

Photo: Haruka Ito, 2012. View of McWay falls that tourists see

 

Photo: Haruka Ito, 2014. View of McWay falls aboard the Vision

 

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