"Nope. Absolutely not. I'm not going," our dive guide named Sam said after hearing our plan. He was a prominent figure in town and knew his way around land and sea, having decades of diving experience under his belt. Even HE wasn’t down for the dive we were proposing at the time.
This was back in November 2021 when myself (the navigator & untangler), Marla (the underwater photographer) and our friend Tessa (the depth checker) were on a mini-expedition to scope out the kelp forests in California. We each had assigned roles for this one particular dive because it was just that gnarly—or so the rumors said. This was all pre divemaster training and when we were just testing out the viability of the Edges of Earth expedition through smaller scale attempts.
Earlier that week we had made our way up the Pacific Coast Highway to the town of Monterey, California. It’s a sleepy seaside region just south of San Francisco. You might also recognize it from HBO’s Big Little Lies. But besides the murder and mischief portrayed there, it’s actually also known for some of the best scuba diving in the USA. And there was one spot we REALLY wanted to check out.
That's when we met Sam. Booking a guided dive around some of the more chill sites in Monterey, he took us out to look for sea lions, mola mola, and the fattest jellies we had ever seen. And just like that, we became fast friends. We watched sea lions eat the fins off tiny mola molas, we froze out there in ripped 7mm wetsuits in 54°F (12°C) water and we had a lot of laughs.
Sam, now officially appointed as one of our best friends, was our Monterey guardian angel. He was perched on our right shoulder, telling us that we definitely should NOT go to Monastery Beach. But Sam didn't realize that it was actually ME, perched on the group’s left shoulder screaming that in fact we were totally going to do it. Weather permitting.
Because Monastery Beach is considered one of the more dangerous dives regardless of one’s confidence or experience level. To put it lightly, it’s the perfect storm of circumstances that make for highly unpredictable diving. First, the beach is located on the edge of a deep submarine canyon, which makes for powerful underwater currents, both unpredictable and difficult to anticipate. Second, the waves break close to the shore, making it challenging for divers to safely enter and exit the water. Third, the beach is exposed to the open ocean, which means that all these conditions can change rapidly and without much warning.
The real prize of this dive though is the kelp—the reason we were there in the first place. Marla and I both love kelp and wanted this to be a test run to see how we could handle an expedition with a singular goal in mind, let alone a massive, multi-year voyage with many goals in our line of sight. For this dive, we had one thing in mind: to capture content of healthy kelp in the wild. That’s it. Now all we had to do was get in the water at one location where we knew the kelp was thriving and survive. But there was a big problem with swimming among the fronds. The aforementioned chaotic ocean conditions—paired with century old, dark, dense and thick kelp forests—was a perfect recipe for tangling and capturing unsuspecting divers.
You might be thinking to yourself at this point, “Kelp? Of everything you’ve told us about this dive…You’re most worried about kelp?” Well, that’s because it can grow up to 53 meters, making it one of the largest and fastest growing plants in the world. Kelp is no joke and one of Mother Nature’s wonders to not mess with. Kelp forests act as both an organism and an ecosystem, as stated by California’s The Nature Conservancy division, which makes it incredibly unique. It provides shelter and home to temperate water species such as sea lions, lobster, abalone and a handful of fish. You can find California’s state fish—the garibaldi—swimming around the forests, popping out due to its fluorescent orange color against a dark green backdrop. The other thing that The Nature Conservancy reported on is that the forests provide $250 million to the state economy through fishing, diving, and water treatment as well.
After every dive shop in town (and of course, Sam) told us they wouldn't take us out, we were on our own. For better or worse. We read up. We did our research. We went every day for a week to check the conditions. We failed to get better wetsuits for the California winter and agreed to suffer through diving with holes in our suits together. And on our last day in Monterey, we gave a good old fashioned "screw it, let’s do it" and decided it was time to seize the day.
With not a soul in sight at Monastery Beach, we kitted up, freezing from the cold air on our exposed skin, and began charting our dive plan. We realized that if we swam straight out from where we parked, the kelp forests were going to give us everything we needed and wanted. We actually didn't even have to go that far. But regardless of where we go or how far out, we still had to get INTO the sea from the shore, which would prove to be the real challenge of our day.
The beach was covered in little, sharp rocks, so if you got pulled back onto the beach, it was going to hurt badly. Having our suited bodies tossed along the rocks wasn’t part of the dive plan, that’s for sure. The sandbank also dropped down aggressively, and it was a steep way down. Not to mention the waves … they were huge and it wasn’t even that “big” of a day in comparison to what we had been witnessing throughout the week. We needed to wait for a break and sprint to get in, dive gear and all. Otherwise, we'd be getting tossed and pummeled without question. And once we got in, we had to immediately adjust our buoyancy so we didn't sink to deeper depths that this site is known for.
With my compass set, we stood on the rocky beach, mask on and regulators in, waiting for our big break. Suddenly, the set died down and off we went ... running into the sea. We attempted to swim as fast as we could past the break line, but there she came. A big whopper wave that clobbered us head on. Disoriented and tumbling a bit, the three of us eventually managed to pass through the churning point. Although a little shook, we survived level one of the Monastery dive experience.
We checked and secured our buoyancy, and finally reached the notorious steep drop off. Managing not to sink into the winter’s ocean, we’d passed level two! Off we descended into the jungle of Monastery. It went from bright sunshine to profoundly dark very quickly as we entered this enchanted forest. Rockfish, lingcod, garibaldi and sheephead fish swarmed us, but the kelp … the kelp, was better than we could’ve dreamt! Big, tall, thick and canopying at the top. It was one of the coolest experiences any of us ever had underwater. We could feel the cold water penetrating our skin through the rips and tears in these old wetsuits. We stuck together, executing our various roles on the team in tandem. Marla stopped every so often to take the shots we were out there for, while I opened up pathways for us to explore by gently moving the dense kelp.
The other reason we were so interested in getting a chance to dive the kelp is because in California, and all around the world for that matter, these forests are in a state of decline. Yes, climate change and over-harvesting are big contributors, but there’s another factor that’s plaguing California’s north, and making its way down gradually farther south: native purple sea urchins. They are eating away at the kelp forests at a rate so alarming, that from Oregon to San Francisco, there’s nothing left of these incredible ecosystems serving as carbon sinks.
If you’ve never heard of a carbon sink, accordinging to ClientEarth, it’s “anything that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases.” In studies done by The Nature Conservancy in California, kelp forests are storing 20x more carbon than land-based forests, which is outstanding and a direct mitigation of climate change. Without kelp forests, humankind is in a tricky situation. These purple sea urchins pose a real problem as they will tear their way through kelp with relative ease, even some of the oldest and most massive forests.
Our aim was to document what the scientific teams in California call “urchin barrens,”—or areas nearly void of kelp that have been totally over-run by these urchins. This is a common sighting when looking at Northern California today, but the question was: how bad is the situation in Monterey? The good news was that we were seeing a lot of healthy kelp in the area. But there was no denying that purple urchins were present. The dive shops in the area had told us they were working on “urchin cull” projects, where they take their teams out to destroy these invaders to ensure that the kelp forests stand a chance. Since the urchins are eating away at the kelp faster than it can grow, this is meant to be a means of support. However, there’s no scientific proof that this methodology is actually effective, but it’s at the very least, something the community feels compelled to do in order to save their underwater forests.
As we continued on, we encountered a family of sea lions. They were seemingly playful, navigating us through the kelp, as if to show us the way. However, we knew to keep our distance, as any wild animal that seems playful is still in fact, a wild animal. At this point, I studied my compass, only to realize that we were going way off the course I had plotted. The sea lions were pulling us further and further, and the kelp was becoming a bit too dense for comfort. A good thing in terms of what’s happening throughout California, a bad thing for divers looking to return safely to shore.
Gathering the group and we agreed it was time to turn back—we had seen enough to know these forests are still intact. We were good on air, but all very cold and cautious with every turn. At the end of the day, diving means knowing your limits, and we all had firmly hit ours. Regardless of how magical the scene was in that very moment and how much we wanted to stay, knowing that this ecosystem right here might not always be this way, it was our time.
But as we turned around, the fresh path the sea lions had cleared for us was gone. It was as if the kelp was eating US instead of the urchins eating it. The last thing I wanted to do was cut our way out of the forest, given what we know about it. But as the navigator, my job was to untangle us and bring us home in the safest and most practical way. As the three of us moved through the kelp, it felt like the sea was actually granting us passage, as if it realized we weren't there to hurt it, but just to observe. It was already being hurt enough in other ways. Once we got the hang of it, pushing our way out wasn’t all that difficult and it ended up being totally non-invasive all the while.
However, this fleeting moment of relaxation was brought to an end when we realized we’d been tricked by the weightlessness and darkness of the forest. We weren’t exiting it, but rather going deeper under—the exact thing Sam warned us about. Tessa instructed the group to rise slowly. If we didn’t get out of here soon, it was clear we’d be taken by this enchanted forest. Laser focused on the exit, we moved away from the tall and flowing kelp and managed to get to a safe spot for our ascent. When we finally popped our heads from the water, we checked on the breaking pattern, as THIS we were told, would be the hardest part of our expedition. We passed level three of the enchanted kelp forest, but now it was time for the grand finale: our final level.
Getting back onto the beach required precision. We’d have to either wait for the swell to die down entirely and make a dash for the shore, or ride those suckers home. We opted for the first option and waited for the perfect moment, cold as all can be. We decided to go simultaneously, but with some space between us in case of a wave toss. After mentally preparing ourselves for what could’ve been the dump and tumble of the century, we said our goodbyes and off we went! For a moment, we felt in the clear.
The waves shoved each one of us onto the beach, sharp rocks digging into the front of our bodies. Tessa got fully tossed, spun around like she's in a washing machine. Marla, with her camera gear, was trying to figure out which part to protect first. And for me, I was bleeding from the legs, arms and face, I fully understood why people wouldn’t want to do this on a typical Tuesday. But we were here for it and survived to tell the tale.
Now flashforward to February 2024, and we were back on the shores of Monastery on the Edges of Earth expedition we proved we could do right here. This time, we looked at the conditions—waves colossal, storms brewing in the distance, and the water feeling even colder than last time. It was a firm “screw this, let’s NOT push our luck a second time.” Sometimes leaving things in the memory is better than trying to recreate a moment. The vision of the dense, thick and alive kelp will forever be etched in our memories and we all agreed that that would have to be good enough for us.
Although we may never have the chance to see this particular forest the way we did once before, we had the opportunity to meet those on the frontlines of conserving them. From scientists to conservationists to academics and more, we got to hear from each of their perspectives what it will take to protect their underwater forests. The beauty of Monterey is that the community has rallied on this one, as there’s no question that what sits beneath the surface at places like Monastery is worth the fight.
To be continued …
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