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Night Report: Montage Resort, Laguna Beach, CA
jreitz1 - 9/25/2008 10:00 AM
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Category: Travel
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By: jreitz1 Dive Site: Montage Resort, Laguna Beach, CA Dive Date: 2008-09-24 Start Time: 21:52 Dive Buddy: Justin Bottom Time: 0:42 Max Depth: 27 ft Water Temperature: 62 F Water Visibility: 12-15 ft Dive Type: Shore Difficulty Level: Easy After meeting up and checking out the conditions at both Cress St and Moss St we decided to drive a little further and check out the conditions at Montage Resort. I had a feeling from the other two locations that the reef structure at Montage would offer us the protection from the swell that we needed and I was correct. While gearing up the third member of our team realized that he had left his computer sitting on the table with his logbook at home. So he was going to be dry for the night. Too bad for him, he really missed out. We finished gearing up and made our way down the path to the middle staircase where we slowly descended in the dark to the beach that was well lit, thanks to the resort lighting. Inside the middle cove the conditions looked like Lake Laguna as we just walked right in. As we put our fins on and adjusted our gear we looked down to find the water was super clear. We had a good feeling about the dive. After swimming out a ways into the bay we decided to make a cross-country trek and head over to the main beach to exit. We took a bearing and descended to explorer. We were not down long before I found a 3ft Horn Shark laying in the sand. It was very patient and just layed there while we checked it out for a while. As we continued to search around the reefs I spotted an Octopus hiding out in a hole. Then our dive partner for the remainder of the dive showed up, a Harbor Seal. It was a lot of fun to watch the seal as it would swoop in to go after the small fish throughout the reef system. Sometimes it would get so close that we could pet it and get a good look in its eyes. We made our way out and around the reefs until we started seeing the lights on the main beach from the resort. A couple times we caught ourselves entering into the structure and had to retrace our steps, but had no problems. In the sand we found a bunch of Round Stingrays flying about. Then, just as we rounded the last reef to head into the beach I noticed something under the sand that looked like a wing. With my flashlight I nudged it to see what it was. To my delight I had just spotted my 2nd Butterfly Ray that I have ever seen and of course I had no camera. We watched the ray fly around for a bit and then decided to complete our journey and headed into the beach, where we surfaced in 4ft of water. We made our way up the step and onto the beach to share our job of having just made a great night dive together. Great Dive!!