Jade Diving
Diving in Big Sur today was about as calm as it gets. Rough by most diving standards, the ocean off of the Big Sur coast is generally rougher due to the exposure to the open ocean. On this day doing some exploratory dives with another jade diver (Paul Jensen) in some areas where diving is less common we came across some beautiful stones and one large stone that had been exposed by the winter storms. At the end of my second dive I managed to free the stone and swam my scuba gear into the beach. I left my gear and fins on the beach, and swam out to the stone with just my weight belt and mask. Breath hold diving i dropped to the bottom and picked up the stone and walked it breath by breath to the beach. With Paul close by to help me up the beach with one hundred and ninety pound stone. The stone was on the beach inside of an hour.
Once the stone was on the beach I carried my gear and smaller stones to the truck and returned with a frame pack. Strapped the stone to it and hiked the stone up the one hundred eighty foot cliff and across the meadow to the truck.