Monterey Canyon
Bathymetry of Monterey Canyon and the Soquel Canyon tributary.
Story/Photos/Videos by Marc Owerfeldt

This is the year I explore the Monterey Canyon as deep as my kayak will carry me.


Posted on April 11, 2020

The Monterey Canyon is a very large and deep body of water reaching depths of 11,800 ft at its downstream mouth. It is the underwater equivalent of the Grand Canyon and one of the outstanding features on our coast.

I met up with Jason, a man who never sleeps, to continue exploring the Petrale Sole spot. I don't have a lot of footage from this trip as fishing was uneventful and marine life still dormant for the most part. We ended up catching a bunch of Pacific Sanddabs, enough for several good meals, and one Petrale Sole.

Launching.
Western Grebe.
Cormorants.

Western Grebes were swimming in small groups in nearshore waters as you often see in the early part of the year. Western grebes eat small fish such as anchovies and young rockfish, both of which are abundant in spring. With their narrow bills, grebes cannot swallow many fish whole, as cormorants do, but must chop the fish up with quick jabs of their bills before consuming the pieces. (source: http://www.seasonsinthesea.com/apr/seabirds.shtml).

My Pelagic Cormorants friends had relocated from the sea wall to a structure of wood pilings and looked as majestic as ever.

On the way back we swung by the stretch of beaches to the south of Moss Landing and spent a good amount of time slow trolling for halibut in 50 to 100 feet of water. This partially explains why the trip took 9 hours, one of of the longest uninterrupted day paddle I ever untertook. Back at Moss I crawled out of my boat and had to revive my legs for a while before I could walk.

Bathymetry of this fascinating underwater world.

It was my third trip to Moss this season. All trips turned into long day paddles, and my body is starting to adjust. Trips of this distance and duration with a loaded kayak is grueling work and I am lucky that Jason is fully on board.

Distance: 18.4 miles, Duration: 9 hours