SCUBA diving Monterey

So, Monterey was wonderful. We went scuba diving on our 1st day there. Visibility was really bad (insert a synonym that I can actually spell)... This was our first beach dive. I felt nervous because of my ear problems. It takes me just a little longer than everyone else to adjust my ears to the pressure change. Then when I finally was down at the bottom it was scary because I knew I was only 2ft away from byron but I could barely see him. Crazy stuff. It was also a little more intense because before we headed down, the seals that were swimming by us were also under the water near us. Curious, but left us alone. which is cool by me just because we are so clumsy underwater and they are NOT. They also have big teeth. Overall we did 2 dives that day and saw all sorts of cool cold water stuff like starfish eating jelly fish, crabs eating jelly fish, sheep crabs, decorated crabs, sun-starfish, nudibrinks, shrimp, otters, tube anennnononomnies, urchins, sea cucumbers the size of a loaf of bread and lots of kelp trees. The first dive nothing major scary happened, but the second dive I had a harder time with the ears and then towards the end of the dive, I got caught and separated from Byron and the instructor because a Kelp strand wrapped itself around my tank and I couldn't get untangled. Its a lot like the Chinese finger traps - the more you struggle, the worse it gets. So, I had to calm down, detangle myself, and then proceed down a path I think the guys took to catch up to them. There were so many jelly fish in the water that all of our faces were stinging by the time we were done. Also, I now know exactly how a turtle feels when it get's flipped onto its back. The water was so rough that trying to get out of the water standing posed a challenge for me....