Sealion II

So, we all dove on the other side, except I didn't dive. No mask, no snorkel, glasses...um. Not a winner. So I stayed by the float and bobbed a bit while the other fellows went down and fetched up one abalone apiece. They're pretty impressively big (the legal sized ones--they have to be at least 7 inches long to be taken) and they grow kelp and barnacles and limpets and things all over their shells. Kinda like sloths, but, y'know, underwater. After a while the bobbing with the float made me a little motion-sick, so I headed back to shore and paddled in the tide pools for a bit--and discovered a beautiful abalone shell in six inches of water. o-o It was just big enough to be legal to keep, too (if it had been alive when I found it). So I promptly claimed it as my booty, and it is now drying on my windowsill at home in preparation for a life as an ornament on a bookshelf. It's gorgeous--not even chipped. (My insistence on including the shell in our day's "take" occasioned a few laughs, but hey. I take my successes where I can find them.)

The lads didn't have as much success as they would like and we were hoping to find a place with a bit less kelp, so we pulled up stakes and drove a couple of miles down the coast to another spot we had seen and put out again. This went rather more smoothly, but either there weren't enough rocks or there was too much kelp, and we didn't have any luck at all. After a few hours (much longer than we had thought, actually) we got out and drove back. It's a nice drive, really, but we were stressed cuz we thought the dive shop would close at 6 and we would have to come back early in the morning to return the items. Fortunately, it closes at 8, so we made it in plenty of time. I got a really weird sunburn from the wetsuit--my right shoulder is all red, and the rest of my arm is its normal tone(s), so it's kinda a reverse farmer tan.

So, a day of adventure; and now I have an abalone shell, and a story, which I have just told you.

THE END

So, on Saturday I took a break from science and what-not and went with some friends to do some abalone diving. In case you are wondering, what on earth is an abalone, let's start with that:

wikipedia is our friend

The pictures there aren't really very good, but it will give you some idea. They are sea snails with non-whorled shells-something like half a clamshell atop a good-size marine snail. The shells are very handsome indeed once the rather hideous-looking creature inside of them has been removed. I was really more excited about getting a shell than catching an abalone, which, as events turned out, was all to the good.

We went so as to be in position to abalonicate at low tide--1 PM or thereabouts--and got into the water at about 11. The organizer generously loaned me a wetsuit and booties, but even so buying the fishing license, the abalone license (a separate deal), renting the mask and snorkel, the fines, the weight belt, and the float (an inner tube covered in a mesh net for us to store things in while out on the water) set me back a pretty penny. So. Expensive.

And also fairly dangerous, as weekend activities go. Not like, say, scuba diving, or hang gliding, or motocross; but still. After clambering about a bit on the rocks in our first chosen locale we decided to strike out into the deep--but my fins were missing an attachment piece and so I wasn't wearing them. Between that and the fact that it's been rather too long since I went swimming the organizer (wearing fins and managing the float) outpaced me pretty quickly, and I was making no headway against the waves. If I had had more confidence in the snorkel and mask I would probably have come through all right, but I was still close enough to the rocks that I was afraid of a cross current swamping my snorkel (I have no idea if that would really be at all likely, but I was totally unwilling to find out) so I endeavored to turn back.

Let's just say that swimming toward large rocks while in the grip of four or five foot waves is a risky enterprise, since one goes from being "too far!" to "much, much too close!" to the rocks in a matter of seconds, and since you have your back to the waves it's never clear when exactly this is going to happen. I got back, glommed onto the first available rock, was pulled off by the retreating tide, and went forward again (not really voluntarily), managing to get past the first rock and giving myself something to brace against. At that point I was pretty much out of danger, but it took me two or three more waves to work my way to a truly secure position.

After spending twenty minutes or so to collect myself I went back around the big group of rocks which we were using as our "home base" in search of my fellows, and eventually we found each other again.

AND NOW, A DIGRESSION: We were on a point with a lot of tide pools and all kinds of kool tide-pool animals. I saw several crabs and hermit crabs, many starfish, many mussels, many anemones, a few tide-pool type fish...this was one of my favorite things about the expedition.

Anyway. Having reunited, we dove on the other side of "home base", which featured a much easier approach but a lot more kelp (good, cuz the abalone eat it, bad, cuz it's nasty nasty stuff to swim in and worse to dive in--very entangling). I discovered that at some point in my mad scramble my mask and snorkel had been lost and were now, presumably, in the custody of one Davey Jones. I didn't much care. I was alive.

It did, however, prevent me from diving (together with the fact that I was wearing glasses...yep, abalone diving while wearing glasses. (!) The glasses were never in any real danger of being lost--the wetsuit kept them clapped close to my head.)

PART TWO: IN WHICH NOTHING EXCITING HAPPENS to follow