TREK! 5/30-5/31 turnaround

The turn of a key, the touch of a button, and POOF! I was on my way to the rugged Sonoma coast in an instant. What did my eagerness stem from? What had overcome me? I had never felt it before.

It’s just that – in my ten years of diving, I’ve never heard the words “flat” and “calm” used in the same sentence to describe Northern California’s water.

So began my one thousand mile trek for three shells. That’s right. Not even enough to count one for each finger on both hands, let alone one.
THREE shells. That’s all we’re allowed to have in possession – or risk Jail time.

Thoughts wandered through my head as the staccatos of the music blaring from the car stereo music deafened as I tried to tune out unwilling thoughts while I cruised up the I-5. It was just a few years ago that famous diver Randy Fry was horrifically decapitated diving for Abalone on the Norcal coast.

Three Abalones (underwater snails, really) that people gristle and gripe and groan, grind and steal and hurt and kill for.

What was the big deal?

I had to find out…

I left Saturday morning after meeting a friend in Hollywood for a quick breakfast. Then on my way to grocery shop, pack dinner and lunch for the next day, a stove, a tent, my dive gear, and nothing else in search of three big Abs…
arriving to the campsite to set up and hear the bellows of the sea lions as I forced myself to sleep unwilling to think of the sealions as bait...

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The next morning in search of a remote location I was greeted rudely by the pessimistic ocean. Even after a 45 minute hike with over 50 pounds of gear strapped to my back, and despite the calmness that resembled more a lake than the Pacific, my high hopes were popped as the milky green water said its first hellos. Plankton bloom. Everywhere. L I knew it would be near impossible to see past the stretch of one’s arm, a far cry from the endless visibility I was expecting due to the nonexistent swell.

Regardless, my brow was now sweaty after traversing rocks, boulders, and slippery seaweed that near caused my early departure from this Earth…Hips sore, shoulders tired, my drenched-laden body couldn’t wait to douse itself in the chilly forty-eight degree water…

Here’s the pictures…

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It was a great time…and who knows,

Maybe I’ll gristle and gripe and groan and…hold on. Let me get me a taste of some fresh abalone.

-E

Tip over the cows!