Roger Lamb has been impressed with my sit-on-top kayak and started looking for one for himself. Recently he bought a used “Scrambler” model by Ocean Kayak. He is a strong swimmer and interested in abalone diving. He got a license last year and went diving with Ken Kelton, Max, Joe Petolino and I at the BASK Mendocino Campout. He is also a very skilled kayaker. We talked about going abalone diving together again and settled on a time and date.
The closest place that I was reasonably sure would have lots of abalone is the Fort Ross Reef, so we drove out there. I normally dive on the south side of the reef, but that area had large breaking waves on this day as we paddled out. I couldn't figure it out since the swell was coming from the normal northwestern direction. Sitting in my kayak I looked for another spot and noticed that the swell calmed down on the north side before breaking over the reef. There was kelp to tie up to and the rocky reef to dive down near, so I figured this was a good place to find abalone. I sat in that spot for a while and watched the waves break over a rock nearby and decided to try diving here. Roger was not convinced. Despite all his experience on the ocean he was apparently insecure to leave his boat to the mercy of the waves while he was in the water. He asked if I often dove in conditions like this and the answer was yes. He asked what I thought would happen here as the tide rose and the waves picked up. My prediction was that the waves would not break in this spot and he took me at my word. I suddenly had a drop in self confidence to think that he was depending on my expertise. Getting myself into trouble on the ocean is one thing, leading other people into trouble is a different kettle of worms. But we used my usual paranoid security protocol: Two boats tied up to two different strands of kelp. Any single failure cannot strand us without a paddle. I'm not paranoid, I KNOW that the Pacific Ocean is really out to get me.
I got dressed, into the water, and dove for the bottom. It was quite deep, but I really didn't think much about it and looked around for abalone. The visibility was poor at the surface but opened up to three or four meters at the bottom. I saw a few abalone but not in time to get one. At the surface I reported to Roger that the prey had been spotted. On my second dive I managed to catch one. It was legal but not very large. I calmed down and started diving more for fun and looking for larger abalone, content to stop with the first one if we quit early.
Roger was apparently having trouble clearing his ears. Since I had gone diving with him twice before I had assumed that he was an experienced diver. But it turns out he has had no training and had never been this deep before. From soundings I have done at other places since this dive, I think it was over six meters deep and only seemed OK to me because I have acclimated to diving. So I stopped to talk to Roger about how to clear your ears and to apologize for not giving him more training before we started. Roger was able to get his ears cleared soon and made it to the bottom but never stayed down there very long. I started to worry that he wasn't going to get any abalone, so I went diving in earnest again. Although the regulations do not allow you to catch abalone for someone else, I figured I could share an abalone dinner with Roger so I went after another one to make sure I had enough. I found one that looked large and popped it off, then the smaller but still legal one next to it. With two abalone in my arms I was definitely negatively buoyant at the bottom and had to struggle a little to get myself pointed up and moving again.
A few minutes later Roger came up with one abalone of his own and we were content to quit. Although the waves were breaking nearby in several directions my predictions were correct and we left our dive spot without any trouble from the ocean.