My First Abalone Dive

August 28th, 2015.

Last weekend I went on an adventure, camping with my family and one of my best friends, Ashley. We went to Albion River, a little campground that is alongside the ocean where it morphs into a river, just south of Mendocino, its a rad little spot.

I decided I was gonna try to Abalone Dive. My dad has been going out abalone diving for about 10 years now and I have always been intrigued yet scared of the thought of swimming out into the ocean in a constricted wetsuit, weights and flippers and diving down trying to pluck a giant sea slug off a rock on the seafloor. Between the thoughts of sharks, rough currents, breathing trouble, its pretty sketchy.

It was a calm afternoon as the fog started to roll in as we were suiting up to go out, I was determined and I think my dad was a bit surprised that I was really about to do this with him. We loaded up and drove down the road to the cutty trail to get to the dive spot. When we got there the fog started to clear and it was the most beautiful little mermaid lagoon, I was reassured it was all gonna be okay...

After I zipped up my suit, which was much too big for me, I got a little claustrophobic, I put the hoodie on and could barely hear a thing, I suckered my little pink mask onto my face and started trekking through the kelp and rock beds out to sea. My dad showed me around a little bit, how to use my snorkel and start checking things out below me. At first I looked down into the water and was terrified, it was like a real life monterey bay aquarium underneath me, mounds of kelp wrapping around my arms and legs gave me chills, breathing into the snorkel felt like I was barely able to catch my breath, seeing things move around beside me worried me. But after a few minutes I got the hang of it, I relaxed and at that point was overwhelmed of the beauty and serenity underneath me. Fish swimming directly under me, checking me out, and then, there it was, I spotted my first Abalone! I popped my head up an told my dad “Hey over here, I see one!” He didn't really believe me and came swimming over and sure enough he saw it too. He asked if I felt ready to go for it and I sure did, the second I saw that sucker down there I got an itch of abalone fever, I was stoked, so I started swimming back to shore to get my weight belt on and do the damn thing. I got my 14lb belt on and struggled to get my flippers on and after a few minutes of frustration said forget it and went flipper less.

I got out to where the abalone was and started looking harder, they were everywhere. My first dive down was a struggle, my suit was too big and buoyant and the fact I didn't have fins to swim myself down with ease I was unable to even get far enough to reach the Ab, I was pulling on kelp trying to get myself down there. We decided to switch weight belts so I put my dads big ol 20 pounder and tried again, flawless. After a few attempts I had gotten my first ab. It was scary exhilarating and awesome all at the same damn time. 

I went for my next ab and the little guy caught drift of me coming after him and hunkered himself onto his rock, I was determined and ended up swimming up with the entire rock (I felt like BJ Penn strength training with the rocks under water) I was kicking my little feet as hard as I could trying to get it up and into my tube, my dad told me to just drop it but I wouldn't give up. I kept putting him down, catching my breath and swimming more with him every time the waves would cool down. I ended up getting him up onto a rock mound in the ocean that gave me enough leverage to chuck him into my tube. After that I was exhausted, stoked of my first successful ab hunt of bagging 2 abs, and ready to head back to camp.