South African gets taste for the Red Abalone and RVD Ab bar review w/ pics..

[Sonny B]

Short Report
Mendocino County dive location.
Sat. 8/23
Conditions for Point Arena buoy 7’ at 6 seconds w/ gusts up to 20knts
Visibility 2-6’ but averaged about 3-4’ with kelp as thick as ever...
Took home a nice 9” ab and was lucky enough to land 3 rockfish for dinner. 2 blacks and a blue.

Sun. 8/24
Conditions for PA buoy 6’ at 6 seconds w/ gusts up to 25knts
Visibility 2-6’ but averaged about 3-4’, almost identical to Saturday.
Took home an 8”+ and a 9.5+” fatty as well as 3 more rockfish for dinner this week.


Long Report

I had plans to meet a friend from Santa Barbara for the weekend and introduce him to our Northern California abalone diving.
Originally from South Africa Chris G. had experience diving for abalone in his home country, which surprisingly sounds very similar to the north coast.
I educated Chris on what to expect with our shore dive and the best arrangement of gear to make things easier.
Chris is an accomplished triathlete so he made it clear he was up for a challenge. I assured him I had a shore dive picked out that would get the blood flowing, well at least on the way back up.
The problem is I am rather out of shape and the possibility of a mid 50 year old man showing me up in my own backyard, worried the hell out of me
Arriving at the spot we were greeted to a local street parade like I have never seen.

With the “Queen” of the festival being the local Deli lady, I knew we were in for a treat.
The parade had a few floats, the resident fire truck and plenty of other small town shenanigans.


This was followed by a stage performance near by where a group of young girls (dressed up like belly dancers) did a dance, while signing (yes in sign language) a song by MNM???
You just gotta love Mendocino County, you never know what you’re going to experience…

After that bit of entertainment, we geared up and headed down the hill.


Chris, his wife Joanne, and me.

The conditions looked decent for an exit/entry but poor viz and a heavy kelp growth was going to make things interesting.


The dive spot


dead kelp on the beach and shallows.


How they do it in South Africa

Chris was in good spirits and embraced the intimate diving like a pro. He agreed once you pulled yourself into the flowing mess, there was a lot of life on the bottom. You just had to wait for the surge to move the mess out of the way.
He had brought an ab iron he used in SA while diving for white abalone. It was a slightly smaller and stainless steel version of what’s commonly sold in our stores.
I had my custom Rich VanDusen super ab bar that needed to be field tested.
Feeling a little guilty knowing what I was going to do to this beautiful abalone pry bar, I quickly put it to the test. On one of my initial drops I found a crack that had a thick ab just waiting for me. The bar made short work of it and with two quick motions was on the way to the dinner table. I put the bar back on my dive board and was greeted by Chris swimming up. He apparently had bent his iron in the shape of an L while attempting to dislodge a huge ab. So we traded ab irons so he could finish off his limit.
He was joking about the size of my ab iron before we left and that he felt it was bit overkill. Not anymore!!!
It takes a big iron to pry a big ab…..
Thanks Rich, it not only looks cool but worked great.

The next hour was spent in search for a school of blue or black rockfish. Nothing like doing espetto diving with 4 foot of viz.
I kept imagining I was like FUZZ, only I was hunting rockfish not giant white seabass, ha ha.
Finally I got lucky and while descending on a dive a few fish spooked below me.
Finding the pinnacle they were swimming around was all that I needed to start the hunt.
Rockfish are not the smartest but getting them to come within 4-5’ of you can be a challenge. It was all about keeping as still as possible and after about 30 seconds or so, they would start to show up within view. Picking the largest dark mass out of the group I pulled the trigger with my handle behind my head. No aiming needed just point the tip at the target a few feet away.
Three nice RF on the stringer and I was on my way back to shore.
We tagged the abs, filled out our cards, and started our way back up.

Chris made short work of the hill even with a 30lb weight belt, his gear and the addition of his 2 thick abs.
Wish I could say the same.

Chris with his first red abalone, and nice ones too.

That night we had a great dinner consisting of butter fried abalone, and baked fish in vegetables.
On Sunday we were greeted to similar ocean conditions.
Heading out to the same spot we grabbed what we needed (2 hours later...) and made our way in.
Chris treated me to a clarified butter frying technique for fish and topped it off with a reduced orange juice sauce. Delicious!!!
We had a great weekend catching up on fish stories and diving in the murk.

Here is a pic of my last days haul once I got home. I put the 7.5” ab in the pic to show for size reference.
My old ab iron and my custom RVD crow bar.
Thanks again Rich, my ab iron is awesome.

Just because I like this pic and its one of my favorite spots to have a beer.

[sciencemike]

Awesome report, thanks for posting it. I love me some abalone.

BTW his dive skirt is bigger than his shorts