Hey I'm sure I wasn't the only one whose mouth was hanging open at the ocean conditions forecast this weekend. Was hoping to dive three days including Monday, but some family things came up so today is my one day.
Ran up to Mendo with my trusty sidekick, Skipper. It was, as my younger daughter says, "a Skippery kind of a day!" in other words, a day to get really excited! But the gorgeous calm surface hid an ever increasingly horrible enviromental collapse.  The spot I dove had ZERO kelp visible coming to the surface, that's standing on the bluff scanning all around, searching for kelp in an almost 180 degree turn.
In a weird way, it is fascinating to see exactly all the boulders and structures completely revealed. It makes me realize, how in normal years, with bull kelp waving everywhere, I am sort of guessing what holes exist, where a fish might escape to, or even whether I can find the same spot again if I go up for another breath.
Anyway, it was still great to get in a hunt. Did put one linger in the box, but I noticed its belly was totally empty- I felt its gut on the beach and just confirmed it cleaning it tonight. Absolutely empty!
Hope everyone who got out had safe dives and maybe some more cheerful environmental observations!

Had one of those great days that leave you feeling fortunate to be alive and grateful everything came together, including dropping swell, calming wind, and t-shirt weather. Started by meeting a good friend, Ross, from San Diego I hadn't seen in three years in Monterey. I was with my daughter, Kelly, up from Santa Barbara, so that alone was great. In the back of my mind, I was holding out hope we might also connect with my friend, T-Slaya (known mtitch on this board) but that seemed unlikely as he had actual work planned up in Palo Alto.

Scouted a couple spots and went for one that seemed to offer the nicer outing for my daughter, even if might be less fishy. Then the first sign that amazing was on schedule, just as we're unloading our gear, T-Slaya shows up; definitely a good omen. He had already been in and was heading up to Bay Area, but just seeing him and having my daughter meed him was great! We were pumped.

As forecast, by the time we leisurely suited up, the wind and swell dropped to like 2.6 ft I think, vis was a reasonable hazy 20. Kelp was pretty thin, must have been ripped up by the recent stretch of big swells.  Found some of the usual suspects, nothing spectacular. Then by good luck, chanced on a decent ling out cruising her territory. Happy to get a stoning head shot, so she was definitely coming home. 

Super afternoon ended even better with beers and food at sunset! Magic! Thankful for everything. Wishing all of you great experiences with your friends and family over the Christmas holidays plus some good safe dives!

Even got some cooking from that inspiration to us all, Big Jim! Stoke-aciousness!!

Matt Mattison shared this link with me and I thought many of us who dive or fish north of Golden Gate bridge would appreciate it:



Now I know what to ask Santa for! 

Matt is working on a project to do a number of 50' x 1000' wide urchin-free strips, be very interesting to see how they hold kelp and fish or whether the urchins invade and repopulate the area.

I've been out of the country for the past 7 months so naturally was really looking forward to jumping into N CA waters again asap. Went up to a fave mendo shore dive with my trusty dive dog, skipper, with nice conditions forecast. This is a spot that I last dove maybe 8 months ago and was ab heavy and pretty fishy as well (my younger daughter got a nice 22 ling there and I shot my pb black there another time).  I had heard that the ab limit got dropped to 12 and thought "that sucks." I  was someone who wrote in last year saying there were plenty of abs and the limits didn't need to get lowered.

Anyway, almost right away, I was shocked. Terrain with great structure formerly only challenging because it could be hard to figure out the structure through the bull kelp was totally exposed, like almost zero kelp. And when I looked under rocks or angles, where there were always at least 4 or 5 good abs, like 8 1/2 -9 inchers, there were zero or at the most one. Incredible. And yes, little purple urchins everywhere!  Instead of plenty of blacks cruising around, there were still rubberlips, but just a scattering of small to medium blacks and some greenlings. In all that great structure I didn't find a single cab or ling. Wow- can't believe things can have changed so fast. Took home one 9 ab but not at all a butterball and a reasonable greenling, but am still trying to adjust.

Oh the one positive is I took an actual hammer out with me (one thing I learned in NZ) and completely cleared two rock faces of those little purple devils. I want to check back in a month or two and see if anything is growing there or if they're there covered again in purple.  I had thought the ab wasn't a starved specimen, but I did find once I had it trimmed, that the total meat was probably more like an 8" from the past. Also, has anyone else noticed this?
The meat seemed really water packed. It leaked a lot when sliced and when cooked, shranked way more that I remember abalone ever doing in the past.

Anyway, that was my "welcome back" surprise- really, really hope that isn't the story all along the coast!

OK, it's a rainy night, so I'll risk being a little wordier and telling a story to pass the time. Some of you probably noticed ocean conditions up north (I click on Ft Bragg) were going to be REALLY good Thurs and Fri. I had an ironclad work obligation Thurs, which wasn't too fun as I woke up with a head cold moving to throat. But Thurs night, even though I was feeling hot and drained of energy, I packed up my diving gear, figuring by Friday morning I might be feeling peppier. Set the alarm early hoping to get ahead of people on the Richmond bridge.
Friday morning, when the alarm went off, I felt like my head was in a vise. Got up, took a double shot of Nyquil, couple vitamin C's, and gave myself another 1 1/2 hours of deep sleep. Felt somewhat better when I woke up and seeing how fired up my pup was, decided I could at least make Boonevillle for expresso. One step at a time right?
Deep frost everywhere approaching Booneville and I was wondering the wisdom of getting a dive in, but two expressos and great snacks had both my dog and I feeling pretty good and threw 2 sudafeds into the mix. Coast was it's own reward- WOW, been 18 months since I'd seen it so freakin calm, crazy with one storm just over and another on the way. Heading up the coast the glimpses down to water made me want to try at least a doze spots.
Decided to do what I love on the rare days like this, explore some new NW facing territories. Places I'd be getting hammered on a normal swell day. Skipper, my pup scrambled down like a crazy mountain goat- she always has to be the first one in the water.
I got in for the easiest beach entry in a long time. Here's the insane part, believe it or not, but it is still haunting (in a good way) my dreams. In the first five minutes, when I was just past the, "load the gun, get the mask adjusted right, tighten the weight belt" stage, in only 10 -12 feet of water, I saw what I thought was a young seal cruising a rocky channel. You know how sometimes a seal will sort of glide around you? And then I realized it was a fish. I literally didn't realize it was a ling at first. I'd never seen a ling that big and solid. My younger daughter shot a 22 lber about a year and half ago, so I know exactly what that looks like in the water. This was just a different sized fish altogether. The size of fish you figure only Matt Mattison or Big Jim are going to nail.Quick dive down with my 55 hole gun and tried to close. It was moving away and I took a not fully aimed shot. Couldn't tell whether I hit it, but it did jerk forward and disappear. (I only have two wraps of shooting line on that gun, so tip of spear is probably 6+ feet in front of gun). I might have just partially penetrated, or more likely just glanced off the rear body as it wasn't a broadside shot at all. Then it was gone!
Spend another 2 hours out in the water looking around that structure and all sorts of awesome but fairly barren structure further out. Put a few blacks in the bag, and near the end entered a tunnel and had a smaller ling approach head on resulting in an almost point blank head shot (don't you love those shots?) Got enough fish to call it quits and go back to my pup waiting patiently for me.
Best thing of all, by the time I got back to the Bay Area, feeling quite physically tired, my head cold seemed to have disappeared. Tired, happy, more healthy and thinking of that mutha of a ling.
Small request: If anyone pops a honkin' ling north of Albany this year and it has a hole or scar on its left side, probably nearer to tail, please post a photo. I'm expecting a better spearo than me to nail that thing. Good luck guys and gals! How's that for New Year's motivation?
(oh the last pic is just a nice ling skull near where we went in - size 12 foot for scale)

Hi since we have some crazy ocean conditions to wait out, maybe someone can help with a gear recommendation. I seem to always have a small waiting list of friends or friends of one of my daughters, who want to try diving. My younger daughter and I both use Alien masks. But recently an Asian girl (pretty narrow face) found the Aliens leaked and my back up (the sporasub mystic) wasn't comfortable for her. And that reminded me that I've had this same problem before then forgotten about it rather than solved it.

I would like to pick up a mask that I could confidently pack knowing it will fit a narrow woman's face comfortably.

I'm hoping one of you guys who go with your wife or gf out, or one of you spearo gals can give me a great recommendation? pls no gear bashing, thanks!

I was torn between driving down to Big Sur or the longer haul up to Mendo, but was curious about the Navarro river since I've seen guys launching kayaks from that little parking area.

I probably should have loaded up the yak but did a couple things in the morning and thought I might get a quickie dive in and still make the Stanford/USC game.  Should have taken the yak...

Anyway it was my first time there. I just did a shore dive. Can't remember seeing so many really dinky abs. With all the talk this summer about starving abalone I looked around for "urchin barrens." I was amazed to actually find some even though they were small zones, just loaded with purple urchins. Just as people described, there are some REALLY flat abs in there, sometimes only 25 feet from good bull kelp- guess they don't move enough to find better grazing.

Also didn't seem very fishy- took me quite a while to put some scraggly ass (that's a highly technical term) rockfish on the stringer. Didn't really come on great structure of the type you find launching from Albion.

Question to you veterans of this area? Where do you heading out from the parking? BTW: the wind and swell were forecast to pick up big time that afternoon, and right on schedule as my pup, Skipper, were relaxing and packing up, the swell started pumping. Going north on a day like that seems either pretty crazy or heroic? But I'd love to get more knowledge and experience if anyone wants to share either here or by PM. Thanks!