Shelter Cove - 8/2/25

Yesterday I spent a great day at the Cove with a long time friend and supporter of my business.  Joe is an NCKA OG and one of the nicest guys around.  He's a real person who cares about others as much as he does for the environment, the animals and the ways that all of it interfaces with our lives.  To get to guide a guy like Joe is a great honor and a pleasure for sure, but we were missing our third man who has been arguably the most solid member of our team throughout many different adventures over many years.  Our brother couldn't make it on this trip, but he was with us in spirit and on our minds all day long.  Well before we launched we'd already decided to dedicate the day to him when I saw that he'd texted us both to wish us luck in our pursuits for the day.

When you've known someone so long and so well, and this sport as well as this online club have been integral to not just your relationship but also the very way you relate - to all of this, it's hard to express how important and how special the love between us is.  I'll try though.

When I was a younger man, just getting going out of the blocks in this crazy race to find out what I was seeking out on the ocean, I committed myself to discovering whatever I could about the truth in my life.  I ended up developing ways for myself to express exactly what I was feeling while at the same time providing absolutely real details of my experiences.  I found that there was a response that I grew to appreciate very highly, and it came from others who were looking for these truths that I'm referring to.  I chose to build on these emotional connections, and of course it led to meeting many of the new friends and comrades that I was making online.  Without going too deep here, I want to say, with no ambiguity, that over the 20+ years that I have been active in this club, I have met many of the best people I have ever known - hands down.

What I'm trying to express here tonight does entail some level of intangibility, and I can think of an example that I'll share that may clarify what I'm trying to relate to you.

I came up in abalone diving.  My brother put a wetsuit and weight belt on me and had me diving at abalone point in swells and surge before I was old enough to drink.  I thought I was going to die out there!  I finally found an ab at like 20 feet below the surface, tried to pry it and couldn't, and left it so I could breathe again.  I told my brother what happened, and he told me I probably killed it!  I couldn't find it again in that melee' of low viz and moving water, and I think I might've cried about it right then!

I went on to develop my skills in the sport, assembled the proper equipment, discovered some new spots and various circumstances where I could access the animals using more control in order to find more success, and I found that I loved the challenge as much as the triumph in finding that success.  I introduced friends to the sport, based camping trips and even my bachelor party around it, and went on to basically an obsessive level of pursuing trophy abalone - much of the time by myself.  This was before the internet, so sharing the bounty of both the meat and the story was on a more personal level - friends and family were the only recipients of the information and/or the delicacy.

Pretty early in the game, maybe in my early 20's, I showed up at my dad's house and told him that I'd scored a limit of four abs all over nine inches - the "yard limit".  He was proud of me, and of course I liked that.  But then he asked, "what are you going to do with them?"  I responded quickly and gleefully:  "I thought you'd want one!"  "Sure," he told me, "what about the rest?"  "Well I thought Eric Thomsen up the street might want one..."  I could see the look in his eye.  He was proud of me, but he had a lesson to teach.  I figured it out right there and then:  I didn't need to just kill my limit and then figure out what to do with it later.

For years - all my life, I suppose - that lesson has directed me in my outdoors pursuits, and I'm glad for that.  I went on to capture many trophy abalone, but I would most often take one at a time, and the first time I found a limit of tens in one spot, I only took one home.  I was proud of not just how I was conducting myself but also that I'd learned this lesson from my father, and he knew that too.

Years later, when I was really getting into sharing stories on NCKA, I found that I was getting myself caught up in quite a self-perpetuating cycle of adventuring and sharing the stories behind it.  To this day, I consciously try to acknowledge, appreciate and build on the fact that I love to share myself through the writing, photos and videos just about as much (sometimes more!) than going on the adventures themselves!  And, don't get me wrong, I absolutely cherish going on the adventures.

There's a catch though.  I started to recognize how, for all of us, there is a limit to what we can do.  It's very basic, of course - it's about life and death, in the most blunt and real terms, but there's something much more intricate to this than what occurs over decades.

I ended up realizing that I owed it to myself and to others to find and share ways to reconcile the finite nature of our ability to pursue adventure in our lives.  Pondering this, I came up with a philosophy, and abalone diving became a framework for how I looked at it as well as how I communicated it.  It goes like this:  I loved to go abaloneing - not just the dive but the hike to the dive spot with all my gear in a framepack, the excitement of being there alone, donning my gear, committing myself to being as safe as I could and as much as I owed it to my loved ones to be, while going after a level of adventure so high that many people would consider it foolish or extravagant.  I loved it, and loved the sharing and the basking in the glory of finding the trophy and telling the story of all the challenges in making it happen.

Then I thought about what would happen when I was too old to pull it off.  Would I be bitter?  Would I write off the pursuits and declare that they had indeed been foolish or needlessly consumptive of my time and energy and absence from my family and my responsibilities?

I knew the answer was no, so I had to figure out what the alternative was - how would I progress through my life and not end up upset about the inevitable changes that would eventually prevent me from doing what I had developed to a high level and grown to love?

I found that answer here, within this forum.  It was about growth.  There's no doubt in my mind that the dynamic that I described earlier, regarding a cycle of adventuring and sharing it with others, was essential to my ability to learn this lesson.  It would not be easy, and it would not be fun to lose any of the momentum that I'd so long built up, but it was clearly an imperative in my life to focus on that growth that I would need to achieve in order to find what can be looked at as the ultimate point of personal contentment.

I share this here this evening because there are people - my brothers, and some sisters too - within this club who have helped me immensely on this path, and, whether they know it or not, they have achieved their own growth and philosophical reconciliations between what they desire, what they experience and share, and how they will ultimately find contentment along their journey of life.  If any of this seems vague or extravagant to you, that's fine.  I learned a very long time ago that these expressions, in and of themselves, are more important to me than any limit caught or trophy collected.

What I have learned, and what has been shared with me, due to all of these years of striving to grow instead of deepening some futile rut, has led me to this conclusion:  the love between us is the essence of our pursuit.

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Joe and I embraced to start the day.  I had a plan for us, I knew the tides, the forecast, the water temperature, the word on the street, and I was armed with many years of knowledge of what happens at this time of year where we'd be fishing.  We geared up and got on the water, and within a few hours we were celebrating another wonderful experience.  Our brother John, who couldn't be with us at the Cove, was the foundation of our joy for the day, and in the end the trip was more about growth and contentment than any day I've ever had on the water.

Be sure to keep it real, NCKA.  I encourage you to look for ways that you can move toward these goals that I've described and to get as much time together with your brothers as you can.  There are so many very special people here, and only so many years to paddle together.   

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i showed my wife your pics...she said, "oh go with him!!" 

i told her you are an ambassador and guide to the sport.   great story telling. 

Always enjoy your reports Eric.  Congrats on the nice butts!

Thank you Eric for this solid insight.  I too wonder how to shape my adventure life as the honeymoon for this yak lifestyle has ended and the pursuit of deeper discoveries are upon me still within this sport but not always just a bigger fish of the same or some outlandish way to get an "atta boy".  To share and teach and encourage is quite the progression of joy and learning.  Thanks again for your history that meets me across the inner webs and encourages me often.   You're a gift man!  Glad the Halis are in, at least this round, in your ocean land.  Haven't bro hugged ya' yet but I luv ya'!

Oh my, it looks like and reads like it was a great day and you got some halibut, too! Thanks for sharing so much more than a fishing report. The history, experiences and the people matter.

Thank you, brothers.   

Eric thank you for sharing. I always appreciate your insights, philosophies, and passion for the outdoors.