Albion FnC (Vid Added) 10-29-30

 ...What A trip!!! This trip had to be one of the best North Coast trips I ever had!!! The Friends and the food were off the hook!! We dove in Swimming pool like conditions all weekend!!! Met up with Big Jim, His buddy Jim, and Jim's brother Robert, as well as Cnew, and Bloodbath... My lady Brenda ,Kristiopher and my sister Janie got there around  eight to find the crew huddled in Roberts RV watching the tube!!! ... After settling in the party begun... Joe and his boy lance cruised in at around 12 midnight to find the campsite sleeping.. .. Woke up to some amazing flat like conditions! ...My origanal plan was to dive around the first island but ditched it after we looked out to sea.....It was flatter than A pancake! ... The vis was spectacular considering what im used too.Made A few quick dives and harvested my three.... I'm not A trophy Hunter and only like to take the small ones! .... Amazing dives with some amazing Friends!! Jim okamoto is A friggin beast!! I let Jim post the pics! Cant wait to hang with this crew again!!

What a great weekend!!

Drove up with Chris (cnew83) and were at Albion by 10am, and paddling out with my buddy Jim Okumoto by noon. Robert stayed on shore to keep the beers cold and to get dinner started for all of us!

Found plenty of nice abalone all over and plucked an 8.5 and two 9.25s! My biggest abs yet!!

 

Also found a nice little scallop which I managed to pry off!

Plenty of greenlings out, but otherwise pretty sparse on fish...at one spot found some blues and blacks and picked up two for the fryer. Also plucked a few urchins for uni rolls that Joe Bloodbath made up!

Back at camp, we warmed up inside Robert and Jim's RV and then Andy and crew showed up, followed shortly thereafter by DaveW!

Dave dropped off his yak and an extra one for the group and then went home for the evening. Great to see you and get to talk with you Dave!!

In the AM we took our time getting ready, had a nice breakfast of scones and hot cocoa made by the Okumotos and shared the scallop raw to get our blood pumping for the day!!

 

Paddled back out with the whole crew (Joe, Andy, Chris, Jim O, DaveW and me) and conditions were great! Was able to get right up next the to the rocks and explore a bunch of coves and inlets...found two more scallops, popped an 8.5 and 2 clicker 9s, and found one 23 inch Ling that came home with me for the fryer! My third one of the year!! 

DaveW also got a similar sized ling and some fat abs!

Chris gets my vote for rookie ab diver! He is patient and selective, only took 2 his first day (which we ate around the campfire), and on the second day he got 2 9 inchers and a meaty 8.5!! WTG buddy!!

Jim Okumoto....older diver who is tough as nails....got a compound fracture when a wave washed him into a rock earlier this season...the picture of the wound is gnarly....he had to crawl out from the beach on his hands and knees to get help....then drove himself to the hospital.   

He is still limping but was out there diving "with us"...he is used to diving alone and we hardly saw him at all once we were on the water...he comes from a different era and is not used to people looking out for him, so was surprised and embarrassed when DaveW and I paddled back out looking for him once he had not shown up back at camp yet on Saturday.

Saturday night the party was in full swing...whole fried Blacks, Blues, Black and Yellows, Lingcod....panko ab, sashimi ab, scallop sashimi, uni rolls, hamburgers, sausage, beer, campfire, good people. Great time!!

Enough writing....I will work on the vid tonight.

Chris, I know you got some pics as well, so post em up!

BIG THANK YOU to Andy, Joe, Chris, DaveW and the Okumoto brothers for making this trip so fun!!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Man I was planning on TRW than bomb down to hang with you guys...got waylayed fri nite pre tourny...epic bad side trip...Roughster pm'd me and asked if he could tell the "whole" thing from fri-sat   and of course I said tell it like it is!!! thats what I do and It gets me in trouble some times...

Freaking strange ass dude honed in on our party and led me astray...   

Talked with joe just a bit ago said FAC all WEEKEND!!!  HELL YES!!!  WTFGS!!!   were headed that way for some ab action and camping this week...Can U rally BigJ, FM1???  I've got 21 tags left and lots of time to do it...

Sounds like I missed some hella flat water...and a HELL of A GOOD time With the Crew!!!

And FM Got Some!!!  

Jim Okumotto is a Stud puppy...and sounds like he knows how to make it back alive!!!  epic dive that was!!!  glad u guys were looking out for him even if he didn't need looking out for it's great to know there's peeps that do!!!

Where's the pics/vid???

glad u guys were looking out for him even if he didn't need looking out for it's great to know there's peeps that do!!!

Where's the pics/vid???

I agree...DaveW and I made the right decision to paddle back out to find him (left Fm1 and Joe on the beach with a radio so I could call back in case we needed extra help).

He had gone south out of the cove and was out of view, and then was hanging out talking with some guys on a PB, so was out longer than he would've been if he had just been diving...Once we paddled out we found him right away...if we had not gone out, and it got dark and we had started drinking it would've been a lot harder to try and help him if things had gone bad....

Will work on the vid tonight...took a quick peek at the footage this morning and got some good vid of Andy popping a nice ab, of the Ling I shot, and hopefully the rest of the footage will turn out nice as well!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

U up to rally there again...Joe has time off till wen...I got 21 tags left to fill...I'm in willits now thinking of driving over there and doing it...???  And I know you got to work...so I thought I'd just rub it in!!!   J/K

But it would be cool if we could dive one last time up here...

No can do Mike...Robert and Jim are coming down here this Sunday to dive and BBQ back at my house with the family.

Realistically, I might be done ab diving for the year...but you never know!

 

This is the picture of what Jim's foot looked like after his accident....one tough, lucky guy for sure.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

compound fracture...ouch!!!  when that tree caught me I had boots that laced up just below my knee or I would of been same ball game...had to drag my ass to my truck and drive down to camp  

I'ts good to see that "that" didn't keep him out of the game!!!  that made my leg hurt looking at it...


No worries about making it up here...I'm going to go out by my lonesome tomorrow...and see what I can see...plan on doing it a few days than hit the crab opener @ doran than head down to SC... maybe we can do the kiddy pool at the proper time...

Sweet report, epic party!!!

It was fun diving you guys...........next time you come up let me show you some spots that aren't the harbor mouth!

Jim (medium sized Jim) is a friggin animal.  He's got this huge scar on his foot where they just recently glued him back together and he won't even let us carry his boat over some huge rocks at the launch area.  He goes on to tell me about ten dive stories that raised the hair on the back of my neck.........me, the anti-safety dude.

Really, never, EVER, let this guy talk to your wife about diving..........if you ever want to be allowed to go diving again.  He loves to dive alone, doesn't care about sharky water..........or anything.  When he turned his ankle around 360 degrees, he was alone and had to crawl a half mile to his car - with that friggin bone sticking out of his leg!!!!

You guys are a great crew, glad I got to dive with you-all.  I'm hoping big sized Jim will show me his monkey-face spots when I go down south soon.

Man, I've got to sign up for the BigJim handshake support group..........you guys weren't kidding about that 

The secret to Big Jim is go in hard and fast and get the hell out quick. Great reading here fellas.

Sounds like a blast, guys! Conditions were great up and down the coast this weekend.

killer report guys, glad you all had a good, safe trip. Thanks for sharing the details.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Sounds like a blast! Glad the weather treated you well.

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Nice video Jim! Great to see lots of nice abs all over the bottom. Wish I could have made the chill out. WIll need to get up and get a few more abs before the season ends soon.