The best of days and the worst of days......

Went ab diving today with my buddy John (John T) for what might be the last dive of the year for us. We have been tracking the ocean conditions for awhile now, but every day we had off was a crappy day to dive but then a ray of light was shining on us to dive today, so we packed up our gear and headed up north to Ocean Cove around 7am. We got there a little after 10 after a stop at Diekman's in Bodega Bay, only to be treated to a beautiful sight.... the ocean was calm, flat and from the cliffs we could clearly see right through the water to the bottom.... though there was a lot of kelp everywhere.. more than i have ever seen before. So we scanned a few spots and decided to concentrate our efforts in the south cove of the Ocean Cove offshoot.

We clambered down the rocks and jumped in... after about 10 minutes of diving, i felt my fin was loose and when i looked down i saw that my right boot strap had broken... upon further investigation i saw that the spring had come loose and one of the bars had broken so the strap wouldn't hold on... well, i was determined NOT to have that little snag stop me from enjoying the awesome vis and glassy ocean i had trolled around for the past few minutes.. so i found a rock and attempted to do some surgery on my fin, but decided the easiest thing would be to use some of my anchor line to strap my fin around my bootie. after failing to do that in the water, i went back to a cliff and clambered out to set myself back up.. took about 15 minutes (after having to chew through my anchor line since we had no knife.. lol) i was able to get myself back on track.... jumped back in the water and went down to grab and ab... dove around for about 20 minutes or so and felt the fin coming loose again... shit... i looked down and saw that it was my OTHER fin that was off my foot... wtf? i pulled the fin off and when i looked at it, the same damn problem that happened with my right fin was with my left one.. the spring was gone and the strap broken... WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF BOTH BOOT BUCKLES BREAKING??!!! i was livid.... but was able to feed the strap through the buckle and back on itself in a way that seemed to fasten it on pretty well... well enough in fact that it never came off. so we dove and had a wonderful time shooting through caves and tunnels and checking out all the sea life... after a couple hours the water started churning up a bit so john headed in and i said i was gonna try to dive the north cove a bit to see if i can find any bigger abs.

so i headed over to what i call the rocky point, but who knows what this part of the cove is called.. most call it the north cove. it was night and day... the south cove was completely protected and almost glassy, but the north cove was fully exposed and getting battered from southern and northern waves turning it into a beastly washing machine. it was strange diving it in.. the vis was still great, but the white bubbles were everywhere and the surge made it a bit disorientating. i gathered my wits and went down and was pleased with what i saw.. all large 8s and 9s all around.... everywhere.. i grabbed my first two abs, which later proved to be nearly 9s and then went on the hunt for the monster.

I had noticed a cave earlier and decided that if a monster was to be found it would be inside of that so i took a deep breath and ventured down into the cave. the mouth was about 8' tall but narrowed down to a little more than the width of my body so i squeezed back out to try again knowing what i was getting into. i calmed myself down, took a deep breath and then shot down when the surge was with me. i wedged myself into the cave and had a look around... abalone everywhere and they all seemed to be very good sized and then one caught my eye.. it seemed to dwarf all the others around it... a really fatty helmet that had been greedy and probably ate all day... in fact, it was feasting on a bit of kelp as i approached it, so it wasn't fully on the rock. I popped it with little problem and as soon as i put my hands under it to scoop it up, i knew i had a monster. the excitement raced through me like a runaway train and i could feel my breath slipping away as my heart started beating faster and faster. I scrambled to get out of the cave and get to the surface to check out my prize. It was heavy... and thick.... and i was hoping that finally a 10 incher. so i needed to get back in and measure it more properly.

i headed back in but the north cove entrance was just way too rough so i skirted around the point to the south cove, which at this point had some very large swells coming in. i didn't time it right and ended up on a rock against the cliff desperately trying to hold on as the waves moved out to sea and pulled me with great intensity. when they were gone, i moved feverishly to climb up the cliff, pushing my ab float up in front of me, but because of the earlier fin trouble i wasn't able to detach my fins so it made my movements extremely difficult. I had just gotten to my feet when i heard a strange and loud rumbling behind me. i turned my head towards the ocean only to see a huge rogue wave dwarfing me and crashing at my back. It grabbed me, pulled me completely out of the water and through me about 15 feet over another set of rocks. while int he air i looked down and saw that i was heading straight into some jagged rocks jutting from the cliff face and it was all i could do to throw my forearms in front of my face before i was bashed against them. I bounced off my arms, hit my head against a different rock and was tossed around like a rag doll. as soon as the wave resided, i grabbed my float, threw it up as high as i could and jumped up on to the cliff to get out of the way of the next wave.

it was very scary.. scarier than any other personal experience i have had with the ocean. but at the same time, i wasnt hurt which surprised me. i stayed loose, protected my face and walked away with only bruises and a well learned lesson that i will always have at least two exit strategies if not more.

but.

man what an AWESOME day of diving.... even with that scary moment, the water was just so clear and for the first hour or so was extremely glassy... even later, it was only a bit churny when the sets came in, otherwise, it was calm as could be.

i measured my abs when i got home.. the big sucker, sadly, was not a 10. in fact, its only a 9.5x9, but on the scale it weight a little over 7lbs. the shell is over 6" deep and is a true helmet. I have pictures and video of it and will upload it shortly.

hopefully i get to go once more in November, but if this was to be my last dive for the year, i walk away from 2008 with a ridiculously large smile on my face.