Dive for Abalone
A truly in depth instruction on how to dive for Abalone, spearfish, or just learn to snorkel for fun and recreation. Don't miss this!
Steps
- Prepare for the dive. Diving for abalone is one of a kind experience enjoyed by many on the north coast of California. The use of a scuba tank or any other underwater breathing apparatus is not used; all the fun lies when you must get them by diving while holding your breath. Not to say that you can’t go out at very a low tides and “rock pick” them without entering the water,
- Know what an abalone looks like(or is). An abalone is a huge snail that lives on the rocks in the shallows of the ocean. Most abalone have hard shells and are approximately {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} wide. Most rarely grow to over {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} in its life. The abalone are firmly attached to the rocks by their “foot” and are pried off with a flat bar, which also must meet certain criteria legally to avoid damage to undersized abalone and those that are unable to be pried off such as, It must not be sharp or not wide enough so the abalone are not cut with it.
- Know what is mandated by law, when you prepare for your dive. By law, every diver must carry their own measuring device while diving which are wide “U shaped” tools with an inside width of {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}.
- Prepare your suit and clothing. You will need a full wet suit which includes a hood, gloves, and booties. The other gear that you will need would be a mask, snorkel, fins, weight belt, abalone bar, abalone gauge, and something to keep your abalone in as they must be kept separate from other divers’.
- Ready yourself for the possibility of other irregularities caused by diving. Seasickness, cramps, exhaustion, and injuries do occur and such a floatation device can save your life.
- Understand how the suit is constructed, and how that relates to diving. The wet suit is neoprene which is a foam type material and the wet suits come in various thicknesses. This material is very buoyant and the weight belt’s purpose is to offset this buoyancy so that you can submerge. Without this weight, diving is virtually impossible. Each weight belt has a quick release buckle on it so that the diver can, if needed and as a last resort, shed this belt and float with ease. Once you lose or shed your belt, either someone else dives down to get it or your dive is over! Shedding your weight belt also causes you to lose some of your maneuverability as your lower body and legs want to float instead of stay underwater to give you “traction” in the water.
- Ascertain the proper amount of weight to be used. The diver should dawn all gear to be dove with and enter calm, placid water close to shore where he(or she) can freely float. Start with about 20 pounds of weight on your belt and use a couple pounds more if you are taller or more robust than the next guy or girl.
- Float still while you are straight up and down with your hands to your side and your feet still. The water level should be such that your dive mask is half under the water and half above so you can look either under or over the water. Adjust the weight to your belt until you reach this equilibrium a diver will call “neutral buoyancy”.
- Remember that your snorkel is your best friend. This breathing apparatus allows you to keep your head in the water and float easily and let you view under the water with your mask while still breathing normally. Your head is very heavy – 15 to 20 pounds- and if you insist on not using your snorkel and holding it up out of the water so you can breathe through your mouth and nose normally, you will be kicking your rear end off in order to do so.
- Much of the time this one hard blow gets 90% of the water out of it and a huge mistake that new divers make is to assume that all of it is out and they take a huge gasp for that needed air and intake that last 10 percent and choke on it.
- Breathe softly and get a nice refreshing breath of air so that you suck the air over the water that remains in the snorkel’s bottom and then clear it once again to rid of that last 10% of water. This seems like quite a task, but it begins to become habit with experience as does much of proper free diving technique, which then allows the diver a degree of comfort that transcends him or her from the novice to the experienced diver. #Dive only in portions of the United States, where there are clear and gentle ocean waters. Diving on the north coast of California isn’t like the clear ocean waters of Florida, Texas, Mexico, or Hawaii. The water here is not only cold, but usually quite rough and almost always murky where the visibility underwater is only {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}. Although the abalone is found from the mean low tide level of the ocean to depths of {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} or more, diving in waters that are shallow can be both dangerous and exhausting. The ocean’s waves come in and out with great force and sweep the diver where ever it decides to, which can include putting his or her head up against a rock! Even if you do find an abalone, trying to stay in one place long enough to get it off the rock can be nearly impossible and requires that you kick like a maniac and hold on for dear life. Diving in over {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} of water eliminates most of these issues as the waves are just swells that gently take you up and down on the surface and have nearly no effect once you are submerged. When you go down and find an abalone, you are in still water where you can relax and concentrate. The novice diver tends to see the shallow water as easier and safer, but once they relax enough to give the deeper seas a try, they soon learn that their oxygen and strength lasts much longer and that the deeper ocean is a much easier diving experience.
- Learn how to clear your ears when you perform your dive. Part of diving deeper process involves the essential function of the process known as “clearing your ears”. Learning how to clear your ears when diving is an absolute must in order for you to prevent breaking or damaging your eardrum. There are stories of scuba divers that have drown due to the disorientation caused by the trauma to the organ of balance and shock of the cold water caused by the eardrum breaking.
- Allergies, colds, and some medical issues can all cause an inability to clear your ears and you should not dive at all if this is the case.
- When you do dive, clear your ears several times on the dive, perhaps every {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, and stop descending if you feel pressure that you cannot relieve by clearing.
- Understand how to dive to the bottom of the ocean. The ocean water here is murky. Many times you are diving to the bottom that you cannot see until you are well on your way from the surface. Bad experiences due to the beginning diver being taken along to learn how to snorkel or abalone dive when the ocean conditions are poor is probably the main reason that the beginners give up diving before they can become proficient and relaxed enough to enjoy themselves and take up the sport as a hobby they love. And usually this is the fault of the friend that takes them along who should know better.
- Know when the right time to dive for abalone is pertinent to your dive. When you make a dive for abalone, or any dive whether you are spearing fish or just snorkeling for fun, rest a minute on the surface while floating still so your body can build up oxygen in its cells and you are relaxed. After all, what’s the hurry! Then, turn your body downward smoothly and lift your entire leg straight into the air so that it’s substantial weight will propel you downward until your fin enters the water and you can further propel yourself with it as you kick. With this motion you will be surprised to see that you have already descended about {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} with one kick. Many people that are just learning how to dive will try to swim down by kicking sideways to the surface or thrashing their fins in the air, which don’t accomplish much besides using your oxygen. This smooth entry will truly help with your diving abilities and success. Once under water, relax. You are only a few bathtub’s depths deep when you think about it! Kick smooth and think about the abalone on the bottom and how you plan to look on the undersides of the rocks where the big ones hang out or maybe about that huge ling cod or other bottom fish that you plan to show off at the dive shop or campground or on a website. Look at the colors of the corals and the other sea life that you pass and make it a point to enjoy the experience instead of rushing. Pay attention to your surrounding as you are going down and coming up for safety, but also for the opportunity to view the ocean creatures in their habitat. Keep your eye out for lost dive gear that some unfortunate diver lost that you can salvage. Catch a nice rock crab, sea urchins, or scallops to enhance that seafood meal for you and the gang later. Mostly, what I am saying is relax, as this is the key to learning to dive for abalone.
- Keep your pry bar in your hand, when you do spot your abalone. You will “sneak” up on the abalone by not swirling the water around it or touching it as they will clamp their shell tightly to the rocks and you may not even be able to slip your bar under the shell at that point.
- Slide your bar quickly between the abalone and the rock as far as you can and pry it off. Grab it and you are done.
- Swim up and measure the ab with your gauge that hangs off of your dive tube while floating and breathing through your snorkel and looking through your mask. Then throw that lunker in your tube! Make sure that you always try to only pry legal abalone off as this process can damage their bodies and they are almost then certain to die. Try not to get too excited and to remember that everything looks bigger than it is when seen through the mask. If you do take one that is too small to be legal, take care and replace it firmly on the rock that you got it from if you can as this is the law, but at least put it somewhere safe as the fish and other creatures will swarm the poor thing immediately and you won’t be able to get it later when it grows up. These are a fragile creature and we all should have the respect for them to make every effort to protect and preserve them for our children.
- Grab your abalone and start spear fishing. Bring out the abalone guts or squid and put them within sight of the surface in several places in a couple hundred yard area and swim back and forth between them waiting for a fish to appear as they are mostly hidden in the kelp beds, seaweed, or rocks.
Tips
- Return to the shore if you become tired, cramped, or seasick
- If you want to find larger abalone, you'll have to look for them hanging upside down under rocks and usually in areas with fewer numbers of abalone.
- Bring a Dive Tube or other floatation device- Dropping your weight belt is a last resort.
- Do not underestimate the ocean’s conditions – It can always get rougher quick
- Check your gear before diving - fin straps, mask straps, hook up and test your regulator
- The amount of weight that each diver uses is critical to that diver’s ease of diving. Too much weight and you tend to sink and the ascent is more difficult, and too little causes you to have to struggle to reach the bottom. A happy medium is needed and this medium varies with each diver depending on their wet suit's thickness and their body mass and height. A more portly person may need a little more weight and a thin person a little less given the same height, but a taller person may need more as they have more suit to counterweight.
Warnings
- You may not obtain another diver’s abalone and hand them to him or her when in the ocean or “trade up” for larger ones after you have removed a legal one from the rocks. Again, other regulations apply so it is important that you read the regulations prior to the diving.
- Every diver should read and familiarize themselves with the regulations each year for taking abalone, as the regulations change from time to time and violation of the rules usually result in fines of at least $1500 and can also result in a jail-time and the confiscation of your diving equipment due to the protected status of these creatures.
Things You'll Need
- a full wet suit( which includes a hood, gloves, and booties)
- a mask
- a snorkel
- some diving fins
- a weight belt
- an abalone bar and abalone gauge
- something to keep your abalone in as they must be kept separate from other divers.
