My job situation has changed and I am working at home again. This means I no longer have to commute 3 hours a day, and I intend to use that time to go kayaking! So I have been going out almost every day to spend some time in or near the water. This morning I wanted to go out and look for some more rock crabs. But the waves were still up around 6 feet high, and I wasn't sure I would be able to find them under these conditions. I was also tired of dragging my kayak down to Russian Gulch Beach and back, so I tried going to Fort Ross Reef where the carry to the water was a little shorter. The water was rougher than on Monday, and I couldn't find any rock crabs, so I settled for getting a few abalone instead.
With all the kelp growing up around me, I was paranoid that I might get tangled in it on the way to the surface. So I started planning my trips back to the surface instead of just rising in a blind panic. I would look up when I was done at the bottom, pick the largest opening in the kelp, and aim myself up through that hole. Then when I got home and talked to my brother Paul, he told me a story about his diving club president. He (the club president, an expert in the ocean, not Paul) was diving for abalone in 12 meters of water and got tangled in the kelp. His diving buddies found him unconscious but in time to have him evacuated to the hospital by helicopter. Now Paul says he strenuously follows the rules of the buddy system.
In one regard, it was a red letter day: I picked my first undersized abalone! Since it was my first, I wasn't upset but laughed out loud when I measured it at the surface. I picked two more small ones this day that I dad to put back. But I brought my caliper with me on these dives, and I measured one of them before taking it to the surface and saved one trip back down to the bottom.