The late-Sunday morning of January 6, 1985, was foggy, damp, and cold. Mark Bursek and I geared up on the edge of the old highway bridge that spans Arroyo Hondo.
We were adventurous, neophyte divers eager to discover the
numerous pullouts along U.S. 101 west of El Capitan State Beach that led to some
pretty awesome dive sites. We could see
sections of thick kelp from the highway; beds so thick that kelp harvesting
vessels regularly worked the area. Without
a boat, we could only access these sites by pulling off the highway, finding a
trail and “mountain goating” down the coastal bluffs to ocean’s edge. Most of these pullouts were not marked save
for an occasional car or truck pulled off and parked the side of the
highway. That was not the case for
Arroyo Hondo marked by not one but two bridges.
I preferred to make the trek from parking spot to entry point fully geared up. Mark did the same. I wore my lug-soled sneakers for traction on the path carrying my mask, fins, and snorkel and booties in a mesh goody bag. Mark led the way down the path. We soon made it to the bottom. No one else was around. Even though we could hear cars on the highway above, we were alone. Not even a troll could be found.
We started following the exposed pipeline into deeper
water. Navigation was easy, just follow
the pipeline. Little light penetrated
the fog and haze. The deeper we swam the
darker it seemed to get. Many swell
sharks lazed in the gap between the pipes and the seafloor. They seem unfazed by our passing by. We continued on into the thick kelp bed,
which sometimes concealed the pipeline.
Visibility was good, enough for me to see Mark in the lead, and a little
beyond him. We stated to hear a “bang-bang-bang”
at regular intervals. It sounded like
someone hitting a 55-gallon drum with a mallet.
In about 20 feet of water, we came across the remains of a
gull, nothing but bones and a few feathers. A sense of uneasiness overcame
me. We continued on, and the banging got
louder. At a depth of about 25 feet, my
air pressure gage indicated I had consumed half a tank of air. We turned around and with me leading made our
way back toward the exit point following the pipeline. Once again, we passed over the gull’s remains. I
couldn’t figure out whether it represented the final resting place of the gull
or whether it was the remains of some other critter’s lunch. I did not stop to do a post-mortem.
None of the swell sharks seemed to have moved.
We surfaced near our descent point. My watch indicated the dive lasted forty
minutes bottom time.
Back beneath the trestle, sitting on the rocks, we both
remarked how “spooky” the dive felt. We
figured the reaction resulted from the combined effects of darkness, finding
the carcass, and the banging noise we heard throughout the dive.
Over the next 10 years, I would check out many of the turnoffs,
but I never returned to the spot beneath the twin bridges. Of the hundreds of
dives I made over the years, this experience stands out in my mind.
I wonder if anyond dives this site today from the shore The Molino Field infrastructure was decommissioned in the late 1990s. The plan evaluated by the State Lands Commission called for the pipelines to be removed from landfall shoreward to approximately a 15 foot depth. Beyond that point (about 600 feet from shore) the lines were to be cleaned, capped, and abandoned in place. Lines in Arroyo Hondo would also have been removed. The beach is accessible from the old highway bridge. The path down the hill and the entry sounds like it hasn't changed much since Mark and I did it on that January day.
On a clear day, the kind of days that foster website images of Arroyo Hondo, the vistas are stunning. On that foggy, cold January day it was spooky.
Divining The Signs
This spot was unknown
to me so it was approached with curiosity and caution. I was a new diver, who didn’t know what I
didn’t know. I usually experience a
little bit of anxiousness before diving a new location similar to the
“butterflies.” Good dive planning,
checking equipment, being with a good buddy minimizes this feeling. Most of the time, any residual butterflies
take flight as soon as I hit the water.
Then there is the effect of finding the remains of the damn bird.
As a recent Thayer Birding
blog[1]
related:
“Seeing dead birds may symbolize something tragic or coming
to an end, but does not always foretell death. Also, not every receiver obtains
the same message when seeing a dead bird. At the end of the day, it is mainly
the witness’s personal background that determines what might come about
tragically or be brought to an end. However, that doesn’t mean dead bird omen
is negative all the time. There are still a few circumstances where dead birds
are a sign of the beginning of something exciting….the meaning of dead birds is
varied and mostly turns out to be negative and upsetting. It can be a severe
health risk, loss of freedom, dreams interruption, threat signals and worst of
all, death. Still, hopefulness and encouragement do exist even in the darkest
time. It can be a useful reminder for you of being careful of danger around or
motivate a new adventure of your life.”
The effect of seeing the gull’s remains was not unlike the
feeling I experienced while diving with my brother Andy and Brandon Cole from
another roadside entry point near the Butterfly House in Carmel, California on
September 16, 1990. We were swimming
through very thick kelp when we came across a very dead shark on the
bottom. At about three or four feet, it
was a good sized animal with very prominent bite marks across its body. I immediately thought food chain with a
bigger shark biting a smaller shark.
Needless to say, we kicked a little faster to get back to our exit
point.
When it comes to the sedentary swell sharks, as the Aquarium
of the Pacific website Species in Detail notes:
“Swell sharks…prefer a boulder and rocky reef type substrate
with liberal growths of algae, especially kelp. Although this species has been
reported to a water depth of 457 m (1499 ft), it is most commonly found in
water 5 to 37 m (16.4 to 121.4 ft) deep. Well-camouflaged, they frequent caves,
shallow rock crevices, and crevices around kelp forests….Poor swimmers, these
fish tend to lead a rather sedentary life style. Their daytime hours are spent
resting, while hiding in crevices, caves, holes, and under overhangs where they
sometimes stack on top of each other like cordwood. Their solitary feeding activities take place
during night hours and are rather passive in nature as these animals prefer to
let food come to them, rather than chasing after it.”[2]
Lastly, the mysterious
drum-like banging. We both seemed
put off by it. We could not figure out
where it originated. We saw no vessels
in the area. In later years, I formed a
hypothesis after investigating the effects of noise from seismic surveys on
divers. The effects are mostly
physiological. The sound can cause a
stress response that can lead to a feeling of uneasiness in divers,
particularly inexperienced divers. Years
later I was told that there were no active seismic surveys in the area, but I
am not sure that every type of survey would have been permitted under the
offshore oil and gas regulations written at the time. The sound also could have been from a pile
driving. There was a great deal of
marine construction and other activities going on in the area related to
offshore oil and gas during that period.
Whatever the source, the sound contributed to an unsettling effect on
us.
[1] What
Does a Dead Bird Mean? Ominous or Not?
October 2, 2022. Thayer
Birding.
https://www.thayerbirding.com/what-does-a-dead-bird-mean/ Accessed
November 25, 2022.
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