Tales from the Logbook--One Mile South of Refugio

Santa Barbara County’s South Coast offered some wonderful and interesting shore dives.  A thick kelp forest ran discontinuously along the coastline.  A promising stretch of kelp seen from the road warranted further investigation.  Parking along 101 was easy; just pull off to the side.  Getting down to water’s edge was a bit more challenging.  Was there a shore entry point?  How did one get to the point? 

One spot that I dived occasionally from the mid-1980s to the early 1990’s was known as “One Mile South” a nondescript pulloff alongside the southbound US 101.  The spot got its name from the highway exit sign in the northbound lane that proclaimed REFUGIO STATE BEACH—1 MILE.  

To get One Mile South, one had to exit at Refugio State Beach going northbound, get back on the highway heading southbound and look for the sign.  From the pullout, it was a matter of finding the hole in the fence, walking an unmarked path down a short embankment, crossing the Southern Pacific railroad tracks and the Aniso trail (the bikepath between El Capitan and Refugio State Beaches) and continuing on to the beach below.  Other folks knew the location as “Las Flores Beach,” or “Canada del Corral” or “Coral Beach.”

The beach and intertidal zone was a mixture of sand and rocks backed by coastal bluffs.  The water entrance was rocky substrate, rocks, and sections of eel grass and kelp.  What waited offshore was a boulder field that had no geological reason to be there.  The rocks had been placed to protect the shallow sections of the seafloor power cable production line corridor that supported the operation and oil and gas production from the offshore Santa Ynez Unit platforms and the onshore facilities in Las Flores Canyon.  

Placing the quarry rock along with the natural hard bottom habitat created a kelp forest habitat which included various species of abalone.  So plentiful were the critters that I and others referred to the rock reef as “abalone acre.”  I recall the tock held mostly pink and red abalone.

I made many dives at One Mile South with a number of divers, as the extract from my surviving dive log indicates.  (My record of dives from 1986 to 1989, when I was diving several times a month are spotty at best.)  Some of these dives, like those with Brandon, were adventures in exploration and species identification.  I did like to introduce new divers to various locations in the area, which accounts for the variety of buddies at this site.  The boulder pile was an uniquel feature in the area, similar to diving a breakwater but without the swell and backwash.  After 1994, I only made one other dive at this location.  That tale will be told in the next installment of the blog.

Date	Buddy	Depth	Time
September 30, 1990	Brandon Cole	25	30
October 7, 1990	Matt Russel	30	35
January 9, 1991	Brandon Cole	35	40
May 28, 1992	Steve Sprague	40	45
August 18, 1992	David Salazar	30	50
September 19, 1992	Arnold Ammann	35	55
June 14, 1994	Joey Low	25	45

I recall being separated from Mike Edwards during one dive at One Mile South when he went off in one direction spearfishing while I looked for abalone.   Abalone hunting involves patiently checking nooks and crannies in a limited area, like the boulder field.  Spearfishing, which I did not do, involves ranging over the entire kelp bed in search of fish or moving along the sand bottom in search of halibut. 

Mike had been in the area around the rock pile, but I realized we were no longer together.  I looked circled around for a minute or so trying to find him to no avail.  I slowly ascended to the surface scanning for him.  On top, I looked to see if he had surfaced.  He had not.  I looked for the bubble stream from his regulator exhaust but couldn’t see it.  After a while on the surface, I was starting to get worried.  Just as I was figuring how to exit the water to activate emergency services from this fairly remote location, Mike popped up to the surface. 

I mentioned that after a quarter hour of hanging on the surface I was starting to get worried. Mike mentioned that he had come to the surface when he realized we were separated but that he could see me.  He figured he would finish the dive and that I would be on the surface waiting when he finished.  He knew I used my air supply more quickly than he did.  

I resolved that during future pre-dive buddy checks with Mike to make sure we had an agreement on what to do if we became separated.  

I do note that all these years later, I can report that many of the people that I dived with are still involved in ocean-related activities.  Brndon Cole is a world renowned wildlife photographer (mostly ocean themes) and author.  Matt Russel is a noted marine archaeologist.  David Salazar works for the UCSB Marine Science Institute on the Santa Barbara Long Term Ecological Research project.  Arnold Amman works for the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center.  Joey Low is a criminal defense attorney in Long Beach.  Joey had been in a US Marine Corps Force Recon unit.  We used to tease him that old habits dies hard and if he still had the urge to hide his dive gear on the beach when he came ashore from a sport dive.