Tales from the Logbook--Lobster Season Opening Night 1986

 

Most of the divers board Sea Ventures out of Port Hueneme early for the UCSB Scuba Club’s “opening morning” lobster boat.  Lobster season for the California spiny lobster, Panurlirius interruptus, opened at midnight the first Wednesday of October, which fell on the 1^st of the month.  The Scuba Club was offered a much sought after boat charter that year.  We grabbed it.

While waiting for skipper Mickey DeFazio to arrive, the divers milled about the deck in semi-darkness arranging gear in the Ventures’ side bins.  Some divers talked about the proper technique for catching lobster.  Others engaged in conversations that kill time and are quickly forgotten.

The skipper arrived a few minutes late, so the 9:30 p.m. departure time is proportionately delayed.  As the scheduled departure passes, some of the divers grow a bit anxious; concerned that ever minute delayed will be one minute less they are able to look for lobster.  But, we are quickly underway.  Immediately upon clearing Port Hueneme’s breakwater, the boat speed increases as does the swell.  One of the divers in bunks below decks trying to catch a quick catnap says “it’s like trying to sleep on a roller coaster.”  On deck, divers huddle in small groups while others try moving around doing their impression of a loose cannon.

The passage to Anacapa Island is rough.  The pitching and rolling of the boat prevents divers from accessing equipment in the bins to set up their scuba rigs.  About an hour out, a slight change in course indicates that we are heading to the backside of Anacapa.  Other boats report the large swells make diving the front side impractical.  The skipper relays that he intends to go first to Cat Rock, from there we will see how things go.

The swell subsides as soon as the boat passes Arch Rock on the island’s east side.  The ocean’s surface is nearly flat.  The rough passage is quickly forgotten in the animated antics of 28 divers gearing up at the same time.  Each diver believes they will be the first to enter the water, grab a limit of seven lobster and get back to the boat before that last diver enters the water.  Everyone has “bug fever” which is not broken as they giant stride from the boat into the water. 

Visibility at Cat Rock ranges from 6 feet to 20 feet.  In shallow, divers experience a strong surge but lobsters are present.  Immediately on descending, one buddy team spots a “short” lobster (one not of legal size).    They go in shallow where the surge chews up and spits out divers in tight passages.  One diver reports “I see them as the surge pushes me out, they seem to wave “so long” with their antennae as we go by, but they are gone when the surge pulls us back in.”

The surge combined with the lobster’s disinclination to be easily caught makes for a small catch.  As we recover the divers on the stern, a National Park Service ranger paddles up in an inflatable boat to inspect the catch.  He stands off for a few minutes as we recover the last of our divers. Once aboard, as he checks the meager catch, one of the divers asks “what is the proper way to measure a lobster?”  That question piqued the attention of the ranger and he carefully checked each diver’s catch, license, and gages.  Each of the handfull of lobsters is of legal size, every diver has a license, and everyone has a gage.  No surprises or citations.

Mickey decides to move the boat to East Fish Camp, which is a great spot for training dives but also good for lobster on this night.  It also seems to be the one spot that you can dive when the rest of Anacapa proves difficult.  We encounter good conditions.

I descend with my dive buddy and Scuba Club president, Dave Porter.  Dave learned to dive in a class for which I was the assistant instructor a year earlier.  We do a “lights on” descent scanning for urchins in our landing zone. Lobster molts are everywhere acting as decoys. We spot a couple of abalone.  They are untouchable; they can’t be taken at night.  Dave and I head in shallow and ride the surge.  I get bounced around like dice on a Vegas craps table.  We go deep and find a promising ledge.  We spot a large lobster and many tiny lobsters undet the ledge.  A shadow behind the lobster catches my eye and my light reveals one of the largest moray eels I have seen on Anacapa. Shoving your hand in a hole with a moray eel is a surfire formula for getting bit. We move on.

We spot another promising hole, but find it devoid of lobster, occupied by a very large male sheepshead.  We spot another hole.  It contains another sheepshead but no lobster.  We then see antenna sticking out under a cluster of rocks.   Many lobster holes have a "back door" or "escape tunnel." Dave approaches from the front as I move around the back of the rock.  As Dave moves in to grab the lobster, the lobster quickly retreats,  and its tail emerges from the back of the rock. I pinch the tail and extract the lobster.  It ratchets its antennae with the unmistakable grating sound that a pissed off lobster makes.  We measure but it is just a bit short.  We release the critter and it disappears into the darkness with a quick swish of its tail.  

My tank pressure gage tells me our dive is at an end. We surface and inflate our buoyancy compensators and kick on our backs like a couple of contented otters toward the boat’s stern. This dive is one of my best dives to date despite the empty game bag. The bowl of stars overhead, too many to count, is magnificent. 

Back on board everyone has a story about the one that got away.  The winners count their catch, while others scheme about how the next time will be different.  No one is sure why they are out here at 5:00 a.m. They only know they will be back next year.  It is not just the bugs or the tradition of opening night.  It is also the friends gathered in the galley on the way back in.  Some play liars poker, others grumble about attending an early class in a few hours, a couple of people drink champagne toasts to the lobsters in the live well and those left behind, while others crawl into bunks below to grab a well-deserved rest.

Note:  This blog derives from an article I wrote for Sea Scope, the Newsletter of the UCSB Scuba Club, Fall 1986, Volume II, No. 1

Tales from the Logbook--Green Eels and Anenome Fish

 

When I started diving I wanted to explore, covering a lot of territory during the dive.  In an alien environment, everything is new and exciting and I wanted to see it all.  Years passed before I learned the art of picking a spot, hovering over it, and watching what transpired below.  I puffed through a lot of air before I came to appreciate the advantages of staying in one place and judicious observation.

By the time I went to Fiji in 2017, I had pretty much perfected my technique for doing so.  My divelog for Thursday, October 19, recorded my impressions of the three sites in the Vuya Passage:

Location	Depth (ft)	Time (min)	Impression
Humann Nature	55	58	This reef in named for Paul Humann who did a great deal of work at this location for his Fish Identification books.  These are widely regarded as one of the best publications of it type.  This location is loaded with all kinds of fish.  The three minute safety stop at the 15 foot depth is like swimming in an aquarium.
Cat’s Meow	66	42	This site is a small pinnacle.  I swam around its perimeter three times in one dive.  It has a few swim through spots which I did not do because it would have been a tight fit with my tank and I might have damaged the reef.  I did have a chance to see pygmy seahorses and spent time watching Fiji anemone fish in a red anemone at the top of the pinnacle.
Unde Naiable Pinnacle	68	53	Started deep at the outer edge of the pinnacle and moved shallower.  Green eel (video below), swim through, and anemone fish (video below) highlight this spot.  Rough waves on the surface made getting on the skiff and transferring to the boat a bit challenging.

 

Eels have always fascinated me.  While often portrayed in pulp media as a species that will attack humans without provocation, nothing could be further from the truth.  They do look foreboding with their maws agape and their seemingly lifeless eyes.  But, as the Diver Alert Network’s Handbook “diving First Aid for Professional Diver’s notes, “if an animal acts aggressively, it is likely a defensive reaction from a perceived threat.  Examples include putting your hand into a lobster hole only to find that it is also home to a moray eel.”

That is exactly how I came to be bit by a moray eel at Anacapa Island in 2001.  I was on a dive collecting specimens for the Channel Islands National Park underwater video presentation. I spied a lobster’s antennae sticking out under a ledge I swam over.  I thrust my hand under the ledge to grab the lobster when I felt the bite.  Immediately I knew it was a moray eel.  I waited a few seconds until the eel released my finger.  My right index finger had four scalple-like punctures wound through my neoprene glove, two on the top two one the bottom.  I felt pretty dumb because for years I had cautioned students to always look behind the lobster to see if there was an eel behind it.  I thoroughly washed the wound.  While the eels are not venomous, their bite can introduce bacteria. 

In recording video of the green eel, distance, good buoyancy control, and slow movements are key to preventing an encounter.  The same holds true for videos of anemone fish.

I do believe that I could be entertained for hours watching the antics of clownfish and other anemone fish as the swim in and out of the anemone’s tentacles, immune to the effects of its stinging cells.  The National Marine Sanctuary Foundation website describes the partnership as “mutualism because it provides benefits to both animals. Clownfish receive a safe place to live and even prey to eat, and in return clownfish provide food to the anemone, help rid it of harmful parasites, and chase away fish like butterflyfish that feed on anemones. Since clownfish receive such great protection from anemones, they rarely stray far from them, and will even lay their eggs in close proximity to their humble anemone abodes. If a tasty morsel passes by, the clownfish may dart out of the anemone and return once they’ve made their catch. At night, clownfish say safely within the swaying arms of the anemone.”