The Sea Ranch

In the four days I spent staying in The Sea Ranch the sun was warm, the wind was strong, and the ocean was pleasant.  The mosquitoes bit, the sheep were loud, and the smell of the redwoods was inviting.  In mornings, the air was cool and the dew that collected overnight on tall blades of grass bent the stalks.  Midday winds picked up to over 20 mph and persisted into the night, blowing up whitecaps across the ocean like stiff peaks in whipped cream.

Between the redwoods

I spent morning hours diving in the wind chop just off rocky cliffs looking for abalone.  My first morning in The Sea Ranch, the wind was so strong and the swell so persistent that I jumped in the water, made three dives to pull in three abalone (the CA limit per diver per day), and hightailed it out before I got knocked into the rocks.  The second day, the wind splashed water down my snorkel and kept flipping my sponge board out of the water and into my face as I tried to tie off my float line and spear gun.  At one point I had my back to the open water, facing my dive buddy and saw him look over my shoulder and yell "Oh shit!"  Not good to hear when you're diving in sharky waters.  But I turned around and was pleasantly surprised by the spray of a grey whale as it surfaced, heading North on an annual migration.  At about 30 yards from us, I could almost count the barnacles on its diminutive dorsal fin.

A Grey Whale heads North just off the coast

My last day diving was fairly uneventful as well.  The wind was a meager 4 mph and the swell had dropped, so I pulled my three abs from a rock cluster a little further out.  I had a close encounter with a sea lion who was blowing bubbles at me from the bottom; in about 5' visibility, I had no idea what it was until I saw his bulgy eyes pop up a few feet away.  A few minutes later he tried surfacing under my float (which was 30 ft away from me) and scared himself pretty badly. Startled, he shot out of the water, and managed to back-flip over my board before heading straight back out to sea. The swell picked up after that and even though my dive buddy lost his breakfast, I didn't see any fish in the area.  I popped an urchin out of a rock shelf at about 15', deciding to try some uni later on.  I'm glad I did because it isn't my favorite and now I can decline honorably at the sushi restaurant.

My prepared Uni