By Founder and President Kurt Lieber
With the opening of the commercial and recreational lobster fishery on October 1st, we had one last chance to get our crew out and remove any abandoned traps we could find.
You see, we can’t touch the traps during the legal fishing season, but out of season, any traps found are illegal and subject to removal.
On Sunday, September 28th, 9 of us loaded up our dive gear and cameras. Volunteers on this glorious day were: Fairlie Arrow, Kevin Augarten, Matt Hoover, Melanie Kemmann, Heather Rios, Bart Steger, Geoff Walsh, and Mike Wynd.
Here's where we headed:
Fairlie is an independent film maker and came along to see how we do things and film our operations with the thought of including ODA in a documentary she’s creating about the marine environment in southern California.
This was also the first time out with us for Melanie and Heather. Great to have you all aboard!
We headed out from Channel Islands Harbor at 9am, under very cloudy skies. Before we got outside the harbor, we spotted hundreds of sea lions huddled together, lounging on the sandy beach. That is not something we’ve seen before. Nice start to the day.
Once we rounded the breakwall, I opened up the throttle, and we headed west to Santa Cruz Island, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Ventura County, California. The seas were really flat, and we motored along at 15 mph. Along the 18-mile trip we were treated to several sightings of large pods of dolphins. We diverted our path to take in the sight.
They were amazing! Be sure to look at the entire photo gallery at the bottom of the page after you're done reading the article!
We arrived at our dive site around 10 o'clock. We had been here 2 weeks earlier and had to leave one abandoned trap we found because we ran out of lift bags. To make it easy to find, Kim Cardenas attached an SMB (Surface Marker Buoy) to the trap. The SMB holds air but not enough to lift a trap, we need the lift bags for that.
We located the SMB, dropped anchor in 65 feet of water, and talked about the dive plan.
I positioned the boat about 100 feet from the SMB, and Mike dropped down (with his underwater camera) and headed to the trap. As he was there he started filming the site.
A few minutes later, Bart, Geoff, and Kevin were in the water with their scooters (Dive Propulsion Vehicles) and motored over to the SMB on the surface.
You gotta love this shot of one of Bart jumping in. Looks like he standing on the water!
Once they dropped down, Matt, Melanie, and I put the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) in the water. Matt steered the RIB to be in position to grab the trap once the lift bags, which tow the trap, hit the surface. Fairlie and Heather went along to assist.
Fifteen minutes after they had dropped down, we saw 5 lift bags pop up. We usually only need 2 lift bags to raise a trap, but it turns out that this one was slightly buried in the sand and needed some extra “umph.”
Minutes later all the divers were back aboard, and the trap was hooked up to the davit. After we had that trap secured on the front deck we talked about what the divers had seen.
You can see, Heather was very helpful hauling in the trap with our davit (i.e., crane). Way to go, Heather!
Everyone was raving about the great visibility and some unusual critters they had seen. Things like bat rays and halibut. Unfortunately (?) Mike was in full on work mode and didn’t get any images of them. He did manage to get some great footage of the guys hooking up the trap and sending them to the surface. Job well done!
Stay tuned tomorrow when we release Mike's video!
Mike told us about 2 other traps he found down there, but when he tried to attach some lift bags to them… his stash of bags was gone! They somehow had become unattached from his harness.
By this time, it was getting late, and we decided to head home. Along the return trip we encountered several more pods of dolphins. This time it felt like they were in play mode and joyfully rode our bow and were literally leaping out of the water in our wake. This lasted for at least 15 minutes.
Melanie also spotted some spouts out in the distance. I headed the boat over to them and were treated the sight of to 2 humpback whales lazily making their way south.
What an exhilarating way to end the day, and the season for us.
ODA volunteer ocean cleanup crew with their "Catch of the Day"!
Special thanks to Fairlie for joining us and to you and all the incredible volunteers -- Heather, Geoff, Kevin, Matt, Melanie, and Mike -- for giving some much of your time, energy, and expertise by ridding the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary of this animal-entrapping ghost gear.
We’ll be back in March of 2026. You can count on it!
If you live in Southern California and see ocean debris, be sure to tell us about it on our Debris Report Form!
