By Founder and President Kurt Lieber
Our search for lost or abandoned lobster traps continues.
On Sunday, August 4th, 10 Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) volunteers boarded our flagship vessel Mr. Barker’s LegaSea and headed 12 miles from Channel Islands harbor to our dive destination at Middle Anacapa Island.
This time out, we were thrilled to have three new people willing to give up one of their days off to help save some animals and search underwater for traps. Longtime volunteer Geoff Walsh had enticed two of his dive buddies –Nino Martinez and Todd Polson – to help with the search. Another previous volunteer Dylan Tebutt convinced his father, Glyn Tebutt, to help out on deck.
In addition to the folks mentioned above, we had: Kim Cardenas, Greg Kaganovsky, Dave Merrill and Sue StSure.
After loading all the dive gear required for five divers, we headed out of the harbor at 9:30am. As soon as we motored past the breakwall we could already see Anacapa, which was 10 miles away. Nice view!
The ride over was uneventful, and we were a teeny bit disappointed we didn’t see any dolphins. But we’re spoiled, because we probably see them 90% of the time.
As we got within two miles of the island, we started seeing several flocks of pelicans gliding effortlessly just above the water. The island is a haven for pelicans and hundreds of them are born there every year.
We were heading to a spot where we had found some traps on our last outing, along the south side of Middle Anacapa Island. There are really three islands that make up Anacapa: West, Middle and East. East Anacapa is where the famous landmark called Arch Rock is.
Once we rounded Arch Rock, we headed about two miles west until we got to our destination. The beauty of the place never ceases to amaze me! Once we dropped the anchor and I turned the engines off, you could hear the sea lions barking as they basked on the rocky shoreline.
We discussed the dive plan, and then Kim, Dave, Geoff, Nino and Todd jumped in, grabbed their scooters, and headed to the anchor line. I asked Nino how the visibility looked, and he said he could see the bottom, which was 40 feet down. Wow!
There was quite a ripping current at the surface, so it took some time for them to make headway. As they gathered near the bow, someone said the current was so strong that the kelp was lying flat on the sea floor. Once everyone got to the anchor line, they all dropped down, at 11:13am.
Because this was such a shallow dive, we knew they would be down for at least an hour. And for the next 45 minutes we watched for any signs of activity. Then things started to change, we saw two lift bags break the surface about 100 yards away. Our RIB (rigid inflatable boat) team members Sue and Greg grabbed some extra tow lines and a radio and motored over to the bags. Once they saw what was attached, they hauled up some trap remnants and brought them back to the LegaSea.
By then another bag was at the surface, and they raced over to retrieve it.
Turned out to be a really heavy weight bar from a trap. They towed that over to where Dylan was ready to haul it up on deck using the davit (crane).
As this was all happening three more lift bags were spotted. Two of them had a lobster trap attached to them and the other had another weight bar. As we were getting all that stuff hauled out with the davit, we saw another two lift bags really close to the rocky shoreline.
Before the RIB crew could get to them, the currents had driven them right onto the shore. Shoot!
Kim told us that there was a lobster trap attached to those bags. After much discussion about how to retrieve the trap, Geoff agreed to go with the RIB crew and see if he could get close enough to jump in with his snorkel gear and attach a tow line to it. But there was another problem, there were something like 100 sea lions lying on the beach with several beach masters protecting their female harems. 
Those beach masters are large breeding males, weighing up to 600 pounds. Knowing how aggressive they can be, Geoff decided that we’d just have to leave it there. We will try to retrieve it on our next trip to Anacapa…
The divers reported great underwater visibility, and they got to see some REALLY large giant sea bass.Todd thought they were seven feet long!
Check out the short video we captured of the big guy!
As we made our way past Arch Rock and headed home, the wind and seas were a lot different than they were in the morning. White caps were seen all around us. The waves weren’t huge but made for a rocky ride home.
It was a great day, and even though we had to leave one trap behind, we did get about 100 pounds of trap remnants and one more trap out of harm’s way.
I want to thank everyone for coming out: Kim, Greg, Nino, Dave, Todd, Sue, Dylan, Glyn and Geoff! Glyn took some really nice topside pictures. Always nice to see ODA’s crew from a unique perspective!
Check out our record haul of lobster traps from Anacapa Islands in this story...
