By President and Founder Kurt Lieber
As the legal commercial and recreational lobster hunting season starts to ramp up, ODA’s abandoned trap removal project winds down for the year of 2025.
Once the commercial traps are set we can’t remove any abandoned traps we see because we don’t want to be seen as interfering with their legal operations. The DF&W has set October 6th as the start date.
Knowing that, several ODA volunteers loaded up Mr. Barkers LegaSea and took off for Santa Cruz Island. Someone had reported to us that they had seen 2 abandoned traps on a wreck called the Spirit of America.
The wreck has cultural significance and lies just off the coast of the island, in 65 feet of water. It was a minesweeper, built in 1943, 136 feet long. It had a second life as a kind of “playboy” club where it operated out of Los Angeles Harbor and was renamed the Peacock. The ship fell into disrepair when a salvager towed it out to Santa Cruz Island and it sank around 1984.
We took off from the Channel Islands Harbor around 9:30am, on Sunday, September 14th. Onboard were: Kevin Augarten, Kim Cardenas, Mikayla Kaiwi, Greg Kaganovsky, Sue St. Sure, Bart Steger, Geoff Walsh, Mike Wynd.
It was a 19-mile trek to the dive site, with 2–3-foot waves. It was really overcast but at least we could see the island. The last time we tried to hit the site, on September 7th, the fog was so thick that we had to turn around and call the dive off.
We made good time, covering the distance in an hour and fifteen minutes. When we arrived the conditions both topside and underwater were ideal. We anchored the boat as close to the wreck as possible, taking care to NOT drop the anchor on the wreck itself for fear of damaging it.
Mike dropped down first and took his underwater camera with him. This gave him time to film the wreck with very little particulate in the water column. As you can see from his pictures the water had a beautiful deep blue hue to it.
About 15 minutes later Kevin, Kim, Bart, and Geoff descended the anchor chain and started looking for those two traps. Ten minutes passed when we saw 2 lift bags pop to the surface, no more than 20 feet from our boat. Another 10 minutes elapsed and we saw 3 lift bags hit the surface.
We couldn’t launch the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) because the generator wasn’t working… It’s ALWAYS something with watercraft! So, we had to patiently wait until some of the divers surfaced and could latch on to the bags and drag the lot over to us.
In all we removed 3 traps, and had found another one, but the currents were really ripping by then, so for safety reasons we decided to leave it and come back another day.
ODA Crew with their Catch of the Day
This wreck is located just outside of a Marine Protected Area (MPA). The fisherfolk can’t put their traps inside the MPA, so they place them outside. We feel we’ll most likely find more abandoned traps there next time.
Stay tuned!
Your donations allow our ship and crew to remove harmful debris like this. Please keep them doing what they do best – keeping our oceans clean! Thank you!
