By Founder and President Kurt Lieber

Epic conditions, led to a record setting day for ODA!

It’s been 3 months since the end of the commercial lobster hunting season. For a variety of reasons, we haven’t been able to get out on our flagship Bob Barker’s LegaSea to start searching for the abandoned traps that get left behind.

However, at last…all the stars were aligned, and we had a full crew ready and raring to go on Sunday, June 8^th.

The dive team consisted of: Kim Cardenas, Craig LaPorte, Geoff Walsh, and Mike Wynd. Deck crew were: Robin LaPorte, Dave Merrill, Bart Steger, and me.

We headed for Anacapa Island from our home berth in the Channel Islands Harbor. Our hoped-for destination was Arch Rock, on East Anacapa. I say “hoped for” because it seems like 80% of the times we try to dive this area we get rebuffed by Poseidon, as the currents here are normally too strong for us to safely get divers in and out of the water.

As we made our way out of the CI Harbor, the sea conditions were really nice and made for a quick 11-mile ride to the site. It was a gloomy June day, and we couldn’t even see the island until we got about 5 miles from it.

As we got closer I could see that the waters were really flat, and when we pulled up to the intended site, I put the engines in idle and let the boat drift to get a gauge of how strong the currents were. They weren’t moving at all. Alright!

We dropped anchor in 60 feet of water, roughly 100 yards from Arch Rock. Craig and Mike were the first in, as they use rebreather systems and can stay down a lot longer than Kim and Geoff who use open circuit systems.

Our assumption was that the underwater visibility would be the typical 10 to 15 feet, so Craig and Mike dropped down the anchor line and attached a line to the anchor. They keep other end of the line with them just in case they can’t see well enough to get them back to the anchor when they want to get back to the boat.

Once that was all set and done, they started looking around, and low and behold the visibility was outstanding…at about 50 feet! They got about 50 feet on their way when they spotted a trap. They then attached 2 lift bags to it and sent it to the surface. Mere minutes after that they found another trap. This one had lobsters and sheep crabs in it. Up that one went as well, as soon as they were done taking pictures and video of it.

By this time Kim and Geoff were heading down the anchor line. They headed in a slightly different direction and quickly found another trap. Up she goes!

For us on the boat, this was just nuts! Within a very short time we had 4 traps at the surface, within 50 feet of the boat. Dave and Bart jumped in the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) and started retrieving each one.

The RIB crew hauled the traps to the boat, hooked them up to our davit (which is like a crane), and the deck crew used this mechanical arm to haul the traps up to the deck.

By the time the divers had completed the first dive we had 6 traps on the bow. One of the traps had 8 lobsters in it, another had 2, and still another had 21! We set them all free, along with about a dozen sheep crabs.

With all the divers back onboard, we took an hour “surface” break. We discussed what the heck they had seen and eat some food before they headed down for the second dive.

The discussions were very animated. Kim talked about how the visibility was so good that while she and Geoff were attaching lift bags to one trap, they saw another trap 25 feet away. Wouldn’t see that with the normal 10-foot vis!

When I asked Craig about how it went for him, he said he had an otherworldly encounter.

He was filming Mike while he was filling a lift bag with air to send it to the surface. As he was panning down from the bag to the trap a giant black sea bass swam right by. And it was huge, at about 6 feet long! You’ll get a chance to see that in the video.

Watch the incredible underwater footage of this day:

A veteran crew, except for one.

This was Bart’s first time out with us. He had heard about ODA from Geoff and felt that this was something he’d like to participate in – to give back to the oceans.

At the time, he didn’t have his rescue certification, so he took that class and now has the training skills we require for people to dive with us on these types of dives.

But before we let any new divers go out with us, we ask them to help out on the boat. This way they know the ins and outs of what goes on topside, while the divers are doing their thing underwater. He agreed to do that and was a huge help on pulling all 6 of those traps.

For the second dive Bart teamed up with Kim and Geoff and headed down to observe them removing more traps.

Kim and Geoff had found a trap on their first dive but had run out of lift bags to pull it to the surface.

So, now that they were re-equipped, they attached a surface marker buoy to it which made it easy to locate on the next dive.

They said there were a bunch of critters in it. The buoy was about 200 feet from the boat.

Check out the epic photo of our veteran volunteer diver Kim Cardenas with the trap full of crabs and lobsters!

Kim has been diving-on-debris with us since March of 2014. She is one of the foremost experts on removing abandoned fishing gear, starting her career on an ODA expedition where we removed a whopping 600 pounds of ghost net!

Back to the action

Craig and Mike jumped in first and headed to that trap and proceeded to take pictures (Mike) and video (Craig). Kim, Geoff, and Bart met them there about 10 minutes later and started the process of attaching lift bags and sending them up.

After that trap was at the surface Bart swam back to the boat, got out of his gear, and jumped in the RIB to help Dave haul that trap back to the boat where Robin and I hauled it onto the VERY crowded bow.

Once we got that trap onboard we commenced with liberating 13 more lobsters, as well as 5 sheep crabs.

A few minutes later there were 2 more traps at the surface. Dave and Bart got back to work while the divers climbed the dive ladder and shed their dive gear.

Once we secured all the traps on the bow we bid farewell to Arch Rock and the 44 lobsters, 20 sheep crabs, over one hundred whelks, and one octopus we set free to live another day. Roughly one quarter of all those lobsters were laden with eggs.

These California spiny lobsters reach sexual maturity between 5 and 6 years of age. At this stage of life, they produce about 120,000 eggs. As they get older, they can carry up to 680,000 eggs! Females can live to 20, with the males known to reach 30 ripe years.

This was a record day for ODA. The most traps we’ve removed before now was 8. We upped that by one. The unique thing was we didn’t even have to move the boat for the second dive. Most of the traps were not more than 100 feet from us, with the furthest one 200 feet.

You can bet we’ll be back to this same area, as we have a good feeling that there will be more coming up next time

Big thanks to our crew for this remarkable day. And special thanks to all our donors for your contributions that allow us to make this all happen in the first place.

If you want to be part of this good work from right where you are, we'd be so thankful to do this good work with you!