By Founder and President Kurt Lieber

On Sunday, May 24, six Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA) volunteers and I headed for Anacapa Island. Our plan was to focus on 2 potential sites to hunt for abandoned commercial lobster traps.

The first place we looked at was on the far east of the island, mere feet away from Arch Rock. The second was on the back side of the island just off the rocks of a site called Sea Lion Beach.

At 8:30am, we started loading all the dive gear onto our flagship Mr. Barker’s LegaSea and pushed off an hour later. It was unseasonably cold, and you could just about hear our teeth chattering as we made our way out of the harbor. It was gloomy and overcast along the 11-mile trek.

Divers on this day were: Kevin Augartin, Bart Steger, Geoff Walsh and Mike Wynd. Helping me on the boat were Heather Rios and Sue St. Sure.

We arrived at Arch Rock around 10:30am, and as I motored the boat into position, I turned the engines off to let the boat drift as we assessed if the currents would allow us to get the divers in and out of the water safely. Nope, the current was ripping, and we headed for option 2.

Kim Cardenas had received a report from the captain of a dive boat called The Raptor about a trap he had seen earlier in the week. He gave us the GPS numbers; we saw the buoy as we approached the destination.

Conditions here were just ideal. No swell, gorgeous skies, and when we dropped the anchor we could see it lying on the bottom at 30 feet!

All the divers were in the water 20 minutes later. Mike took off for deeper waters, camera in hand, searching for some traps. While Kevin, Bart, and Geoff made a bee line for the buoy we could see at the surface.

Once they got to the buoy they could see the trap at the other end of the line, so they dropped down and attached some lift bags to it. Once that trap started to rise to the surface, they noticed another trap just a few feet away. So, back down they went.

It took quite a while for the guys to get those traps hooked up and floating on the surface, but once they did they utilized the power of their DPVs (Dive Propulsion Vehicles) to drag that mass over to us on the boat.

Heather and Sue used the davit to haul the 2 traps onto the deck, one by one. Once the traps were out of the water, the divers headed back down and spent the next 30 minutes looking around to see if any more traps were in the area. Oh boy, were there!

At one point 3 lift bags hit the surface almost simultaneously. A few minutes later another one broke the surface. Wholly mackerel, we were NOT expecting that!

Once we got them all on the front deck we were just floored at finding 6 traps in one dive. I don’t think that has ever happened to us before. Our record is 9 traps, but that was in 2 dives.

It turned out that the underwater conditions were outstanding, with the visibility at around 40-50 feet. Mike came away with some gorgeous shots as proof.

We were all exhilarated as we picked up the anchor and headed back to the harbor, posing long enough to get this picture of the crew with their catch of the day, and the iconic Arch Rock in the background.

We got back to the harbor around 3 and unloaded the traps onto a dock where the fishermen load and unload their gear.

Ocean Defenders Crew with Their "Catch of the Day"

All in all, it was a wonderful and productive day for us and more importantly for the oceans and her wildlife. We’ll be heading out there again soon!

If you are a diver in Ventura County and want to be part of this great work, please send us an email!