Monster Abalone Pearl
CDN:
My dive partners and I have been abalone diving along the north coast for 7 years now, usually between Ocean Cove and Point Arena. The majority of the time we dive from the shore, which was the case on this day. We were diving at a spot near Ocean Cove on a normal north coast day. The sky was overcast with a mild 10-15 knot wind and moderate sea. As usual, we headed out, timing our dive for slack water. Our catch was nothing special; we had limits of abalone, but most were less than 8 inches, with one of my abalone being the largest at around 8 3/4 inches. Our main interest was our feast that night so we were happy and, anticipating our meal, we proceeded back to camp to clean our gear and abs. I was cleaning my limit when I got to my largest abalone, the 8 3/4 inches. I know this is not normally a trophy, however, on this day it was the largest, and my friends heard about it!

To my surprise when I popped the abalone out of the shell and performed my normal pearl check I felt a large object. I reached in and pulled out this large, beautiful abalone pearl (I’m sorry to admit that once again my friends had to hear about it). We have been fortunate enough to get pearls before but they have been small, approximately 1/4 inch to 3/8 inch. As it turns out, this pearl measured approximately 3.5 inches X 1 inch, and weighed in at 248 carats at the local jewelers. It was especially surprising that a pearl of this size came out of an 8 3/4 inch abalone. After doing some research on the Internet, this size abalone pearl is extremely rare, in fact, it is very likely one of the largest natural abalone pearls ever found. I was able to find out that the current world record is approximately 468 carats, but it looked like a gnarled mass of undeveloped shell, nothing like this pearl. I also found some information about other large pearls, but not much due to their rarity. If anyone has any more information for me I would appreciate it. The message here is, don’t forget to check those guts! Good, safe diving, everyone.

Jay Cuetara
Sacramento, CA
mcuetara@jps.net

Diving With The Infamous Poop Fish
Dale,
I was recently on a two-day trip on what I thought was one of the cream of the crop dive boats operating out of Long Beach. My boyfriend was egging me on and telling me the toilets flush right to the ocean. Of course being a woman I argued the point with him. Told him no, they dump the heads when they are out of the harbor and away from the island.

Well, after several divers woke up and did their daily duty, my boyfriend took me to the side of the boat to view. Oh my god, poop floating at the starboard gate and fish nibbling at toilet paper. Forget it, I’m jumping off the port side. Well, we stayed at the same site twice, and by the end of the second dive I didn’t need to hear the generator on the boat to guide me back, I just followed the toilet paper trail.

So just tell me and the other divers, what are the rules on poop and the marine head? At least if I know the rules I will feel comfortable telling the captain to keep the boat’s s@%* contained.

Lisa Queen
via e-mail

Lisa,
To quote from the U.S. Coast Guard website: “...discharge of raw sewage from a vessel within the three nautical mile limit of U.S. territorial waters is illegal. Any direct flow-thru systems must be secured while a vessel is navigating inland waters or within three miles of shore. Any owner of a vessel with an onboard toilet is required to install and use a USCG certified marine sanitation device (MSD).”

For dumping within the three-mile limit, the minimal sewage treatment is to treat with disinfectant chemicals before discharge and the effluent must not show any visible floating solids. This is the minimum requirement. In the cases of larger vessels the requirements are more stringent. Most charter boats use a combination of maceration and/or temporary holding tanks (for later dumping offshore).

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