short stories / By Reagan Nail

Abalone, anyone?

(July 5, 2007)  After being invited to several abalone cookouts this June, I finally asked the embarrassing question: What the hell is an abalone?

I went directly to the hosts of the cookouts, two local HSU seniors, Ben Hart and Brent Warner, who consider abalone diving one of the finest sports on the North Coast. Both scuba minors with certifications in rescue diving, Hart and Warner visibly ignite with excitement at the chance to rap about abalone.

Abalone shell. Photo by flickr user SingingFish.

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“When I was younger, it was the only seafood I’d eat,” says Warner, who got his first one at 17. Now, when he dives, he takes as many as legal limit allows, which is three. Although it’s tempting to take more, he explains that in popular dive spots, “a game warden will pull in like once an hour and check everything.”

It’s illegal to sell abalone unless you are a commercial farmer, and even if you find a beautiful, iridescent abalone shell while diving you can’t legally sell it. This is why Hart and Warner host abalone-frying parties; they can share their wares with friends without breaking the law. (And it’s a good deal, considering most restaurants sell abalone at about $100 per pound.)

“Ab” season is from April to July, but it’s not legal everywhere. Eagle Rock, just north of San Francisco, represents the southernmost point for abalone diving, with Crescent City marking the north. However, the sport may soon be extended to the Channel Islands, which has sparked some controversy.

Ab divers must have a license, and, at the end of each year, they also have to send in their Abalone Permit Record Cards, which monitor their catches and measurements. Without these regulated limits, the abalone populations get demolished. In Trinidad, for example, abalone used to be piled three to four thick, but now, they’re pretty much wiped out. “When you do find ’em, though,” Hart is quick to quip, “you find a whole lot of them.”

Hart, who looks like a jolly Irish giant, complete with flushed cheeks and red hair, is an environmental biology and botany major who got into “ab diving” at age 13, when a friend took him to Casper Cove in Mendocino. “All they told me was that when you go down, you see a bunch of rocks, and then you see a bunch of rocks that all look the same.” These “rocks,” disguised by barnacles and seaweed, are abalone.

Apparently, the biggest abalone in the world was found in Mendocino, measuring “ass to mouth” at about 12-1/4 inches. Although they’re found elsewhere, like off the coast of Japan, Warner explains, “they’re smaller — small enough to be slurped right out of the shell.” The Mendocino abalone are much bigger, and, Warner points out, “The deeper you go, the bigger they get.”

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