Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
Last Sunday I got invited to go up to the northern part of Sonoma County on a friends boat. He wanted to dive the new MPA that was put in place a few years ago and see how it has made a difference. The MPA’s (marine protected areas) were put in place to allow sea life to flourish figuring that it would serve as a factory to help rebuild sea life numbers in non MPA zones by spill over. Whether that has worked yet or not seems to me to be a little too early to tell.
We left Bodega Bay in the morning and cruised about 35 miles up the coast. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, no wind, the seas were reported as being 5 to 6 foot swell at about 14 seconds and that’s what it looked like to me.
Our first spot was called Horseshoe Cove. It’s only about two or three miles north of the MPA line. We anchored on the exposed side (south side) of the cove since there tends to be more life from when we remebered it several years prior. The dive was nothing short of amazing with as many rock scallops as we were seeing. In also saw an abundance of fish life like I’ve never seen at this spot. It used to get heavily fished in the past. We saw a couple nice size ling cod and where you see lings you generally will see a verimllion or two, and sure enough there were those too.
The structure at this site has always impressed me. Very large rocks some the size of busses and pick up trucks, very close to shore. Depths ranged from 70’ to 35’, sometimes within a few feet from each other with dramatic walls and swim throughs. The vis was about 15-20 feet and the water temp was about 53.
I dove wet (as usual) and my buddy dives dry.
Next spot was a bit south, this time we anchored back in a protected cove and swam out towards a rocky grouping of islets.
There was a large group of sea lions hauled out on the furthest rock. We were still in the MPA. We managed to make it out and dive all the way around this grouping of rocks including the sea lion rock. We were underwater the whole time so they had no idea we were there. The dive was pretty much a verticle wall dive all the way around the group of rocks and as an added bonus there were several undercuts and few deep crevasses. I was hoping to see a giand pacific octo in one of those cracks or a wolf eel but no luck. The bottom was between 70 to 80 feet but we stayed at about the 50’ line.
During this dive there was one area that had so many fish that I almost had to push them out of the way to get through. They mostly consisted of blue rock fish, black rock fish, and a couple species of perch. There were also a hoard of urchins everywhere.
The abalone on both dives were somewhat scarce. The ones I saw did not look healthy. The mantles were not out to the edges of the shell like you’d expect to see. There were a lot of empty ab shells laying on the bottom in between the cracks in the rocks. The kelp was virtually non existent. On the second dive I found some palm kelp and fed a little to a few starving abs I saw. Normally when you approach an abalone they will sense your presence and suck down on the rock. These didn’t do that. As soon as I put the palm kelp frond by their mouths they came right up and out of their shells to feed, completely ignoring me.
Structure wise, this spot was one of the best I’ve ever witnessed diving in Norcal.
It too could potentially be reached from shore but the hike would be killer.
So from what I saw the MPA’s are definitely working in regards to rebuilding fish stocks. The abalone not so much.
I should also mention that this site also had very large areas of urchins barrens and urchins both of the large red variety and the small blue variety. In fact, during a pass through between two walls the surge moved me into a rock and I managed to get urchin spiked in the knee. I got ot out later but they are painful.
On another note, during our wall dive I did see an area that had a very large population of large armed sea stars. At this spot there were no urchins since sea stars eat urchins, so hopefully the kelp will be able to rebuild if the urchin are knocked down in numbers.
Next Saturday I’m planning a shore dive at Stillwater Cove in Sonoma County to feed abalone washed up kelp from the beach and gather a limit of 35 urchins.
We are going to try and clear an area of urchins that appears to have kelp that is trying to establish and help give it a fighting chance.
If anybody wants to join in the dive will be on 2/10 at 8:00 am at Stillwater Cove Park. You can contact Seals Water Sports in Santa Rosa and speak to Jennifer. (707) 542-3100
She in the force behind this effort.
Time to give back and do something for the critters and the ocean.
We left Bodega Bay in the morning and cruised about 35 miles up the coast. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, no wind, the seas were reported as being 5 to 6 foot swell at about 14 seconds and that’s what it looked like to me.
Our first spot was called Horseshoe Cove. It’s only about two or three miles north of the MPA line. We anchored on the exposed side (south side) of the cove since there tends to be more life from when we remebered it several years prior. The dive was nothing short of amazing with as many rock scallops as we were seeing. In also saw an abundance of fish life like I’ve never seen at this spot. It used to get heavily fished in the past. We saw a couple nice size ling cod and where you see lings you generally will see a verimllion or two, and sure enough there were those too.
The structure at this site has always impressed me. Very large rocks some the size of busses and pick up trucks, very close to shore. Depths ranged from 70’ to 35’, sometimes within a few feet from each other with dramatic walls and swim throughs. The vis was about 15-20 feet and the water temp was about 53.
I dove wet (as usual) and my buddy dives dry.
Next spot was a bit south, this time we anchored back in a protected cove and swam out towards a rocky grouping of islets.
There was a large group of sea lions hauled out on the furthest rock. We were still in the MPA. We managed to make it out and dive all the way around this grouping of rocks including the sea lion rock. We were underwater the whole time so they had no idea we were there. The dive was pretty much a verticle wall dive all the way around the group of rocks and as an added bonus there were several undercuts and few deep crevasses. I was hoping to see a giand pacific octo in one of those cracks or a wolf eel but no luck. The bottom was between 70 to 80 feet but we stayed at about the 50’ line.
During this dive there was one area that had so many fish that I almost had to push them out of the way to get through. They mostly consisted of blue rock fish, black rock fish, and a couple species of perch. There were also a hoard of urchins everywhere.
The abalone on both dives were somewhat scarce. The ones I saw did not look healthy. The mantles were not out to the edges of the shell like you’d expect to see. There were a lot of empty ab shells laying on the bottom in between the cracks in the rocks. The kelp was virtually non existent. On the second dive I found some palm kelp and fed a little to a few starving abs I saw. Normally when you approach an abalone they will sense your presence and suck down on the rock. These didn’t do that. As soon as I put the palm kelp frond by their mouths they came right up and out of their shells to feed, completely ignoring me.
Structure wise, this spot was one of the best I’ve ever witnessed diving in Norcal.
It too could potentially be reached from shore but the hike would be killer.
So from what I saw the MPA’s are definitely working in regards to rebuilding fish stocks. The abalone not so much.
I should also mention that this site also had very large areas of urchins barrens and urchins both of the large red variety and the small blue variety. In fact, during a pass through between two walls the surge moved me into a rock and I managed to get urchin spiked in the knee. I got ot out later but they are painful.
On another note, during our wall dive I did see an area that had a very large population of large armed sea stars. At this spot there were no urchins since sea stars eat urchins, so hopefully the kelp will be able to rebuild if the urchin are knocked down in numbers.
Next Saturday I’m planning a shore dive at Stillwater Cove in Sonoma County to feed abalone washed up kelp from the beach and gather a limit of 35 urchins.
We are going to try and clear an area of urchins that appears to have kelp that is trying to establish and help give it a fighting chance.
If anybody wants to join in the dive will be on 2/10 at 8:00 am at Stillwater Cove Park. You can contact Seals Water Sports in Santa Rosa and speak to Jennifer. (707) 542-3100
She in the force behind this effort.
Time to give back and do something for the critters and the ocean.
Last edited:
