I’m never using a BC again!

[The Chairman]

alongside whether to carry a snorkel

Dude, that's settled science!

 

[L13]

... my opponents (including you) ...

I think I found the problem.

 

[L13]

...But it is easy to win my contempt.

And the other problem.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Total waste of time.
Did I get any direct sign ups from this thread? No.
Did I manage to get any local involvement or spawn any interest in urchin removal from anybody that can actually put tread on the road and help? not that I saw.
Instead I get nothing but grief from somebody in Florida with a massive chip on their shoulder, that somehow knows more than anybody else on how to deal with urchins, but yet won’t put their money where their mouth is and do something constructive. Just pure entertainment for this individual using my thread as fodder to get their jollies trying to jack someone up on the net.
Normally I don’t care but this subject is probably too important and personal to me to discuss here where people just can’t seem to put the beer down and be decent.
Well, that’s two hours worth of time I can’t get back, shame on me.
I should have known better.

For those that care.
If any LOCALS THAT CAN ACTUALLY SHOW UP AND DO A DIVE and want to help make a difference, please contact us: www.sealswatersports.com
You can also go to our Instagram page at:
@p.u.r.p_707
We will post dates of upcoming dives and you can see pics and videos of what we do.

Thank you.

Out…

 

[Waterwulf]

I did a couple or dives in Florida springs but I've never seen a gator nearby. Isn't 70-74 F too cold for them?

I used to drift dive hanging under the boat in the Rainbow River in Central Florida. I had a friend that lived downstream on the Withalacootchie River and he would haul me upriver into the Blue Run aka the Rainbow river. Then I'd hang under the boat and drift downstream with the current. There were no Alligators in the Rainbow river up near the spring because it was to cold but there were hundreds further down stream where it was warmer. (They can tolerate the cold but they don't like it so they leave)

I was hanging there one day about fifteen feet under the boat admiring the view in the crystal clear water, when I realized that it was starting to get spooky. There were tendrils of dark water threading thru the clear water, like slowly pouring coffee into clear water. It was getting darker too. Then it dawned on me. I was using twin 72's in fifteen feet of water with no activity and was hardly using any air at all. I had drifted so far downriver and out of the Rainbow River and was actually drifting in the Withalacootchie River. A swamp river. It was like dark tea.

Ok, it was time to leave. I reached up above me to the rope I was hanging on to start surfacing and the current spun me around slowly. There was an Alligator right behind me about two feet away. He looked about fifteen feet long at the time but was really about six feet. I think he was probably riding the drift too. I went spastic for a moment with arms and legs all taking off in different directions using a lot of air and the Alligator took off like he was launched off a catapult. My friend in the boat thought it was funny.

 

[Waterwulf]

Total waste of time.
Did I get any direct sign ups from this thread? No.
Did I manage to get any local involvement or spawn any interest in urchin removal from anybody that can actually put tread on the road and help? not that I saw.
Instead I get nothing but grief from somebody in Florida with a massive chip on their shoulder, that somehow knows more than anybody else on how to deal with urchins, but yet won’t put their money where their mouth is and do something constructive. Just pure entertainment for this individual using my thread as fodder to get their jollies trying to jack someone up on the net.
Normally I don’t care but this subject is probably too important and personal to me to discuss here where people just can’t seem to put the beer down and be decent.
Well, that’s two hours worth of time I can’t get back, shame on me.
I should have known better.

For those that care.
If any LOCALS THAT CAN ACTUALLY SHOW UP AND DO A DIVE and want to help make a difference, please contact us: www.sealswatersports.com
You can also go to our Instagram page at:
@p.u.r.p_707
We will post dates of upcoming dives and you can see pics and videos of what we do.

Thank you.

Out…

Maybe you could explain what damage they cause, the ramifications, what's being done to control them, photo's of them and the damage they cause, etc. Maybe some of us, including myself, have no idea what they are. I've seen black ones but never any purple ones.

 

[Celt]

The problem that Eric has spoken of is a lesson for us all. Climate change and marine heat waves can cause rapid changes in delicate systems. The loss of the giant kelp is a disaster and if lessons are not learned it will happen again.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Maybe you could explain what damage they cause, the ramifications, what's being done to control them, photo's of them and the damage they cause, etc. Maybe some of us, including myself, have no idea what they are. I've seen black ones but never any purple ones.

There were several factors that caused the current purple urchin invasion.
10 or 12 years ago there was an event that caused all the sea stars to die off and it affected the giant sun star the worst which is the number one predator for purple urchins.
At roughly the same time there was a heat blob that came in and warmed the ocean temperatures that killed off a bunch of bull kelp. Then there was another toxic bloom that happened and it affected the abalone which were found by the thousands washed up on beaches, only the meat not the shell. So with no natural predators the purple urchins exploded in population in only a few short years and began to eat everything available including any remaining bull kelp that was trying to re-establish, sea weeds, palm kelp, everything. As a result the abalone starved and most died off causing a catastrophic collapse of the abalone populations which had a trickle down effect with many local economies including dive shops closing up, a tourist industry, an entire recreational industry dried up because of no abalone. The state finally shut it down completely. BTW, there never was a commercial abalone industry of wild abalone north of San Francisco.
So now what we have is pretty much nothing but a vast carpet of purple urchins and bare rock, not much else. There is a weed line coming back very close to shore and we’re seeing many small abalone coming back and eating sea weed to stay alive but kelp is still non existent in many areas of the coast.
What many people don’t understand is kelp forests affect the whole planet not just our local area. Kelp is a major CO2 sink and very critical to the atmospheric balance of the planet.

The state has now employed many out of work commercial urchin divers to clear sites of purple urchins. So far the commercials have cleared Fort Ross State Park and Timber Cove. Kelp replanting will begin in spring at those sites. I have been in touch with the officials at the the kelp restoration office and they are thrilled with what we’re doing at Stillwater Cove Regional Park. They want us to report our poundages taken and they are keeping track. I submit a report after each urchin dive event. If we collect enough lbs. they will send in their team to check out the progress and decide if it needs additional clean up. They may send in the commercials to completely clear it if needed then it will too be designated for re-seeding in spring. They are already using drones to view sites and Stillwater is definitely on their list of reseeding places since it is just up the coast from the two other aforementioned places. Their plan is to create kelp seeding safe zones within these coves so that there is a place where kelp can spawn and stay alive. The kelp safe zones will have to be maintained so we’ll always have work to do. Then hopefully some day the purples will get back under control and the kelp will regrow.
But it is critical to at least have some kelp kept alive otherwise they fear it may go extinct and then we’d be completely screwed.

So that’s kind if the jist of it.

 

[Waterwulf]

Thanks for that. It makes a bit more sense now. What was the original even that killed off the Starfish?

 

[100days-a-year]

Know at least a couple dozen guys who commercially harvest wearing only a backpack. Some since the 60s as I see steel 72s with 1960s hydros they bought new still in use.
Kudos for the cullers out there taking invasive and unbalanced populations.
Me not being a douchecanoe , your diving preferences are your business and only relevant to me if I can learn from them.