PURP 2025 Information and orientation thread.

[Eric Sedletzky]

Greetings divers,

2025 is upon us and we're gearing up to get a lot of work done at Stillwater Cove this year.
We have many new sign ups and this thread is about orienting new divers/helpers to our purple urchin removal work.

I'm hoping that I will be able to send out a text soon letting people know that we are diving!
The weather has been a bear and has not let up.
But I'm hopeful that we will be getting out there in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, I want to go over a few things to set new people up to be ready when you get that text.

1. If you plan to take urchins in any capacity don't forget you will need a fishing license.
2. Make sure all your scuba gear is in good shape and in working order. All divers are required to have all of their own personal dive gear, either owned or rented, including tanks.
If you normally rent tanks but the dive shop is out, ask me and I have a few tanks people can use. I have steel 72's for loan for PURP activities.
3. You will need to fill out and sign a liability waiver form before you can take part in PURP activities. This extends to shore support as well.
4. All of our diving at this point is at Stillwater Cove Regional Park in Sonoma County. Free parking is available up in the turnout on the highway above the cove, or there is day use parking up in the campground across the highway. The day use fee is $7 or free with a park pass. I highly encourage participants that want to be involved long term to get an annual park pass for $69. It allows for free parking for a full year from the date of purchase plus one free night of camping.
There is a 10 minute loading unloading zone in the cove parking lot but please do not park there long term, you will be cited.

More to come...

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Shore Support:
We have many new enthusiasts that have expressed interest in providing shore support.
I thank you!

Here are a few jobs I'd like to go over.

Shore support includes weighing bags and recording weights on a sheet. This info is used internally plus it is provided to the scientific community via request.
All bags will get weighed when they come in and the weight is listed under the divers name. Hopefully the bags will be labelled so the diver gets credit.
The bags get emptied onto the sorting board and all by catch is removed like snails, small abalone if there are any, anything else that that is not a purple urchin and returned to the ocean.
So we need weighers and sorters.

There will also be a dive roster with all divers listed. I need a dedicated keen shore support person to log the times the divers go in and come out of the water. There is a separate clip board and sheet for this job. This job is critical in that the observer needs to be focussed and not get distracted. If we are going to rely on this system to make sure everyone comes back there can be no mistakes.

I also need someone to greet new incoming divers and have them fill out the waiver. All participants must fill out and sign a liability release waiver form.

I have a new thing I'm doing this year, I have some loaner gear available for new divers to use like green game bags, lift bags, and tow lines. I will need someone to check out the gear and log the names onto a sheet.

We also have an O2 kit now that will be ready to use in the event of an accident.
We have a person in charge if that apparatus but if you have emergency responder experience and or O2 provider please let me know so I know our options.

There are also some in water or waterline shore support jobs that require getting a little wet.
Divers may need help getting in and out of the water with heavy gear etc.
Plus bags will need to be landed and pulled in.
If you have a wetsuit, wetsuit bottoms, an old torn up suit that maybe is not good for diving but would work for knee high to thigh high exposure in the surf zone please let me know. You'll need booties too. On a nice day swim trunks and aquasocks will work but keep in mind that water averages about 50 degrees.

Full cans will need to be packed across the beach up to the paved area too. I'm working on getting more 20 gallon cans since those are easier to carry by two people but we still have several 32 gallon cans and those can get heavy.
All cans will need to be shook down and packed up on the pavement so we can get maximum amounts of urchins in each can. The law does not allow for crushing, they must be whole, but condensing by dropping the can down several times is allowed.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Scuba divers:

You will need all or your own personal scuba gear, either owned or rented. We do not provide any personal scuba gear other than a few tanks, and those are loaned out by prior arrangement.

BCD: Your bc should have a good assortment of attachment points (D-rings). You will need to clip off several game bags, a lift bag, a tow rope that is rolled up and secured with a bungee and clipped off. My advice is to secure any console well because you will be working on the bottom and loose consoles will get beat up and snag on everything. The same goes for anything on retractors, my advice is to avoid retractors completely and figure out another system. Retractor lines are nothing but a huge snag hazard and will become incredibly annoying and distracting.

If you have limited cold water experience or no cold water experience, please let us know so we can have a discussion about it. There are added gear requirements and not all warm water gear is suitable for cold water diving, especially urchin diving work. Many warm water travel BC's do not allow for enough weight to be incorporated into the system to function properly. Please let us know beforehand what gear you have and what your experience level is so we can guide you into this and give you the best advice.

 

[NaCl H2O]

Eric, very nice work you are doing. Wish I was on the west coast!!
Really enjoy your posts, keep updating.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Scuba divers continued:

You will need a compass and know how to use it.
You must orient yourself to the cove and make notes of directions and headings. For instance, if you are in the middle of the cove, 30 degrees is always the way back to the beach.
The simplest thing we will be doing is taking a heading as you are entering the water from the beach. Follow your heading out and as soon as you start seeing purple urchins begin gathering. Leave no purple urchins behind, clear your path completely clean. Pay attention to your air! It's easy to get wrapped up in harvesting and forget to look at your SPG. When you are done gathering urchins and your bags have been filled and floated, take a reverse heading and come home.

Weighting:
For urchin diving in the shallows I recommend adding a few lbs. of weight so you can work comfortably in 8' - 10' of water and not fight to stay down. I have a lot of extra weight I normally bring if you don't have enough. However, I recommend against being overweighted. if you have trouble understanding the difference between the two I can explain it to you if needed.

Cutting devices:
You will need a cutting device (or two) for possible fishing line and other hazards. The cove is known as a popular shore fishing site by hook and line fishermen and yes they lose a lot of gear. You will definitely need a cutting devices for safety. I use a serrated dive knife plus I have a Trilobite line cutter. I have encountered derelict fishing line now several times. I take the time to remove it and I discard it in the trash when I get to shore.
Most of the time the line breaks easily and it can be pulled loose, but once I encountered the really strong stuff and it wanted to cut through my gloves. So cutting devices are mandatory as far as I'm concerned.

Buddies:
We do not provide buddies. If you need a buddy you will need to either bring your own, or team up with someone willing at the dive site.
My advice is to have your buddy needs already set up prior to the day of diving.
Note that most of us dive solo and do our own thing. I don't want anybody to be shocked or appalled by this revelation so I just want to get that out there.



Harvesting gear:
In addition to all your own personal basic scuba gear, you will need harvesting gear. We have a few items that can be loaned and we are working on building our inventory further because we understand that the harvesting gear needed can be a barrier for participation. What we are asking is that if you are new and want to use some harvesting equipment, that if you like doing the work and plan to attend more dives, we'd like for you to begin purchasing your own personal harvesting gear so that the next new diver curious about urchin collection can have a shot at it and use the loaner gear, and so on.
The gear needed is:
Green trident game bag(s). Many divers have two or three.
A 50# lift bag. The dive shop sells XS scuba lift bags.
You will need double ended bolt snaps for each of the above listed items. Stainless or brass is fine, just not zinc coated steel.
You will need a hand held gardening rake, a small cheap one is fine. Put a bungee loop through the handle so you don't lose it. It also makes it easier to shake the bags down with two hands, just let it go and it will dangle off your wrist.
You will need a tow line. My original tow line is a 3/8" yellow hollow poly line from Home Depot and it works fine. Now we have 3/4" mule tape webbing to make tow lines thanks to one our generous members. Each line is around 50' long. What we use these for is towing the full bags floating by the lift bag on the surface back to the beach, either surface swimming or towing the flotilla while swimming in underwater. I tow them in underwater because it's so much easier. Towing full bags in has proven to be the hardest part of this whole affair. This function will be explained further during your initial orientation briefing at the dive site before a dive.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Freedivers:
We are getting more and more freedivers joining us.
Freedivers are very valuable because they can get into shallow areas around the rocks where scuba gear is cumbersome.
I have never freedived for urchins so I'm probably not the best person to advise you, but here's what I know and what I envision.
Freediving might be best done using the next smaller bag which is the yellow bag. Freedivers will usually have a floating device such as a boogy board or a float tube. Another useful tool for freediving would be a float line about 50' in length. seal's dive shop has these all set up and they are nice for $45. You clip off your bag to the float line and dive down with bag and rake in hand. Start filling the bag and when you need to come up to breathe leave the bag on the bottom. When you re-descend follow your float line right back down to your bag and continue filling. When the bag is full, latch it and come up, then you can pull up the bag by the line and heft it up onto your boogy board, paddle board, kayak, whatever. You could do this with multiple bags.

A note about bags for both free divers and scuba:
Please label your bags with your name. When the bags come in and you're not right there to tell them, shore support will not know who to give credit to on the sheet. I will post some pics of how I handled this.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Other information:

We will take care of all the urchins, you don't have to worry about them.
We will provide the cans, and we relocate the urchins to a nice forested sanctuary in the mountains where they can live out their lives in peace.
If you want some urchins to eat bring a container/bucket. We actually have several people that will take them for various projects and for the uni.
We also provide free air fills for anybody who participates collecting urchins (A big thank you to Michael Stewart and SeaTrees for their generous donation!).
Just ask me or the person in charge for an air fill voucher for each tank used. Air fills are given by Seal's water sports in Santa Rosa, just present your voucher(s).
We do not reimburse the cost of an air fill for any divers that bring their own tanks but don't go to Seal's dive shop afterward for a fill.
If you rent tanks from Seal's then you will pay for the first rental but get an air fill voucher if you use those tanks to collect urchins. You will use that air voucher the next time you rent a tank and then you will only pay for rental on the cylinder not on the air fill.

Bring your lunch!
Make sure to bring plenty of nutrition and hydration. Urchin diving can definitely take it out of you.

The other handy thing to have is a changing mat of some sort. I use a small tarp 6'x8' and lay it out on the sand or grass to keep stickers and dirt/mud off my gear.

We also ask that participants not dominate the picnic tables with dive gear. The ranger has politely asked me if we can keep the benches open for other park visitors that might want to picnic.
I want to be respectful of others using the facility and not have all sorts of dive crap strewn all ever the benches and tables, then everybody is off diving with their bags and stuff all over the tables and nobody else can use them.
I want to keep on good terms with ranger staff so let's keep that in mind.

Thank you all so much for reading.
Any questions? Please fire away...