Preparing uni (sea urchin roe) tonight. Reminiscing about all the huge wild uni and awabi (abalone) I used to see while 60 down prompted this little scuba diving story. [Not one where I persuade my pregnant wife who is not proficient in swimming to join me on a straight drop 1000 cliff dive in Palau.] Early 1990s. Moved in with Yu-Tze Chang who was doing her Masters in Interpreting at Monterey Institute. Remote coding with my buddy Jon Simpson, our hours were long, but our own. Monterey is fantastic for seafood, for golf, and for scuba. Used to buy snapper for $2/lb directly from fishermen at the commercial pier. Kazu at Sakura Sushi used to buy sushi direct too. He had, to my recollection, hands down, freshest, best hamachi and toro. He regularly catered at Pebble Beach, even for the AT&T. Never got good at golf, even with lessons by Steve Mascari (who moved to Thailand to be a golf pro in Pattaya). However in scuba, I was decent. Progressed through Basic and Advanced Open diving, started the Rescue diving course. Helping teach/assist the odd scuba classes at Bamboo Reef in Monterey. Hours logged in your dive book are important for advancement, so Id dive multiple times a week. As a local, I knew all the best dive spots in Monterey. My favorite was Butterfly House. Great visibility. My least favorite was Monastery beach. Monastery was bone cold, as the Monterey canyon would upwell and regularly chill the water to 45 degrees. Monastery would also kick your ass even trying to get back on to land. Many many deaths from folks whod underestimate the undertow on the surprisingly steep beach exit led to its nickname, Mortuary Beach. One day we were diving near Pt. Lobos. Long surface kick out past kelp beds to get to fantastic cliffs that attract pelagic fish. Ive been arms length from grouper and tuna bigger than 6 feet long. However, this time we were skirting cliffs to head to some kelp beds with seals and sea otters. I felt kind of weird up at the surface before the dive. I decided to call the dive about 20 minutes in and we kicked back in. 10 minutes later a different diver got hit by a shark just 500 yards away. Link here to his story: sharkattacksurvivors/shark_attack/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=773 Ive jumped into glacier-fed streams in Alaska to catch salmon. Im having second thoughts about going back to Big Sur to catch my share of uni. I dont even have my dive gear anymore, donated it to HP co-consultants -- Evan Williams who has always been one of the far thinkers. Congrats on Twitter IPO!]
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 05:43:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015