The 2006 North Coast Party scrapbook.

All this was back in August during my annual north coast party.

I got to Ocean Cove on a Thursday morning and began to set up camp for what was going to be a long weekend of diving, cooking, eating and partying.
Jon Davies was among the first to show up in the afternoon followed by Gary Wilson, a fellow north coast native.
I had managed to get out early in the afternoon and pull a limit of abs right in the cove before anybody showed up. That night several other people showed up rather late so we sat around the fire and unwound a little with them. We all got to bet very late.

Jon and his family setting up.

Friday was a strange day. I woke up late and was feeling the affects of the night before.
The ocean looked a little agitated but the vis was still good. Three of us finally got the boat out and tried to look for a calm place to throw the anchor and find a calm place to dive but there was none to be found. There was a stiff southerly wind blowing which blew out all the protected cove I knew of. The wind chop was getting bad. I decided to take her back in and do a dive right in Ocean Cove. The conditions weren’t bad. Jon tossed the anchor in and we watched the anchor go over, then the chain ran out and that was it, no rode attached to the end of the chain! Overboard it went. What the hell?
It had been a year since I had the boat out last and I remembered that I used the chain for something else around the house and when I put it back I got lazy and never attached it back onto the rope.
Then when I pulled the boat out of the ramp and took it up to rinse the motor I forgot to drop the antenna down and when I pulled away after rinsing a tree branch broke off the antenna mounting bracket. This day was not working out at all so far. It was already 3:00 and we hadn’t even gotten one dive in yet.

Well, no boat diving that day. Jon and I decided to fly back to Santa Rosa, go by West Marine to pick up an antenna bracket, then go by my house and load up on more firewood. I planned on doing a lot of sitting around the fire and drinking beer.

That evening when we got back up the coast I was determined to salvage at least one dive out of that day so Jon and I did a twilight/ early night dive right in the cove.
As I was gearing up and trying to get in the water I fumbled my mask and dropped it in the surf. Sh____ttttt!!!! Could anything else possibly go wrong?!!! Maybe this was a sign to stay the hell out of the water that day, I don’t know, but Jon loaned me his extra mask and we went in. I turned out to be the medication I needed. Perfect! I shot a nice much needed ling, there was tons of great stuff to see, abs were out climbing up kelp stocks to feed, it was perfect. I was now happy.

Saturday I woke up to early and felt dehydrated and not right. I drank a bunch of water then a little coffee then switched to tea. I probably drank a little to much alcohol the night before but nothing I couldn’t deal with. Rosie made a great breakfast and combined with some fruit I was feeling normal finally.

Four of us decided to sneak off and do a fairly early boat dive run. Our group included Jon Davies, Bruce (Zinmaker on scubaboard), Gary Wilson, and I.
The ocean had laid down nicely and we were finally away from everybody and goin’ divin’ Yeee Haaaawww!!! The throttle was open and I was bombing up to horseshoe cove.

Full throttle!

We found a nice place to throw the new anchor, oh yeah I had to get my spare anchor when we were back in town.
We did two great dives. Big boulders the size of busses, swim throughs, caves, tunnels, we found a glory hole full of jumbo scallops, Gary shot his first lingcod; a nice one too. This place is known as Red Rocks because of the red lichen that grows on the face of the cliffs here. It is right inside the southern point of horseshoe cove, about 6 miles north of ocean cove. As we passed by Gerstle we saw the huge Stellar sea lions protecting their territory on the outer most rocks.

Stellars on the rocks.

Jon

From right to left, Gary, Zinmaker.

When we got back people were not happy, they though we were gong to be right back and I was going to shuttle people in and out all day. Well if I can do it I will, but in this case it just didn’t happen. We were having to much fun and a bloom had already started. By the time we were done diving the vis had severely deteriorated. Besides, people got up to late hung-over and were in no shape to dive the north coast that morning. Most of them weren’t from around here and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. I had a group ready to go by 9:00 am so we split.
But I had a smile from ear to ear. It felt so good to get the hell away from it all and just be on my boat with a few good friends again.

That night we were treated to a nice sunset.

Sunset over Ocean Cove.

At the cleaning station that evening I was entertained thoroughly by the boy who ate the eyeball and the guy cleaning the abs mooning the world.

News Flash: Boy eats raw fish eyeball at North Coast Party for $10 !!

Cleaning abs and urchins.

Ab divers moon.
Hey Socal, this ones for you!

Parting shots:

That’s it.

• Good times! Jon 17:52:27 09/30/06 (0)
• Too funny seahunt 06:52:41 09/30/06 (0)