In Reply to: Dive Report: Shaws Cove, Sunday 10-16-16 posted by J. Reeb on October 16, 2016 at 11:27:32:

It's (almost) always fun to feed the abalone...

Comment from A Time To Dive, My Time - Mendocino Day 2

When my film was gone, I decided to go inside the thick patch of bull kelp on the top 15 feet of the rock. It was tough to get through, stalks were mostly 6 inches or less apart, but I was in no hurry and there was a tremendous amount of different strange and colorful life to check out. I started breaking off kelp leaves and feeding them to large red abalone. You just shove a piece of kelp leaf under their mouth and they grab it with their ... foot. After doing this about 5 times, I moved into the thickest part of the kelp patch and settled into a small low spot in the rock. It was full of small kelps and invertebrates. There were numerous sponges and tunicates. I was just relaxing on the bottom feeding abalone when something wrong happened. I didn't know what it was, but it was very wrong. I looked around, but there was just thick kelp in all directions. I relaxed again on my rock and it happened again. I jumped about 4 feet off the rock, but this time I knew what it was. Above me, was Eric laughing away, upside down, holding a pony bottle in his hand. The first time he had yanked on my camera. The second time he had yanked hard on my shoulder.

I continued through the kelp some, but the dive was pretty much over. Well, that’s what friends are for.