Field Report, Sept. & Oct. 2004

The last couple of months have been very productive ones for ODA. We had a summer full of good diving days. In August we recovered 4 more abandoned lobster traps, 1 crab trap, dozens of broken up wire mesh, 9 trap weight bars and over 650 feet of trap lines from the reefs of Seal Rock, Moss Point and Crystal Cove State Park in Laguna Beach. The crew consisted of Jim Lieber (1st mate), Lisa Davis, Scott Sheckman, Rick Stevens, Chris Bell (instructor extraordinaire) and Carl Angwin.

On September 5 we had our biggest one day haul. We took 3 dives, one at Seal Rock and 2 at Crystal Cove State Park, Reef Point. Due to the outstanding coordination between the dive team of Chris Bell, Erik Burrows and myself, we were able to remove 3 lobster traps, 4 weight bars, various trap remnants and about 250 feet of trap lines! All in one glorious day. Thanks to Jim for keeping the dive team well supplied and supported. The Garibaldi was heavily weighted down as we returned to port with a boat filled to the gills in recovered gear, and smelling like such. But no one onboard seemed to notice, we ALL had smiles on our faces.