Here's the camper backed up to a cattle fence under a cypress tree...pretty good camp site actually. A bit windy and foggy the 1st day.
This is Tomales Bay off the dock at Lawson's....
Campsite and the local surroundings. As you can see in the background, the place was full for the weekend.
I did some abalone diving with our friend Mark and his wife Andrea about an hour north at a point called Ft. Ross. As you can see, we picked up some nice critters for the freezer and fry pan. The limit is 3 abs per diver, 3 in possession, 24 per year. I remember when the limit was 5 per day but 3 is plenty. Once you have your limit, you have to tag each one, just like a deer, and mark it on your tag book. Surprisingly, the new tag and limit laws appear to be helping the abalone population. I've never seen numbers like this in the past. Nice job, CaFish&Game.
Here's Mark on the surface in the kelp...
This one isn't that happy to be out of the water apparently. Making a break for it....
And here's our little cove....it's a rare day when the Pacific is calm enough to water ski on. Usually, there's a lovely swell and white water surf conditions. We found these ab about 200 yards offshore in about 10' of water on a shallow reef. One of the local game wardens told us about this spot and boy, was he spot on. Some of these ab are over 9".
Yours truly cleaning one of the abs for dinner...
Once you pop him out of his shell, cut away the gut sac and trim up the foot, you're left with a nice chunk of meat. Slice it nice and thin, pound it, then dredge the strips in egg and bread crumbs and drop in the fry pan for a few seconds until golden brown. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!
The wives and kids went clam digging at low tide and we had 6 crab traps off the pier so in addition to the abalone, we had a real seafood feast with steamed clams, home-made clam & crab chowder, and BBQ's oysters. No roughing it this trip!!
. If we are going into survival mode soon, I want to be near you!!, I'll look for mushrooms and you get the meat.