Friday, February 25, 2022

      The crabbing remains slow for most with a few guys occasionally doing very well. It would seem that there are small pockets of keeper Dungeness scattered about and finding one is key to success. The snarers are catching a few for dinner but nobody is bragging. 

     Most of you probably heard of the urchin diver that fell out of his boat last month and swam five miles to an oil rig that he climbed up to safety. If you haven't, here: https://www.independent.com/2022/02/02/urchin-diver-scott-thompson-survives-five-hour-swim-in-santa-barbara-channel/  He was lucky in that the water there was, maybe not warmer than here, but definitely less cold. After the wind we had this week our water temp is 48º according to Tim (no weather buoy so we send out Tim to check). It appears that a commercial crabber fishing alone fell out of his boat yesterday afternoon/evening into that cold water and he didn't make it. The boat was found at Elephant Rock and the fisherman's body was recovered about a mile and a half south of the boat. It sounds like he may have had a life jacket on (I could be and probably am wrong, but that's what I heard) but that cold water doesn't give you much time in it. Just the breeze off the water that last few days was giving me an ice cream headache (It's even worse when you have no hair). I'm not sure what the fix is. Fish with a buddy, probably. Barring that, have a waterproof handheld VHF and some flares in your pocket. And you're still probably screwed. Like Chef said in Apocalypse Now, "Never get out of the boat."

3 comments:

Tomales Outlaw said...

A dye pack and locating light on your PFD as well. Thing is you have to be conscious to activate them.

Outlaw

Bruce H. said...

Also store a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) such as rescueMe or ResQLink in your PFD.

Willy said...

I am a fan of the ones that notify someone besides the Coast Guard. Sometimes the boys don't deploy for an activation of an EPIRB. You hear them "pon-pon" requesting vessels to look for a boat but don't go themselves. I want my wife to know I'm in trouble. She'll be so far up their butts they'll want to go look for me just to get her to stop.