Bob Rood and abalone, Bird Rock, 1942

If there exists a food which Southern California can call its own, it is the abalone. Subtly flavored, cloaked in mystery, and wildly expensive, this lowly muscle now ranks with Alaskan crab and Maine lobster as the connoisseur’s delight. Even for those who can afford it, a fresh abalone dinner is something special. It is also a strictly local indulgence.

Outside of California, no restaurants in the United States offer such gourmet delicacies as abalone a la neptune, abalone thermidore, abalone stuffed with crab meat, or sweet and sour abalone. Even the basic abalone steak or abalone chowder is a rare treat most places. In fact, state law prohibits the export of fresh abalone, and that found off the coast of San Diego is greedily consumed here.

“You want to keep the abalone relaxed."

Ian Dryden

The cult of abalone is a carefully nurtured one, assuring its dollar value and reputation as a delicacy. Divers are reluctant to reveal trade secrets on either the locations they frequent or the techniques they employ. Seafood market managers shake their heads talking of scarcity and charging up to ten dollars a pound. And abalone importers can’t seem to recall exactly where in Baja California the Mexican divers said they found it. Jealously guarded secrets, relentless pursuit, and constant demand are the forces with which the abalone must contend.

Amateur diving has grown in popularity at a rapid rate, and with it, the search for abalone. For the opportunity to pluck them from the sea, California sport divers must pay a four-dollar fee for a regular fishing license. The limit is four legal-sized abalone per day (the legal size varies from four to seven inches in diameter, depending upon the species). But it isn’t as simple as that.

While the commercial diver rarely mentions any difficulty in actually recognizing an abalone, the amateur acknowledges there is considerable challenge to ever locating one.

Jim Corcoran, a UCSD student and avid sport diver, warns the beginner, "Let’s put it this way: you don’t just go diving and expect to run across an abalone.”

They hide out in small holes and deep crevices in underwater rock formations. The shell is usually covered with barnacles and eel grass, making identification all the more difficult.

“What you have to do is to approach a hole slowly, look around carefully in every little crevice, and try not to cast a shadow on them,” says Corcoran. “You want to keep the abalone relaxed, because it has the potential to exert a tremendous amount of suction by just clamping down its muscle so tight that there’s no way you can remove it from the rock.”

Using an “ab iron,” an ingenious device resembling a dagger, the diver can pry loose the elusive catch, and with luck, bring home the legal limit.

It’s a different endeavor for the commercial abalone diver. While he is not limited in the number of abalone he can take per day, he now pays $200 for a license — up from the $100 fee last year.

Divers are reluctant to reveal trade secrets on either the locations they frequent or the techniques they employ. Seafood market managers shake their heads talking of scarcity. And abalone importers can’t seem to recall exactly where in Baja California the Mexican divers said they found it.

The commercial diver is also restricted to taking larger abalone, but since he generally dives deeper — about 80-100 feet compared to 20-40 feet for most sport divers — the opportunity for finding larger ones is considerably increased.

There are only about ten divers in San Diego who make their living entirely from abalone, according to Archie Fox. Fox has been diving for abalone nearly 18 years.

On a typical morning he leaves the Perez Marina about eight o’clock as the haze is lifting from the water. Dressed in several layers of long underwear, he heads approximately a mile off the La Jolla shore with his partner, Kip Sharpe.

Fox does his commercial diving in what he calls the “gentlemen’s style.” That is, attired in a rubber dry suit rather than the standard wet suit used by most divers. “I just can’t stand to get all wet and soggy like you do in a wet suit. But most divers do it that way. Only about two of us in the business do it dry.”

When he reaches his diving grounds, marked by buoys, Fox anchors the boat, slips into his dry suit, puts on his mask, and fastens the belt linking his air hose to the compressor on board.

He usually stays down about an hour while Sharpe remains above noting in the log precisely where Fox is and pumping the air to him while watching the whales blow by.

On an average day Fox sends up three or four dozen abalone.

He sells about 90 percent of his catch to Anthony’s Seafood Restaurants in San Diego. Standard pay is $50 a dozen. It wasn’t always like this, though. In the early days of his diving career. Fox says abalone were far more plentiful, and he could get about 20 dozen a day selling them for $5 to $7 a dozen.

A number of factors have combined to make the abalone increasingly scarce. Fox points to Kelco Industries, a San Diego company that harvests kelp. In an attempt to kill sea urchins, which feed on kelp, Kelco dumps a lime solution (in the form of pellets) into the water. While intended to kill only urchins. Fox asserts that the lime is killing abalone, lobsters, and other fish as well.

"I've complained to the Fish and Game Commission,” he says, “but Kelco is a powerful company and it has more friends in Sacramento than fishermen do.”

Kelco’s plant manager, Carl Hauck, denies that the lime used to control sea urchins affects the abalone. “We’ve got Fish and Game Commission people with us out there all the time, every time we dive. The pellets are effective for only a few minutes, and the abalone’s shell protects them.”

The real problem, says Hauck, is the tremendous increase in abalone diving. “We’ve been harvesting kelp the same way, using the same techniques, since 1928, and only in the last few years has there been a problem with abalone beds. It’s the divers. You wouldn’t believe the fantastic pressure they’ve put on abalone. There are a lot of people diving today.”

John Duffy, a marine biologist with the San Diego ofFice of the Fish and Game Commission, is aware of the Kelco situation, but he says that pollutants in San Diego aren’t hurting too much at this point. There are, however, other dangers which imperil the abalone. The once-thriving abalone grounds off Palos Verdes in Los Angeles serve as an example. Because of heavy diving and copper ion pollutants from the hulls of freighters, the beds there have been decimated. Currently a complete ban on abalone hunting is in effect from Dana Point, in Orange County, to Santa Barbara.

The San Francisco area, also once thick with abalone, is now barren. The shellfish suffered from freighter pollutants as well as a natural enemy, the sea otter. It is now illegal to hunt abalone in that region.

Another factor is poaching. It can take two forms: the sport diver may take more than his limit, and both commercial and sport divers may pry loose abalone which are under the minimum size. Since it takes five to six years for an abalone to reach legal size, such poaching can have serious consequences.

It is difficult to determine the extent of illegal hunting, and diners are obviously hesitant to confess infractions, but Fox feels the Fish and Game Commission is not doing its best to enforce the regulations. The situation is complicated by the large number of amateurs who may dive only once or twice a month.

Although abalone is not officially considered an endangered species, it is clear that they have suffered at the hands of civilization.

Historical records show that local Indians appreciated the creature’s delicate taste, and found them in abundance along the rocky shore: But it was the Chinese laborers, brought to the West Coast to build railroads and dig mines, who taught early Californians the splendors of abalone meat. Before long, the shipping of dried abalone to the Far East became a booming business. The boom has not subsided since.

Today there are about four companies in the United States involved in the distribution and marketing of canned abalone. One of them. Ocean Garden Products, is located in San Diego.

Peter Hall, technical director of Ocean Garden, says all of their abalone is imported from Mexico, and 99.9 percent of it is shipped to the Far East. Since the demand far exceeds the supply, no attempt is made to promote it in the United States.

The Mexican catch comes from the northwest coast of Baja California where Ocean Garden employs some 4000 Mexicans to dive and work in the nine processing plants. The abalone is either canned or frozen. Very little of the canned product is consumed in the United States, although nearly all of the frozen stays in California. As yet, there is no serious concern over continuing supplies from Mexican waters.

Though the future of our local supply may appear cloudy, there is a ray of hope coming from marine biologists in La Jolla. The progress they have made with the delicate and complicated process of raising abalone under controlled conditions may result in the eventual replenishment of the thinned abalone population in San Diego. In the next few months, divers here will, for the first time, carefully place the young abalone from these experiments in rocky cracks and holes off Point Loma. If all goes well, there may be a time yet when La Jolla cove will once again teem with abalone.

WHERE TO FIND ABALONE

Anyone who regularly dives for abalone knows where to look. They have developed favorite grounds and have heard from fellow divers about others. As a group they are tight-lipped about these secret deposits, and understandably so. The abalone population in San Diego waters has been depleted dramatically in the last 15 years, to the point that only those out-of-the-way, hard-to-get-to underwater haunts consistently shelter the creatures. The situation is so bad, in fact, that there is active speculation about a state-imposed moratorium on abalone and lobster diving in local waters. Until that time, however, it’s still possible to strap on an air tank, grab an abalone iron, and plunge beneath the sea with decent chances for

Abalone need rocks, a simple fact which eliminates many areas along the coast. You’ll never find any abalone, for example, at La Jolla Shores, or Mission Beach. You will find them in the Point Loma kelp beds. The kelp beds require a boat, although occasionally a hearty diver has been known to swim there from shore. Because of the added expense and trouble of diving from a boat, the Point Loma kelp beds are one of the better spots in San Diego County. Anchor yourself and head straight down. The abalone prefer the dark undersides of the rocks and most hunting is done upside down. The kelp, it should be noted, can also be dangerous due to the tangled and twisting vines. Be careful, and always dive with a partner.

Closer to shore, one can generally find abalone where one finds surfers. The rocky reefs which pump up the surf also are home to the abalone. Sunset Cliffs offers a number of spots with abalone immediately off shore. The problem with this area is the eel grass. It is thick and slimy and makes diving rather difficult. The grass gets its name from the moray eel, which is known for, among other things, its love of abalone meat. Several divers report that they have been approached by hungry eels while carrying abalone. One claims that an eel, lounging in a hole near-by, actually darted out at the scent of a freshly-caught abalone and grabbed it from his hand.

Bird Rock, in La Jolla, offers good abalone hunting for this reason: the rocks on which they live are constantly subjected to strong surge action (swells which churn the water like a washing machine). Because of the dangers inherent in swimming in turbulent water too close to rocks, many divers avoid the area. The result: more abalone for those brave enough (or careless enough) to dive there.

North County has a number of reefs, most of which are popular with surfers and divers alike. Swami’s, below the Self-Realization Fellowship in Encinitas, has long proved a fruitful hunting ground, but its easy access and popularity have led to fewer abalone.

If you don’t dive and don’t want to pay up to $10 a pound in a seafood store, drive to Ensenada and haggle over the price at the open-air fish market on the bay. □