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I was NAUI certified when I was 14yo for Skin Diving and something like Jr. SCUBA certified (the 70s)
Years later, when I was good, a friend had gotten into it. Diving buddies getting our limit in abalone. Back then it was 4 per diver (no scuba, only free diving)
We dove where the big and were here in Northern California. We would free-dive down to 50ft with enough bottom time to get an ab. Most ab divers have a mental block going deeper than 35ft. Most newbs won't do past 25ft. The big abs are beyond 40ft.
After our limit, we would pack up the abs in the car, get the SCUBA gear out and see what we missed while scanning for the next weekend's trip.
One time, I'm free-diving at 50ft and quickly find a nice ab (11") and as I pop it up, I see a bigger one several feet over. I attempt to pry it up, bit was a little slow. The ab clamped down bit I had the leverage and after a few seconds I got it.
In the way back up, I realized it was a big mistake to get two on a dive at this depth. When I got to the surface, I swore off getting two at a time.
We get to shore and ranger-rick, who had been watching us from the cliff, greeted us. He was going to inspect our haul. We were legal. The size limit was like 7" and our smallest one was like 9". When he saw my huge ab, he said he'd never seen one this big. I think it was between 13-14 inches. Among my group of veteran divers, that was our record. (Pure luck... not skill)
As far as SCUBA went, not much there other than spending 45 minutes at 50ft and decompressing at 15ft was weird to do. This was back when you had to hand calculate and use a watch
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