The next stop along my journey as the 2021 NA Rolex Scholar was to Nevada to the famous city of Las Vegas. Though it’s well known that while all sorts of things happen in Vegas one of those things for this year happened to be the DEMA convention. DEMA or the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association is an international organization dedicated to the promotion and growth of the recreational scuba diving and snorkeling industry. I was intent on going as this was going to be the first one that I’ve ever attended. To help me navigate the ins and outs of the conference, I was to be accompanied by my two friends and coordinators Robin Parish and Alison LaBonte!
Although I was told the size and attendance of the convention was going to be nothing like it usually is, since we are still in the midst of a pandemic, upon first entering the convention I was still practically floored. On the first day of the convention, I felt like a kid in a candy store. There were so many panelists and people promoting every dive product and experience imaginable. Everything was so bodacious, colorful, and interesting that I wanted to honestly stop at every booth. With only a few days of the convention, though, I had to use my time wisely, as there were specific people and booths that we were keen on visiting. One of my first and favorite stops was at the Women Divers Hall of Fame booth where they were going to be honoring the incredible Dan Orr (as their Good Will Ambassador) and later the legendary Shirley Lee, who was one of the first Black female members of the Underwater Adventure Seekers and helped organize the National Association of Black SCUBA divers. I was very honored to meet Shirley and her husband there at the booth and witness Shirley’s induction to the Women Divers Hall of Fame, especially as a fellow black person within this industry.
It was great to meet a plethora of new and amazing people, including Faith Ortins from Blue Green Expeditions, Cris Merz and Jesse Iacono of International Training, Dora Sandoval of Rocio del Mar liveaboards, and Marty Snyderman, just to name a small few. One of the most gregarious folks I met there was Laura Rogers Bennett and her son Brian Bennett. As it also was Brian’s first time attending DEMA, we had a lot to talk about and we became fast friends. After talking with me and learning that I would soon be needing some extra practice diving in cold waters in my drysuit, they invited me over to their place in Northern California for Thanksgiving to dive for crab and get some experience there! How kind!
While I was at DEMA I also was able to see some familiar faces including Dr. Matias Nochetto and the other folks from DAN, Scott Sanders who I had taken my free diving class with, Halle Minshall who worked as the DSO at my first aquarium job and Rich Synowiec (Divers Incorporated) who helped me get drysuit certified before I took part in the scholarship. It was wonderful to see everyone again. Perhaps one of the biggest highlights though was being able to attend the NOGI banquet which is a prestigious gala where pioneers in diving and advancing the underwater world are able to go and celebrate their achievements. Thanks to Ed Stetson, I was was invited and took part of the ceremony, as one of the Lee Selisky Future Leaders of the Diving Industry. While there, I was also able to meet Kate and her husband Larry Madin, who not only happened to be one of the few receiving a NOGI award that night, but also had studied one of the very subjects I had done research on in my undergraduate days. And he was sitting at the same table as me! It was truly a great and fun night to remember.
Later on in the week after DEMA was over, we had made plans to get out into the Nevada desert and explore the wilderness. It was great to get outside of the city atmosphere and trek across the mountaintops. It was made even more fun since our entourage had some additional cast members including Ali’s partner Bob, and my partner Travis. Ready to experience some nature, we rode out to the Red Rock Canyon and explored some of the paths there until nightfall. It was an exhilarating experience climbing giant boulders and sliding through ravines. It was an absolute blast!
After Nevada, I was on my way to Northern California to hang out with Brian and Laura Rogers Bennett. Given the chance to practice some drysuit cold water diving, experience a family Thanksgiving with new folks and eat some crab (one of my favorite foods), I was inclined to take them up on their offer to visit. Thus, I flew to northern California and landed in San Jose. I put in some time catching up on computer work in the airport and then Brian picked me up from the terminal and we drove all the way up to Bodega Bay. It had apparently become somewhat of a recent tradition of theirs to have a gathering there during the holidays and hunt for crabs, so I was happy to be an early addition to the tradition.
Once we arrived I got to meet more of the Bennett family and friends, including Laura’s daughter and Brian’s sister, Lucy, who I helped make some of the pies for the upcoming Thanksgiving feast. We ended up making two pumpkin pies, two pecan pies, and two apple pies! It was so cool to see how each of them was made. However, the coolest part was going to be the hunt for Dungeness crabs!
Crabbing is the main fishing industry of the Bodega Bay area and is so coveted that the crabs are locally sold only fresh, not frozen. Crab season, in itself, traditionally runs from early November through late June; prime season is in the winter months, which means it was perfect timing for me to be there.
To start out, I had to get my crab fishing license which was simply a matter of going online and applying for it. Our main target was the Dungeness Crabs. In the northwest, Dungeness crabs are the most desirable species for eating as they yield more meat per crab than most other species. In addition, the meat is firmer, meaning it is easier to extract from the shell when broken and has a slightly more sweet flavor. The other species of crab that we would run into and might potentially catch were Rock Crabs. Though not as sweet, they tend to have large quantities of meat within their claws. To tell the difference, Rock crabs are redder and have black tips on their claws while the Dungeness appeared more brownish in color.
The rules for catching these crabs were simple but specific. It was important to only catch the males so that the females could successfully reproduce especially if they were already gravid. In order to find the difference between males and females, we were going to have to flip the crabs over and take a good look at the underside of their carapace. Females always had a more broad and triangular underside than males. In addition, each of the male crabs that we abstracted had to be a large enough size. This means that we also had to bring with us a measuring device so that we could make sure that we weren’t taking any juveniles. In order to capture the crabs, Brian and Laura advised me to either grab the crabs from behind or by the claws in order to prevent myself from getting pinched.
During our first dive I suited up in my DUI Drysuit and we waded out into the water, swimming on the surface until we reached the buoy. There we descended in cold 6ft visibility water and began our search. It was so much fun and a little scary obtaining my first crab. After I had picked it up from behind I could see it trying to grab me from underneath. Once it got a little part of my glove, I underestimated how powerful the crab’s claws could be and decided to grab it a bit more freely. However, once it squeezed those pincers around a part of my finger and started crushing it, I realized why it was important to grab it as I’d been advised. Ouch! Lesson learned. From then on I made sure that on all our dives I was careful to handle the crabs with care.
Notwithstanding my moment of hard-headedness, it was awesome to learn more about the crabs and how to catch them. Even though there were several other people setting out traps for the crabs, not everyone could put on dive gear and literally pluck the crabs from the seafloor themselves! It was awesome to experience and because of it, I discovered how important these organisms are to the Bodega Bay region economically. If you are ever interested in going crab hunting please check out https://www.eregulations.com/washington/fishing/crab-rules and have fun!
While I was there with the Bennetts I also got to explore the Bodega Marine Laboratory at UC Davis where Laura leads a team investigation on marine ecosystem health in regards to invertebrate populations, fishery management, and marine conservation. More specifically, Laura is working hard to help to restore the white abalone species which were overfished in the Bay area almost to extinction in the early 1970s. The white abalone was one of the first marine invertebrates listed as endangered in the United States, and experts determined that captive breeding and planting were the best ways to save the species. After early breeding efforts were hampered by disease, the program headquarters moved to UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in 2011, where Laura helps to monitor their growth, progression, and reproduction. I was lucky enough to join Laura to tour through the facility and poke my head into one of the holding labs for the white abalone, where I got to witness the different growth stages of the shelled invertebrate. As amazing as it was to see all the work she and others were doing, learning about the struggle to bring this species back from the brink of death brought to mind how essential it is to help foster healthier ways of treating our planet.
The rest of my time with the Bennetts was amazing and I got to meet more of their family members and close friends. We hung out, played games, explored looking for wild mushrooms, and had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner. I was super thankful to get some drysuit practice and catch my first Dungeness crab. I had an amazing time. Thanks to the Bennetts and DUI, I had a perfect Thanksgiving holiday!
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