Photo by Joe Klein

Early morning, I.B. pier. “You Americans don’t like fish heads, but that’s the best part of them!"

Pier Group

"They set seven to eight tiny hooks on a very fine line, put a small weight at the end, and tie tiny feathers to each hook. No bait. You drop the line in just below the surface, where the anchovies swim, and just keep that line moving up and down. Pretty soon you’ll be catching eight at a time. Catch about 300 and you’ve got a great meal. Just break their heads off…”

By Bill Manson, Nov. 29, 1995 | Read full article

In almost every place you might drive, you’ll find heaps of rotting, rusted, crumbling military junk.

Photo by Robert Burroughs

Don't Pitch Your Tent on San Clemente Island: It's the Navy's Paradise, Not Yours

The Navy and others compare San Clemente Island with its nearest neighbor, Catalina Island, arguing that without the military’s presence, San Clemente would have become just another Southern California bedroom community. But it is clear that San Clemente has not fared as well as San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz islands, which are under the protection of the National Park Service. Jan Larsen believes the difference is relatively minor though.

By Steve Sorensen, Aug. 22, 1991 | Read full article

Sylvia Repine: "I knew nothing about boats, let alone junks. But I had always wanted to live by the sea."

Photo by Dave Allen

That Sinking Feeling

No serious replies. Finally Roger gets the junk across the bay to Land and Sea’s National City yard. A six-hour voyage. Land and Sea takes one look at the junk sitting there low in the water, held up by all those ridiculous plastic water bottles, and refuses to take it. But the owner of the yard next door, the Sweetwater yard, who’d had a junk himself once, takes pity and gives them space for half-price — $15 per day.

By Bill Manson, Feb. 24, 1994 | Read full article

You’d never suspect that Sherry Cummings worked hundreds of miles offshore, 12 hours a day, much of it spent hauling and dropping a big water collection device called a rosette, which, when full of samples, weighed 1600 pounds.

Rich Sea Stew: Sampling the California Current

One fisherman was doing quite well. His name was Pedro, and he worked as a crew member. Pedro had a rod holster and used shrimp flies, and he was hauling in starry rockfish at a rate of four-to-one to everyone else combined. Each time Pedro pulled in a fish, he glanced about and said, “The kids. Now I can feed the kids.” When he pulled in a small one he said, “This one is for the girl.”

By Douglass Whyknott, Nov. 16, 1995 | Read full article

Fisherman works to free dolphins from the tuna nets. If a purse seiner caught a mixed school of yellowfin tuna and dolphins and then let all the dolphins free, the load could be called dolphin-safe.

Flipper Victorious

Nineteen ninety-two was also the year that the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior (with a banner across the bow that read “Revoke the License to Kill”) docked in San Diego to show support of zero mortality. Using a Zodiac, they strung a banner on a tuna boat, one that had been fishing dolphin-safe, which read “Dolphin Killer,” and the LaBudde film was shown aboard the Rainbow Warrior. Two hundred people came to the docks to protest Greenpeace’s appearance.

By Douglass Whyknott, May 23, 1996, | Read full article

Mike Neil: “They say a hammerhead shark once bit a guy in the butt off those rocks.”

Coronado Watch

As I swim, the red tile roofs of the mansions on Ocean Boulevard look like a distant road running parallel to my own sloshing path. Soon I will see the baby-blue north tower. Abruptly I start to thrash and gasp. I have run into a great nest of dead kelp. I relax and shake it from me. When I can see the north tower, I get caught in another current. My shoulders aren’t sore, that will come later.

By Douglass Whyknott, Aug. 15, 1996 | Read full article