Oh man, I have not had abalone in about forever.
A commercial dive boat sounds kind of expensiver than a sailboat, but then it's a company thing so I guess it's all a little different.
for example, we used to put on 150 gallons of fuel in santa barbara to do the round trip to the channel islands in my 26' Radon (all fiberglass) inboard/outboard. We could bring back about 6000 pounds of uni for processing in San Pedro harbor. Abalone got real hard with the gamey restrictions on licenses and tough limits. One short cost me $5000 and a whole world of pain. But, hey, at least I got good at engine mechanics and stayed in really good shape.
one short
What does this mean? You got fined?
There are number limits by species and size limits. A commercial diver can only harvest or possess abalone that are about 7 inches across their largest dimension. Sport divers can harvest and possess about 3/4 inch smaller which is designed to not compete with the commercial haul. Coasties can stop you and board you with or without probable cause and often have 50 cal machine guns on their bows.
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