A trip down memory lane with Blackgang.

[blackgang]

Fucking was never banned in Boston, I always found it quite easy to get layed in Mass. and also up at Hartford, damn go in a saloon up there on a friday evening and the broads would buy the beer, coarse I was young and good looking then and all them ins co. head offices and all them office workers,, damn, and if you could polka you was in nigger heaven up there.
I was going to school in Groton and when we got out of school I tried for a station on the east coast, but the district wanted me back so I was sent back to Frisco and they put my ass on the S.E. Farallone Island light house, and I was there for a year and a half.

[Norton]

put my ass on the S.E. Farallone Island light house

Some great ab diving there if the great whites don't get ya. Wouldn't fancy spending a year and a half there though.

[blackgang]

OK that pix was taken after I was out there, it has since been automated with shore power, but the bldg in the middle is the powerhouse which was my domain, and just left of it is the rain catch for the fire systems water stotage and below that is the radio room containing the radio beacons and weather watch shack.
And the last house up above, the white one was where I lived with my wife and kids, but the single mens barracks is gone, the boat hoist is gone and the duplex for some of the married guys is gone as well as the large diesel tanks by the powerhouse, and the Racon towers are gone as well as the fog horn tower,, shit maybe thats how it looks now.
But you are right, it was a skin divers paradise, Ling cods, cabazoni and abs that you can not believe, we would go over to the north landing in the bay and could free dive and get a hundred ab an hour. we ate ab because we could not afford hamburger. my pay then was 98 dollars a month plus sub which was another $177 a month, thats what we lived on.

[Cujo]

OK that pix was taken after I was out there, it has since been automated with shore power, but the bldg in the middle is the powerhouse which was my domain, and just left of it is the rain catch for the fire systems water stotage and below that is the radio room containing the radio beacons and weather watch shack.
And the last house up above, the white one was where I lived with my wife and kids, but the single mens barracks is gone, the boat hoist is gone and the duplex for some of the married guys is gone as well as the large diesel tanks by the powerhouse, and the Racon towers are gone as well as the fog horn tower,, shit maybe thats how it looks now.
But you are right, it was a skin divers paradise, Ling cods, cabazoni and abs that you can not believe, we would go over to the north landing in the bay and could free dive and get a hundred ab an hour. we ate ab because we could not afford hamburger. my pay then was 98 dollars a month plus sub which was another $177 a month, thats what we lived on.

What year was that BG?

[blackgang]

What year was that BG?

1959 I believe, my daughter came school age so we were transfered to a beach station at Eureka to a lifeboat station.

And there were no sharks there when I was, they came a few years later, the sea was pretty cold back then.

[blackgang]

here ia a couple I just put in my pix, got more in the album in a box that was left to me by my wife when she died.
one is a bunch of abs and fish and a friend from the beach came out and we went diving and one is a net load of supplies coming from the work boat to the dock, thars how everything came on the island.

[Cujo]

Looks a bit rough for offloading supplies.
I do believe you've had an interesting life.

[blackgang]

Not really, where that trail runs from my house down to the water you will see an inlet going in the island, well right at the end of that trail is where the boat is kept and where the pix were taken and right where that spot of white water is is where the hook came down to the water and picked up the net out of the boat on the top of a wave or where the boat itself was picked up, but the guy on the winch had to be just right and get it on the top of a swell, 2 guys in the boat and the winch man had to be in time with each other.
we had a shit load of abs in the boat and only took out for the pic just the legal limit, we must have had a hundred, the guy in the pic is me and the guy with me is the one I relieved as EO of the island and he came out and go diving often on tender days, every tuesday the tender came weather permitting

[Norton]

Nice pics BG. Keep em coming. I had a bunch similar kept in a wooden chest along with other memorabilia. Some wanker broke in the house many years ago and ran off with the whole box.

This would make an interesting thread. Doesn't quite fit into the topic "Woman Attacks Her Wife With ‘Turkey Baster’ Full of Sperm"

Hopefully some kindly mod will start a new thread?

[Looper]

Nice pics BG. Keep em coming

Yes. Quality stuff BG. The turkey basting clam jousters should feel honoured to play host to such interesting material in their thread.

Is that you on the left?

[Norton]

one is a bunch of abs and fish

Abs were easy to get in those days. No need to even dive at low tide. The fish in front looks like a ling and the other looks like a cabazon but hard to tell. Both yummie even though they have blue and green meat!

[Boon Mee]

Groton, CT, eh BG? Spent a bit of time there too attending US Navy Submarine School in the middle of winter. Damn cold place for a Calif. boy I tell you!

[blackgang]

Is that you on the left?

Yes, other guy was a few years older than I and on his second hitch.

Abs were easy to get in those days. No need to even dive at low tide.

been pretty well picked over on the beach but were plenty of abs out there but were smaller than the one you could get like up at Ft Bragg where the kelp was protected and not such wild weather as out there. and we had both black and reds.

Groton, CT, eh BG? Spent a bit of time there too attending US Navy Submarine School in the middle of winter.

I left Groton USCG Training Station Dec. 22 1957 for the coast, When I got there was about 100 deg. and 80% humidity and when I left was below freezing and ass deep snow.
I will put some more of the pix thru the scanner and post some later.

[Norton]

were smaller than the one you could get like up at Ft Bragg

I spent most of my time ab diving near Point Arena around 1960. Some big reds to be had there. Biggest I picked was 12 1/4 inches across the shell. Not many left these days guess we got too many! Takes about 8 years for abs to grow to 8 inches so now there are very strict limits on number and size. Good news is they are making a comeback because the Japanese are buying lots of sea urchins so abs can thrive better.

[Boon Mee]

Qualified as a Navy Diver when in the service although didn't do much but recreational diving but in places like Guam & Hawaii. In CA did a bit of diving off the Channel Islands - Anacapa for Abalone's. Good eating but a hassle to prepare...

[Norton]

Good eating but a hassle to prepare...

Was the pounding that took all the work. If not pounded quite right then they are about as appetizing as a warm hockey puck. Chinese seem to like em that way but not me.

Should be cooked like this.

[Boon Mee]

That looks like the way I did 'em too. Rolled in cornmeal and egg - tasted pretty good after, like you say, pounding the crap outa them. Lived in an apt at the time and my neighbor wasn't too fond of the racket...

[blackgang]

Should be cooked like this.

God damn makes me slobber,, my wife was good at that ab cooking, used Egg and cracker crumbs, 30 seconds on each side in smoking butter.
She was a excellent wife for an outdoorsman, clean fish, prepare ab, altho I did take em out of the shell, Clean birds during upland or waterfowl seasons, help with wild meat, clean and cook Mt Oysters, damn but I was lucky to have her.

My son was going diving looks like, thats our bathroom.

Here I am with my kids and dog in the side yard with the trail up to the lighthouse behind, was kinda hard on a lawnmower.

[Norton]

Another view of the Island. A wild and desolate place.

[Norton]

Maybe there were no Great Whites when you were there BG but there are some whoppers there now!!!

Great White Shark Cage Diving :: Great White Adventures :: Great Whites Video

[blackgang]

Yea, man thats what I have heard from some other folks, but when I was there it never even got up to 60 F Deg water temp , I made the wet suit I am wearuing and so did Jack, he is the one that brought the rubber and glue and stuff out and we took a measure every 2 inches from top to bottom and it was a long deal but you could not just go and buy one them days,
I saw one big blue shark and thats the only one I saw out there, but lots of Orca and sea lions by the thousands on seal roch and over at north bay, follow that sidewalk looking thing from the landing up past the house I liven in past the power house and you can see where it went over to the north landing in the bay over there, Used to be a narrow gage track like is in a mine and we used a timber truck to haul our supplys on and it went from the main landing to the north in case it was to rough to use the boat and we had to get some food or something aboard. was smooth enough to land a boat again the cement dock that is there and thats where we got most of our abs, but the fish were got mostly over on the south side and we would use the boat or go into the water off the rocks in front of my house down by the watch shack and the fish were hugh down there. but usually it was to rough to do it even there.

Cutter Magnolia, bouy tender on the hook with a load of grub we ordered last week and mail

and we getting our boat in to go and pick some stuff up and their work boat will send a load back up on the hook

[blackgang]

That film says it was made at Guadalupe Island, thats about a days run south of San Diego off the coast of Baja, I used to go there on 12 day trips on that long range boat I ran out od SD,, and we did have a lot of trouble with sharks, so we shot the shit out of em with a M1 Carbine and a 410 shot gun with slugs.
The reason they would come to the farallones is because of the thousands of sea lioms, we used to shoot them too, we used 22 rifles we had and then we were suspposed to shoot so much 30-06 stuff so we shot em off of seal rock with a M1 garand, nasty bastards.
the fisherman used to cover the name of their boats and come off seal rock and shoot the shit out of em, shit was no reason to cover the names as we were all for em doing it.

[Marmite the Dog]

I get this sneaking suspicion that you like shooting things...

[blackgang]

The weather seems to be coming from NE is why it is so rough on the east side of the island in the last pic you posted,, would have been impossible to use the north bay during that kind of weather, you can see waves coming in from the left and right into the north bay and thats where the abs were thick on the bottom. and in about 20 feet of water at most and you could free dive and get a couple every dive.
NW weather was the normal and a SW shut us down as to service of the island.

[blackgang]

I get this sneaking suspicion that you like shooting things...

Only things to eat or things that are useless or bother me.
SDea lions fit in 2 of those, they are useless and bother me, they will atack a diver in the water, they shit and roll in it and stink and draw flies, They eat their weight a day in fish that could be used to make a mans living and feed his family, they destroy property and the reason that the sharks have came to the islands since the water has apparently warmed up enough that they can live in it, the only thing except us that had much to do with them was the killer whales that would come and kill them by the dozens, when a pod of them came in the water would look like pure blood between the island and Seal rock from the Orcas killing and just leaving them to bleed and float around.
They are a perst but some jerk off decided that they should be protected and they are,
Some business man thought that they needed a new marina in SF bay over by north beach I think it is, anyway after he had spent a ton of money and got it in the sea lions decided they would sun themselves and shit on his floating docks and so he is fucked as there is nothing he can do to get rid of the nasty bastards and they have taken over a millions of dollars investment and he can do shit about it. and they eat a couple of hundred pounds of fish a day and people are going hungry,, and a sea lion is no good to eat as we tried some once and even drunk on beer and wine, it is awful.