First Point Malibu(bring a knife to this fight)

Maybe try garden shears…like the ones with 1ft+ long blades. I bet you could take that entire forest in an afternoon. you might have to make it a night mission so the EPA hippy folks don’t flip. I too have noticed more otters and unusually dense kelp around my area too.

The California near coast has changed so much in just my lifetime.  My dad is still alive, (90 in Feb) and his surf stories about PV, Santa Monica and points north and south also are a lot different than what I experienced even back when I was little.  I can remember when there was kelp off Hunington in large amounts.  I have a couple of old friends whom I talk story with who were dive buddies back in the 70's and we fished abalones & killed urchins together off Cabrillo & the peninsula.  My son is now a dive nut like I was and tells me about how the bugs & halibut have come back since the ban on inshore netting went into effect and how there are lots more fish.  Macrocystis grows a foot a day.  Egregia grows quick too.  KelpCo still is the only company in business cutting kelp in California.  I think it is foolish to consider cutting kelp at any local break. Our surf spots are always in a state of flux, that is what the ocean, waves & surfing is all about.  A kelp bed this week is a rock reef with perfect peeling rights after a big storm.  A close-out beach break is a perfect right/left peak after a inland storm & run-off.  We need to think big picture, take what comes (I love the idea of going the mat/finless route in heavy kelp) and surf the hell out of it!!  This is California, if you wait a little, the surf will be different (just like the weather)!

the recipie for lemonade is simple.

the planet is healing itself 

the obvious proactive

 to the upcoming radioactive

material as tsunami waste inundation

of the west coast north american

ecosphere.The liberation of

plant material into the turtle gyre

and circulating pacific current

is benevolent.The Iron chef winning

recipie for kelp is indeed keels

and finless modality.

…ambrose…

the earth makes a daily

revolution not only a posibility

but a necessity.

take some young shoots

from the kelp home

and make something

delicious to eat and survive 

while others who dont eat kelp

become ill from exposure.

the birth of a cottage industry

kelp cake and candy.

feel free to send me a royalty

If you use my name on the label 

send me more .

…ambrose…

Another thing about the kep-urchin relations ship…  Up here in Oregon, there was once a large rock cod fishery which was about wiped out…  the rock fish ate the urchins… now there are places where the urchins are so thick they are breaking down the rock reefs…  There is less/no kelp in some places, but the kelp lives on…  Only a couple places where it gets to be an issue.  The fact we get some huge surf helps keep the kelp under control…  Those huge kep masses that wash up after the first big storm of the season…

Yeahjohn said ,   " I would not include the Ranch as southern cal ".   Thats an interesting point , I always considered southern Cal to be from the Mex boarder to Point Conception as most of that coast faces south , and once you turn the corner of Point Conception it becomes the central coast , but I am not sure when the central coast becomes Nor Cal .         After you turn the corner at point conception in a boat , the ocean is more serious and the waves along that area seem to me to have a bit more push  .

I’ve always thought about it in this way too.

hahaha, my wife’s family (Filipino) like to pick them up at low tide. Crack them open and put them on rice just like that.

when we were kids we would see the kelp cutter going back and forth in front of where we lived(and just outside the reef) all the time.i don't recall seeing it here (ventucky) since the 70's.

The Ocean Rose works out of the Central Coast and often off loads in SB.

Hi Crisp.  I was thinking of our Italian friends when I typed that, but hell yah, lots of people eat the things.  Eggs are good on sushi.  I wouldn’t want to eat any living off of raw sewage, though. Mike