Arrow Point
Location: Southern California — Arrow Point, Catalina Island
Site: Arrow Point
Boat: Giant Stride
Team: 3 divers, 1 surface support
Not all of the ghost gear off our coast are nets. Lost and abandoned lobster traps keep "ghost fishing" too, catching and killing lobster, fish, and other marine life continuously with no one ever coming to pull them up. With the lobster season opener approaching, Team Ghost Diving USA set out aboard the Giant Stride for Arrow Point, off Catalina Island, with a clear goal: clear the remaining lost traps from the site before they could trap another season's worth of marine life.
Gear staged and ready on the deck of the Giant Stride on the run out to Arrow Point.
Arrow Point is a deep technical site, and the traps tend to sit well down the slope, so the dive called for careful gas planning and staged decompression. After a thorough briefing, the team dropped in, located the lost traps, and rigged each one to be lifted off the bottom and brought up to the boat.
By the end of the day the team had cleared out the lost pots we had been tracking at the site. With these removed ahead of the season opener, no abandoned traps remain at Arrow Point to keep ghost fishing.
A great result for the team and another meaningful dent in the ghost gear off our coast. These traps will no longer catch and kill marine life on the reef at Arrow Point. We will return next year after lobster season concludes.
A very special thank you to Captain Jim and the crew of the Giant Stride for supporting our clean-up efforts.