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Location: | 1/4 mile south of Stillwater Cove |
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Mile Marker: | |
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Access: | Boat |
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Facilities: | None |
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Nearest Public Telephone: | There's a public telephone at the day use parking lot in the Stillwater Cove County Park. That parking lot is located at the top of the stairs located across Highway 1 from the loading/unloading parking area closest to the beach. |
About a 1/4 mile south of Stillwater Cove (as the seal swims), there's a large-rock/small-island providing some protection from the prevailing northwest swell. Behind this rock/island is the small Stockhoff Cove.
For orientation purposes, there's a washrock with a crude archway, sitting nearly on the beach in the center of Stockhoff Cove. Straight off shore about 200 yards from this washrock and 250-300 yards to the south of our sentry rock/island, there's an underwater pinnacle that can usually only be spotted if the swell is large enough to create a break. If it can be located, this pinnacle offers increasingly good abalone pickings the deeper down its sides you care to work. The top of the pinnacle slopes gently down toward the northeast; on that slope, abalone are layed out one to every square foot.
As you move 50 yards inside the pinnacle toward the washrock on the beach, the bottom is a gradual slope up to shallower and shallower water until, about 30 yards from shore, you come across a line of BFRs. Inside the BFRs, depths average 10' or so. Just outside the line, you can pick any depth you care to work starting around 8'. There's lots of area encompassed by this dive site so finding abalone is no great chore.
Stockhoff Cove's abalone seem to be fast growing animals which means that they tend to have flat shells and small meats. You're not likely to find any trophies here but it's a good place to work on your freediving skills thanks to the gradual depth changes and lots of area to explore. Stockhoff Cove is also an area that has been hit pretty hard by commercial poaching activities.
Last Modified: January 30, 2003
