A MONTH LATER, I drove back up the coast to ab-dive at Kibesillah Rock. The locals told me I would be the first to try it since Randy Fry died there nine months before. This wasn't surprising, given that the only way to get there without a boat involves a long walk across private property, followed by a 100-foot rappel down a crumbling cliff.

The approach alone is enough to keep most people out, but Kibesillah is a legendary place—remote, spooky, and beautiful—and I wanted a taste. Facing the Pacific at

How easy is poaching abalone? Wandering around Chinatown, I found three potential buyers, one of whom offered me $90 on the spot.

cliff's edge, with the rolling Redwood Empire at my back, I remembered something Cliff Zimmerman had said: "There are lots of things with goddamn teeth around here. Mountain lions and bears in the hills, sharks in the water." I grabbed the rope, slid down the cliff, and dove Kibesillah alone.

The water was murky, even in the deeper sections at the mouth of the cove. Though it was a sunny May afternoon with a mild wind, a storm had passed through earlier in the week, so the runoff, combined with choppy seas, made searching for abalone difficult. I dove to the bottom and played benthic braille. I bumped into something round and hard, slipped my iron under it, and pulled up . . . a rock.

For the next hour I was an aquatic yo-yo—down, search, up, repeat—with no abs to show for it. And then I thought of Zimmerman's last words to Fry: "The big ones are right below." I turned my back to the shore and started kicking out toward the rock where Randy Fry made his final dive.

I took a deep breath and pulled myself down a cloak of kelp, scouring the rock with my hands until I hit the round, familiar feeling of an abalone. My lungs began to burn, but as I popped off the ab, I wasn't thinking about that.