A Delicious Plague

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN A DELICACY BECOMES AN UNCHECKED EPIDEMIC? GET EATING

- Ali Bouzari

We launch our kayaks at dawn from a pristine, sheltered cove and paddle about a quarter-mile up the pinnacle-studded Mendocino coastline to a craggy reef just offshore. Our mission is to scan the bottom of the Pacific for troublemakers, and we know we’re certain to find them. To prepare for my freedive, I float motionless on the surface and sink into the rhythm of my breathing: Inhale two counts, exhale slowly for 10, pause for two, repeat. A few rounds of this aquatic ujjayi slows my heart rate down to about 50 beats per minute. I take one last breath, filling my lungs top to bottom, before flipping upside down to begin my descent.

A few fin strokes later, I join Jason Jaacks, an awardwinning documentary filmmaker and photographer (and one of my closest friends), who is already near the ocean floor, capturing some establishing shots with a camera encased in crystalline plexiglass. I pause at a boulder, and over his shoulder spot a group of perch playing tag. A juvenile cabezon is perfectly camouflaged as a finny lump on a nearby bed of coralline algae, and a black rockfish is pecking at something invisible in a sandy crevice.