Cliff rescue marks start of abalone season

Opening weekend for this year’s abalone season brought mollusk hunters to the North Coast, including one found clinging to a cliff in need of rescue.

The Sonoma County sheriff’s helicopter crew, patrolling the coast Sunday morning for signs of divers in trouble, spotted the man.

He was about 30 feet from the top of a 300-foot cliff south of Fort Ross known to locals as “Cardiac Hill.”

Harold Ng, 56, of Daly City may have been stuck for as long as two hours on the crumbling cliffside before he was found, Sheriff’s Sgt. Sgt. Eric Thomsen said. Friends had reported Ng missing.

Leaving the cove below, Ng had gotten separated from a friend and missed the trail to the top. Still in his wet suit and carrying his gear, he was picking his own path.

“He’d obviously slipped a couple times,” said Thomsen, who supervises the helicopter crew. “He was all muddy.”

After the diver was spotted from the air, Thomsen was placed at the end of the helicopter’s long rescue line and slowly lowered alongside Ng.

The cliff was so steep Thomsen said he couldn’t get a foothold in the slipping shale. He put a harness around Ng and the helicopter pilot carried them to safety.

“When we set him down, he was just exhausted,” Thomsen said.

Ng apparently didn’t need medical care.

The helicopter crew then returned to patrolling the coast. It was part of the annual effort by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department, state park rangers, life guards and volunteers who roam the coast on the first weekend of abalone season, looking for signs of trouble and trying to educate divers to the sport’s dangers.

Last year, six ab divers died off the Mendocino County coast in the first three months of the season.

Mendocino County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Edwards Sunday said no deaths and no major problems were reported from the weekend dive there.

The Sonoma County coast watchers were out at 7 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

About 30 members of the sheriff’s search and rescue team joined the effort.

Carrying radios to call for help if necessary, they took up posts from Fort Ross to Fisk Mill, watching divers go in and making sure they came out, Thomsen said.

While Saturday was windy and the water was choppy, early Sunday brought a decent low tide and calmer water. That brought out the crowds, state Ranger Karen Broderick said.

“We were pretty busy today,” said Broderick, noting however, that it was a good day, with the only action being the successful cliff rescue.

The spring season opened April 1 and runs until June 30. After a one-month hiatus the season resumes Aug. 1 through Nov. 30.