I am kind of a big deal in Tasmania.

About three years ago, I set up a "Facebook Page" called "Abalone Diving".  Associated with my personal FB account, it was just a place to post pics and videos and link to abalone related posts on this blog. Just something for dive buddies, friends and family, it never had more than 30-40 "Likes" and I didn't put much effort into it.  I had not posted much on that page this year. The season has been open a month, but I've yet to see the right combination of free time, dive buddies, and ocean conditions. I just added a couple posts about rule changes and the unfortunate, sad, but inevitable reports of dead abalone divers not paying attention or diving when they should not.

Then a couple of weeks ago, this happened. WTF? No idea what prompted that surge, so I asked:

Who are you people and what are you doing here?So I have this little FB page that I set up 2-3 years ago to post...
Posted by Abalone Diving on Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Turns out I got the attention of the Maori abalone community in New Zealand and Tasmania. They are fascinated with the size of our NorCal gastropod as their local snails max out around 7-8", and abalone (paua as they call it) is their favorite food.  So we bonded.

This image from this post on this dive appears to be what went viral in Maori-land, with over 62,000 people reached and 400 likes:

I'm now over 3,000 likes and 100,000 visitors with 100's of comments per week on the "Ablaone Diving Facebook page [Linked HERE].

I just thought you should know.

Hopefully the ocean will settle down so I can get go diving and get some more content for these folks.

It's a lot of pressure.