ABALONE LURES DIVERS UNDER THE SEA : TASTE FOR DELICACY NETS PROFITS, PROBLEMS FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIANS.

Byline: Trip Gabriel The New York Times

On low-tide mornings north of San Francisco, hundreds of cars jam turnoffs along Highway 1. At the Stewarts Point Store, a wood-floored source of ``general merchandise'' since 1868, customers head for the swim fins, snorkels and weight belts.

They are sport divers preparing to plunge without air tanks into the frigid, kelp-blackened Pacific Ocean in search of abalone, a legendary California delicacy.

Lately the abalone's fame has spread among chefs from Washington to Tokyo, and the number of divers harvesting them in Northern California, one of the world's most plentiful sources, has jumped significantly.

That is good news to Archer Richardson, 49, the third generation of his family to run the store. The opening of abalone season in April ``is the start of my financial season,'' he said. ``It's April Fools' Day. It's crazy.''

Richardson's store includes a display of trophy abalone shells, each an iridescent, slipper-shaped specimen identified by diameter, diver's name and, on a line for the location of the find, cryptic statements like ``can't remember'' or ``the rock Ron was going to.''

Personally, Richardson is not overly fond of abalone, which tastes like the best calamari a shellfish lover has ever had. He would rather eat steak.

But the abalone lures 40,000 sportsmen annually, who pump $10 million into the North Coast economy, and Richardson is happy to turn his store's porch over to divers swapping tales, some of them true.

Lately the talk has been of a threat to the abalone from poachers who illegally use scuba tanks and take more than the limit of four a day.

``They're delicious, and that's the trouble,'' said Lawrence Halpern, a landscape architect, stopping by for a newspaper. ``There are people who come up and get 100 to 200. They sell them to restaurants in San Francisco.''

A single abalone, with about one pound of meat, fetches up to $40 on a black market that supplies restaurants, home cooks and buyers as distant as Hong Kong and New Zealand, according to the California Fish and Game Department.

The department has made abalone the top enforcement priority of its Wildlife Protection Division. In May a jury in Sonoma County convicted two leaders of a highly organized ring that poached an estimated 50,000 pounds, worth more than $500,000 wholesale.

This one ring, the worst uncovered since limits were imposed on abalone gatherers, took an estimated 18 percent of the annual legal harvest for the county, according to marine biologists, who warn that poaching could exhaust seed stocks.

In Southern California, where commercial harvesting using scuba gear is allowed, the abalone population crashed in the mid-1970s. North of San Francisco, where only free diving for sport is permitted, the population is still abundant, but fragile, said Konstantin Karpov, a state marine biologist.

Mervin Hee, a patrol captain for Fish and Wildlife, who grew up on the coast in Mendocino, recalled a local judge's lecture to a poacher: ``When you play with the abalone on the North Coast, it's like committing murder.''

Indeed, along the rocky capes and foggy coves, the pursuit of abalone clinging to rocks in eerie kelp forests can be what separates hardy local people from the growing tourist hordes. No North Coast home seems complete without pearly abalone shells lined up along a fence or worked into a funky lawn sculpture.

Most divers stopping by Richardson's store are headed for nearby Salt Point State Park. The luckiest few are friends of Richardson and his father, 77-year-old Archer Richardson, known as Bus. The Richardsons are members of a ranching clan that owns 25,000 spectacular acres along the coast.

The Richardsons, whose land has been in the family for more than 100 years, let a few friends and Pomo Indians cross. Winning this right is a little like being tapped for a secret society.

``Bus Richardson has rules,'' explained Ron Taeuffer, dropping by the store for the key to a private road to the coast. ``If you ask for the key, you can't get it. You only get it if you don't ask.''

Taeuffer unlocked a gate and drove through in his 1959 Impala convertible - ``the abalone machine,'' as it is known.

Taeuffer, a maintenance worker at a second-home community on the coast, has his name on many of the trophy shells in Richardson's store.

At 52 he has longish gray hair, broad shoulders and a small paunch which he squeezed into a wet suit. Standing at the top of a cliff, he looked down at the ocean churned against the rocks, as if in a washing machine.

``That's my mistress, the ocean,'' Taeuffer said. ``She likes to slap you to show who's stronger.''

Taeuffer often dives alone, which is dangerous, but he is proud, opinionated and sometimes sarcastic - qualities that might put off would-be partners.

``Quitting drinking was easy,'' said Taeuffer, a recovering alcoholic. ``Getting along with people is the hard part.''

He made his way down a precarious trail. At the ocean's edge he put on fins. To his weight belt, he clipped an iron tool like a file, used to pry abalones off rocks, and 40 feet of rope attached to an empty salad-oil jug. The tug of the jug could alert him to waves and rips passing overhead when he is below surface.

He slipped into the 48-degree water. A harbor seal watched him. Spotting an abalone, Taeuffer held his breath and disappeared for 20 to 30 seconds. When he resurfaced, he put the prize into a net bag hanging from his jug float.

Soon he had his limit of four and hauled himself back onto the rocks. The shells were mottled pink, with tiny flags of kelp attached and fluttering in the wind.

``They call me an old man, but this old man can still dive with the best of them,'' Taeuffer said.