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Writer's pictureBarbara Levine

🤿 Scuba Diving, 1974 🛥

Updated: Dec 23, 2021



From May to July 0f 1974, I scuba dived from the shore off Redondo Beach to ocean dives off Catalina Island and Anacapa Island.


After some rather harrowing experiences from 1972-1973 while sky diving and sailing (on my own 26' sailboat and crossing the Pacific on a 63' sloop), I decided to try my hand at scuba diving.


🤿 My Scuba Diving Experiences (May-July, 1974) 🛥


This missive is based on one of my favorite discoveries on our recent beach bike rides in Southern California in 2020. As I researched its background, I found that I have a very deep and personal past relationship with it.


🤿 Dive n’ Surf 🏄🏻‍♂️


I overlooked this marvelous, life-sized bronze statue more than once while biking or driving past it. It is on a dead-end street (Portofino Way in Redondo Beach), which is not part of our normal bike route. From the street, only the back of it is visible, and its bottom third is behind a low wall. It was only while reading up on what works of art can be found in our South Bay beach cities that I discovered it was right there, hiding in plain sight.

Life-size bronze statue of Bill & Bob Meistrell

at the Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach


The plaque beneath the statue reads:


Bill and Bob Meistrell, identical twins, were born in Boonville, Missouri; Bill on July 30, 1928, and Bob 20 minutes later on July 31st. They started diving as kids in the farm pond using an oilcan for a helmet, a bicycle pump and a hose for air. Bill and Bob had big dreams as Missouri farm boys: own a submarine, be deep-sea divers; and go treasure hunting. "Somehow, we managed all three.”


The brothers invented the first practical wetsuit in the back of their Redondo Beach shop, Dive N’ Surf, which was founded in 1953. From those wetsuits, their legacy and iconic surf brand Body Glove began. Bill and Bob Meistrell will always be remembered as legendary watermen, life guards, avid surfers and icons of the surf and dive industry. A 32" replica of this statue is now the most sought-after Waterman Memorial in the world.


As I read the plaque, I realize that these are the guys who taught me how to scuba dive at their shop just up the street nearly 50 years ago!

Top right: The Seaside Lagoon and the back of the partially hidden bronze statue of Bill & Bob Meistrell on Portofino Way in Redondo Beach.

Bottom right: I took Stan to see the statue on a recent bike ride. The Whaling Wall mural is in the background on the left.

Bottom left: The bronze statue was based on this photo of the Meistrell brothers as Jr. Lifeguards.

Top left: Bill & Bob Meistrell many years later when I knew them, in their Body Glove wetsuits with an old-style surfboard.


Top left & right: On another recent bike ride, Stan and I rode past the Dive N’ Surf shop to see what it looks like today.

Bottom left: Bill & Bob Meistrell with their catch of large “bugs” (aka lobsters).

Bottom right: Large poster advertising the Learn to Dive classes.


The fascinating details of the Meistrell brothers' lives will be presented in a future missive. But first, I want to tell you about my own scuba diving adventures.


🤿 Barbara Dives


It is the spring of 1973. My girlfriend Suzanne calls and says, “Barbara, would you like to come and scuba dive with me in Cozumel, Mexico?


You may recognize Suzanne as the same person who called me two years earlier to go skydiving along with her friend Vicky at Lake Elsinore. I met Suzanne while river rafting through the Grand Canyon in 1972, and we recently went on two ski trips together to Sun Valley and Vail.

The island of Cozumel is on the right in the inset above.

Not to be outdone by Suzanne, I readily accept her invitation — even though she had backed out of our skydiving adventures after our first try two years earlier in 1972. But first, I need to actually learn how to scuba dive — Suzanne says she already has diving experience.


I live in Manhattan Beach, so I look in the Yellow Pages for a nearby place that teaches scuba diving. I find a shop in Redondo Beach named Dive N’ Surf. They have their own swimming pool on the premises where they teach the basics. I sign up for the beginning class of four weekly lessons in their pool followed by an ocean dive off the beach two blocks away.

An advertisement showing the Meistrell brothers in front of the original Dive N’ Surf shop
where I am taking my scuba diving lessons.

Note: All underwater photography in this missive is taken in the areas where I dived, but by other people at other times. I did not own an underwater camera for another thirty years. And even if I had owned one then, I was far too occupied learning how to dive to be distracted by taking pictures.


🤿 Basic Scuba Training, May 1974


🏊‍♀️ Pool Training:

During my lessons in Dive N’ Surf’s pool, I become familiar with underwater diving using a scuba tank and gear in a safe environment where the surface is only a few feet away. We have to be able to tread water for ten minutes. This is an easy feat for me – I am so buoyant that I can just tilt my head back, hold my hands out of the water, and not even move my legs to stay afloat vertically.


We also have to swim the length of the pool and back underwater while holding our breath for the duration — this is a struggle for me as I have to work extra hard to keep my buoyant body from bobbing to the surface, thus expending more of the air in my lungs.


🌊 Beach Dive:

Finally, we get to cart all of our equipment to the beach two blocks away and do an actual ocean dive off Veteran’s Park in Redondo Beach. We are each paired up with a “buddy” and taught never to lose sight of your diving pal. Getting out through the surf is a bit of an adventure, although surf conditions here are generally milder than the surrounding beaches.

Scuba divers on the shore and in the water at Veteran’s Park

in Redondo Beach, a short distance from Dive N’ Surf.


We are never far from shore today, and we don’t dive deeper than 35 feet. After a short swim, I have to equalize the pressure in my ears often as I descend the first 15-30 feet. This is a difficult chore for me and it never gets easier.


If you descend too quickly underwater, the pressure can change rapidly and faster than your Eustachian tube* can adjust to. The pain in your ears in this circumstance is called an “ear squeeze.” One of the easiest ways for divers to equalize their ears is simply to swallow. If that doesn't work, you can pinch your nostrils (or close them against your mask skirt) and blow through your nose. The resulting overpressure in your throat usually forces air up your Eustachian tubes.


* The Eustachian tube is a canal that connects the middle ear to the upper throat and the back of the nasal cavity. It controls the pressure within the middle ear, making it equal to the air pressure outside one's body.

As we reach the 35-foot depth, we can see a rather steep slope which quickly drops to below 100 feet and then into an abyss. This is the Redondo Submarine Canyon, which falls off steeply to 300 feet. There is something about that canyon that traps and holds cold water that consistently hovers in the mid-to-low 50s. A wet suit is really needed to dive here.


Perspective view looking east over the Redondo Submarine Canyon

in southern Santa Monica Bay

The distance across the bottom of the image is 6 miles with a vertical exaggeration of 6x. The canyon begins less than 500 feet from shore just south of the Redondo Beach Harbor and incises over 1400 feet into the shelf or about the same height as the Palos Verdes Peninsula (1440 feet on the right).


The sand leading out to the canyon edge has a lot of marine life. We see the massive sheep crab. The clumsy motions of the sheep crab are comical to observe but watch out for the claws! Their pinch is insanely strong. The sheep crabs here are the biggest you’ll find anywhere along our coast, with some of them measuring three feet across!


There is also no shortage of fish life. We spot the long and slender pipefish, which blend in with the bottom. We also see black sea bass and small rockfish.


Underwater Life Seen During Beach Dive in Redondo Beach

Top left: A diver with a massive sheep crab; Top right: A long and slender pipefish.

Bottom right: A black sea bass; Bottom left: A small rockfish.


It is a great first dive, and I receive my Basic Scuba Diving Certificate.


🤿 Advanced Scuba Training, June 1974


After I graduate from Basic Training, I sign up for the Advanced Class the following month. The Advanced Certificate will be awarded after completion of three dives in one day at Catalina Island – a hour and a half away by powerboat — as well as a night dive from the beach in Redondo Beach.


Map Showing the Islands off Southern California

Santa Catalina Island (or Catalina) is in the middle right and is 1½ hours by motorboat from King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

Anacapa Island, where I will dive in a month, is located in the Channel Islands in the upper left, and is an hour from Ventura harbor.


Dive N’ Surf has their own dive boat which they dock in King Harbor in Redondo Beach – a short distance from the shop, and the same harbor where the 26’ sailboat that I own with three guys is moored.


🛥 Diving at Catalina Island 🦈


After an enjoyable boat ride to Catalina, the first dive of our advanced training is in only 12-20 feet of water.


Upper left: Ready to board Dive N’ Surf’s dive boat moored at King Harbor in Redondo Beach.

Upper right: In my wet suit off Two Harbors on Catalina Island.

Lower left: Fully geared up for my first dive from a boat. Notice the tube attached to my life vest (aka personal protection device or PFD), which is used to manually inflate the vest if needed. In addition to a full wet suit (suit, head cap & booties), I wear a mask, a snorkel, a PFD, a weight belt around my waist, a scuba tank on my back, a dive knife strapped to my left inner calf, a diving watch & a depth gauge on my left wrist, and flippers on my feet.

Lower right: A group of us on the surface near a bed of kelp. Diving through the kelp forests is very exhilarating.


🤿 First Dive: We are taught how to launch rom the dive boat by sitting on the gunwale with our backs to the water, and pushing off backwards into the ocean.


The gunwale is the top edge of the hull of a ship or boat. Originally the structure was the "gun wale" on a sailing warship, a horizontal reinforcing band added at and above the level of a gun deck to offset the stresses created by firing artillery. It is also known as the gunnel, which is how it is pronounced.



Do you know why scuba divers fall backward off the boat into the water? 🤔

Because if they fall forward, they’ll still be in the boat! 🤪


Now we are in the ocean, but before we can dive underwater in our scuba gear, the instructor has us remove our tank, drop it to the ocean bottom (which is 12 feet deep at that point), and swim down to retrieve it. This is the only test that I fail during my training!


I am naturally very buoyant without a wetsuit, but with one on, it is impossible for me to dive to the bottom to retrieve my tank! I just keep popping to the surface when I try to swim down. Finally, my instructor has to stand on my rear end and push me down until I can grab my tank straps. I am then able to complete this easy dive in my scuba gear to a depth of 20 feet.


🤿 Second Dive: For our second dive, the boat moves to a spot off the Isthmus beside a forest of kelp (see the photo above), where we dive down 40 feet. The lush kelp forests at Catalina Island are some of the best in the world. It is enchanting diving through the columns of kelp, like being in a magical underwater kingdom. I am very aware of not getting my equipment caught by a kelp branch – one reason we are equipped with a dive knife is to cut free from a snag.


We see a variety of interesting fish in the kelp forest, including those in the photo collage below. It is freaky to run into a fish as large as the Giant Sea Bass, although the one I see is not as large as they can get.


One of the most wonderful encounters you can have underwater, while diving Catalina Island or the Channel Islands, is with a Giant Black Sea Bass. They are curious and often closely approach divers. These gentle giants can live at least 70 years, grow to seven feet in length and weigh up to 560 pounds.

Top left: Divers in a kelp forest.

Top right: Schools of fish including bright orange garibaldi, kelp bass (aka calico bass, the smaller fish), and sheephead.

Bottom left: A school of sardines

Bottom right: A diver facing a giant sea bass.


🤿 Third and Final Dive: The boat moves once more to a deeper spot off the coast for our third and final dive, and we go down 60 feet to a sandy bottom along a rocky crag. I see my first octopus on the bottom (the California two-spot octopus) and some spiny lobster in the rock crevices.


The most scary encounter I have is coming face-to-face with two moray eels poking their heads out of their rocky cave in the cliffside. I quickly back off, afraid of being bitten.


One of the most dangerous fish in the sea, the moray eel is vicious when disturbed and will attack humans. The jaws of the moray eel are equipped with strong, sharp teeth, enabling them to seize hold of their prey and inflict serious wounds.


Top left: California spiny lobster.

Top right: California two-spot octopus.

Bottom: California moray eel.


When I surface from my last dive and am swimming to the dive boat, everyone on the boat is excitedly motioning for me to come aboard. It turns out that there is a large blue shark circling the boat and the divers still in the ocean. Fortunately, I am not aware of the creature while I am in the water!

This blue shark sneaked up behind a diver and tailed him.


They may look fearsome and frightening, but blue sharks are actually curious and quite shy and vulnerable. Blue sharks rarely bite humans. From 1580 up until 2013, the blue shark was implicated in only 13 biting incidents, four of which ended fatally.


The blue shark occurs worldwide, and it is common off Southern California most of the year. Blue sharks do not mature until they attain a length of 7 or 8 feet and weigh close to 100 pounds. As many as 54 young have been counted in a single adult female.


🤿 Night Beach Dive 🦈


The following week in June 1974, I go again to the beach by Veteran’s Park in Redondo Beach, this time after dark. For this dive, I carry a strong underwater flashlight.


Night diving is really spooky! You can only see what is in the beam of the light, and it is totally pitch black everywhere else around you — except for those creatures who light up in the dark!

There are often sharks near the beach, and any moving sea life I see is really scary at night. I don’t encounter any sharks on this dive, but entering and exiting the surf at night is much more challenging than during the day.


Success! I receive my Advanced Scuba Diving Certificate, and I am ready to go diving in Cozumel with Suzanne.


But wait! — You guessed it! – Suzanne backs out of our planned Cozumel trip! I no longer recall what her excuse is, but I am NOT going to fly down to Mexico to scuba dive alone!


🤿 Diving at Anacapa Island, July 1974


Around this time, I start dating a guy named Lane, who also works at The Aerospace Corporation. Lane tells me that he scuba dives, and he wants me to join him on a dive for rock scallops. With my Advanced Diving Certificate under my belt, I am ready to take on this next challenge!


Fresh rock scallops are one of the most delicious treats in the world, but you can’t buy them in a California supermarket. In California, no commercial harvesting of wild scallops of any kind is allowed, nor are there any commercial rock scallop farms in the United States. The only way to get your hands on California rock scallops is by diving for them yourself. By law, each person is allowed 10 scallops per day.


Rock scallops are known for their flavorful, almost sweet, almost nutty meat (their adductor muscle) – they aren’t fishy-tasting at all. Most of what’s on offer in the California grocery stores are either sea or bay scallops harvested from the East Coast.


Though rock scallops grow in abundance in many places off the Central and Northern California coast, they aren’t easy to find because they look like, well… rocks. They grow on offshore reefs and rocky pinnacles, wrecks and oil rigs – wherever the currents are steady. They’re covered with so much other marine life that they blend in with their surroundings.

Can you pick out the rock scallop in this photo?


Diving for them at night is great, because with a dive light, you can really see their blue eyes. They have eyes? What?? Everyone in the world knows a rock scallop has blue eyes!


One way to spot a rock scallop is by its mantle – the soft, generally orange or purple lip, that trims both edges of the shell and is visible when the scallop is open. Then there’s that row of eyes dotting the edge of the mantle. When illuminated in dark water by a beam of light, their eyes sparkle iridescent blue, making them easier to identify


The rock scallop has 200 tiny blue eyes lining its mantle, or outside edge. Each of these eyes contains tiny mirrors, which is different from how most animals, including humans, see. Human eyes use lenses (the cornea) that focus and bend the light passing through it. ... But scallop eyes, and powerful telescopes, use mirrors instead.


Rock scallops are usually pried from their attachment surfaces with a dive knife or an abalone iron.


Lane has heard that the closest place to find rock scallops is in the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast between Ventura and Santa Barbara (see the map above). So in July 1974, we sign up for a scuba trip on a dive boat out of Ventura to take us to Anacapa Island.

The Anacapas, or simply Anacapa, consist mainly of three small volcanic islets - East, Middle and West Anacapa. All three islets have precipitous cliffs, dropping off steeply into the sea.


Anacapa is the smallest of the northern islands in the Channel Islands archipelago, and is within the Channel Islands National Park (see the map above). Along with Santa Barbara Island, Anacapa was formed by volcanic eruptions between 19 and 15 million years ago.


Anacapa is located five miles east of Santa Cruz Island and 11 miles southwest of the coastal city of Ventura.


Rock scallops should be eaten as soon as possible after they are harvested – many divers eat them raw, freshly pried out of their shell. Thus, Lane and I invite a small group of friends to joins us for a scallop BBQ this evening when we return from Anacapa! — Ah… to be so young again and have that much energy!


Lane and I leave my home in Manhattan Beach at 5 a.m. in order to meet our dive boat in Ventura Harbor for its 7 a.m. sailing to Anacapa Island. After boarding the boat with all of our gear, we enjoy a pleasant 90-minute ride with a couple dozen like-minded souls.


We are scheduled to make three dives today, which is typical of scuba dive boat trips. The first dive is always the deepest and the last dive is the shallowest, which allows time for the body to decompress on its own gradually during the day.

Top left: In my wet suit with my depth gauge & diving watch on my left wrist, and my diving knife strapped to the inside of my left calf.

Top right: My Advanced Scuba Diving Certificate.

Bottom left: Two fellow divers aboard our dive boat.

Middle right: Our quest for the day — rock scallops attached to a rocky cliffside. In addition to all of our normal scuba gear, on this day Lane and I wear game bags attached to the weight belts around our waists.

Bottom right: Lane on my sailboat off Palos Verdes Peninsula in June 1974.


I know the first rule-of-thumb in diving is that you should always stay under your air bubbles while ascending, no matter the depth, to prevent the bends.* Air bubbles rise at approximately one foot per second — so from 100 feet down, you need to take 1 minute and 40 seconds to get to the surface safely. Can you hold your breath that long, if need be, especially under duress?

* The bends is an illness that arises when a diver ascends too quickly from deep waters. The dissolved nitrogen in the blood forms bubbles which can cause excruciating pain in the muscles, paralysis, and in some cases even a coma or death — especially if the diver can’t be rushed to a decompression chamber. If you ascend slowly enough, your lungs can remove this extra gas by exhaling it.


That last statement forms the second rule-of-thumb I learned in diving always exhale throughout your ascent to the surface. Holding your breath can be deadly.

😱 There I am!

💀 You’d never believe it!!

☠️ I think I am going to die!!!


On our first dive, we are to descend 100 feet — way deeper than I have dived before. Normally, had I known better, I would reconsider making this first dive — but then Lane won't be able to go either since I am his ‘dive buddy,’ and no one is allowed to dive solo from a commercial dive boat.


Lane is a brash, foolhardy male. He has never dived that deep before either, but he has no second thoughts. Besides, that’s where the scallops are, and they can't be found on any of the shallower dives — and that is, after all, the reason for our dive trip in the first place!


Our first dive is along a nearly vertical underwater cliff beneath the steep slopes of Anacapa Island. Once I equalize the pressure in my ears and mask, my body is unable to sense any difference, whether I am at a depth of 20 feet or 100 feet, without looking at my depth gauge.


The bottom of the ocean floor is much deeper than the 100 feet that we descend to — in fact, we cannot see the bottom when we reach that depth.


At 100 feet, we find the rock scallops that are our quest. Lane starts prying them off the vertical wall with his dive knife and handing them to me one-by-one to stash in my game bag. The scallops are fairly large at 4-6 inches in diameter, and heavy due to all of the accumulated marine life on them.


A diver prying a rock scallop off of a rocky surface with an abalone iron.


I notice that I am having to kick harder to stay level with Lane. No problem – I’ll just add a little air to my PFD as I practiced many times during my training. But this time, when I tried to blow into the tiny air tube attached to my PFD, no air will go in — no matter how hard I blow!


The PFDs that we are using in 1974 are far different from those of decades later.


Modern PFDs contain a buoyancy compensator with an inflatable bladder to establish neutral buoyancy underwater and positive buoyancy at the surface, when needed. The buoyancy is controlled by adjusting the volume of air in the bladder. The bladder is filled with ambient pressure gas from the diver's primary breathing gas cylinder or from the diver's mouth through an oral inflation valve.


As I discover, the difference in the pressure against my body and my PFD are much greater at 100 feet than at 60 feet, even though I don't “sense” it. Blowing into my tiny air tube can't overcome the pressure on my vest.


Seawater pressure change with depth as measured in absolute atmospheric pressure (ata). Note that the pressure on a scuba diver is twice as much at a depth of 99 feet as it is at 33 fee, and four times as much as it is a sea level.


OK," I say to myself, "I’ll just kick more strongly." As my game bag becomes heavier with the addition of more scallops from Lane, I am working harder and harder to stay even with him. All of a sudden, I start coughing violently and sucking a little water into my lungs at the end of each cough when I try to breath in. After a few seconds, my chest constricts and I am not able to breathe in any air at all!


At this point, I know that I am in deep yogurt! Lane is about 10 feet away, and I know I don't have time to swim over to him and let him know that I am heading to the surface. I start up, unable to breath, hoping that I can make it to the surface with no air. I THINK I AM GOING TO DIE!


ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECONDS to get to the surface without risking the bends! STAY BELOW MY BUBBLES! Somehow, I don't panic and lose my head, or I am a goner.


I don’t quite stay below my bubbles, but I do stay in the middle of them.


I also KEEP BREATHING OUT the entire distance to the surface. HOW, do you ask, when I am unable to breathe IN? Whatever air there is in my lungs when I start up expands when the pressure on my body decreases as I ascend, and I am able to keep breathing slowly out all the way to the top!


When I finally reach the open air, I can still hardly take a breath in. I can only lie on the surface and try to relax and barely suck in tiny, tiny breaths.


Down below, Lane finally realizes that I am not behind him to take another rock scallop. He looks up and sees me heading to the top, and he knows something must be wrong. He follows me up,, and when he surfaces he tries to talk to me. I am still barely able to breathe and don't have the energy to try to answer him.


Now believing that I am in bad trouble, Lane throws an arm around my neck and starts towing me to the dive boat! That chokes off whatever little air I can seep in. I start hitting and kicking Lane to make him let go of me. Finally, I am able to start inhaling more air, and we both make it to the dive boat and climb aboard.


I realize days later what happened to me down there to cause my violent coughing and chest constrictions. I had hyperventilated. In my struggle to stay level, I was breathing much more rapidly, causing the carbon dioxide levels in my blood to decrease. No one had warned me about this danger and its consequences during my scuba training.


I recover on board and go on to complete the other two dives that day — to 60 and 30 feet depths.


Lane and I make the 1½ hour drive back to my place in Manhattan Beach in time to shower and prepare the barbecued scallop dinner for our friends! As I said earlier, … Oh, to be so young again and have that much energy!


🦈 Epilogue 🤿


• I was lucky that day. I don’t know how I managed to keep my head and not panic under those conditions.


• I never went out with Lane again. Even though he was an engineer like myself and we shared many of the same interests, he just didn't have the common sense or maturity that I was looking for in a man.


I never went scuba diving again. I decided that one needed to dive frequently in order to learn and maintain the diving skills necessary to survive unforeseen mishaps. I didn't love the sport enough to expend the requisite time and energy.

Unless you really want to have your scallops and eat them too, almost all of the beautiful underwater sights can be seen more safely by snorkeling on the surface of the ocean.


If I accept any of Suzanne’s invitations for adventure in the future, I understand that I may very well be experiencing them on my own!


🤿 Postscript - Barbara & Suzanne 🦈


• Yes, my lovely friend Suzanne really does exist. Suzanne was a stewardess, and she rented a house with two other girls not far from me in Redondo Beach.


For three years, from 1972 - 1974, we did a lot of things together from river rafting through the Grand Canyon (where we met) to sky diving at Lake Elsinore to skiing in Sun Valley & Vail to waterskiing on the Colorado River.

If you can't tell which girl is Suzanne or me, I take that as a compliment.

Hint: I am on the left in the lower left photo.


A couple of years later, Suzanne married a guy by the name of Ron and moved to Beverly Hills to live. I visited her there with Stan once (Stan & I started dating in late 1975), and after that I lost track of her.


I finally got to Cozumel ten years later in May 1984 with Stan, where we spent a couple of days snorkeling and exploring by moped.

With Stan in my Manhattan Beach home in 1984


I recently did an Internet search and I found Suzanne. She has done well for herself, she is married to a different husband, and they have two accomplished daughters. I have been unable to get in contact with her.



🤿 🌊 The End 🦈 🧜‍♀️




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