1978: Pre-Dive / Nostalgia

Summer 1978: 

My mom called me Fearless Fly with this state-of-the-art prescription mask on my face. 

I was getting ready for my first open-water dive, earning my C-card, the next day up on the Sonoma County coast.

Note how tan my hands and forearms are. I was spending hours in the pool every day.

By the Breakwater

Monterey, CA
2/17/19

Wistful about Orkney Diving

I'm missing Scotland and wishing that I'd been in good enough shape to dive the Scapa Flow in Orkney last summer.  I was there, but the commuting combined with old sports injuries had really done a number on my back and leg.  The long plane ride and the car-hopping across Scotland didn't help either.

(Still in pain, in process.)

Now, Northern California diving is world-class and wonderfully kelpy, but I'm feeling the pull of a missed opportunity, you know?

An Orkney view.

Ocean Cove: 1978

Thanks, Dad, for having my back.

My first ocean dive at Ocean Cove, Sonoma County, CA.

Divers: Sonoma Coast

June 7, 2015.

Throckmorton's "The Lost Ships"

Boyhood reading revisited.

I Have A Kelp Tattoo

Or, I Love Kelp

My Uncle's Question:  Have you ever gotten tangled up in kelp while snorkeling or SCUBAing?

My Answer: Not in any way that mattered. I'm very patient in kelp--my formative diving years were spent in free diving for abalone up north. Plenty of kelp practice. That said, I hate kelp-crawling (moving across the surface on the kelp); I had a dive partner once who decided we were too low on air and insisted that we had to kelp-crawl to stay on the surface and not use the tanks . . . . I'd been trained to slip under, whenever possible, and been trained to accept a lower pressure level in the tanks. Since he didn't hear me, I had to stick by him (he was my partner, after all), but that was a not quite necessary hardship). This was at Pt. Lobos a few years back, and I will say that my compass navigation did stick us in the middle of that thick kelp forest. Still, I would have switched to snorkels, even, and harbor-sealed under and up . . . .

Flying the Flag

I don't worry too much about fitting in, but a sense of community still feels good. Among the communities that have made me feel good, I have to rank the beachside parking lot full of divers fairly highly. I recall how my buddy Keith and I did our (old-school) diver training back in the late 70s and we went diving up and down Northern California, but we wouldn't put stickers on our cars or wear dive t-shirts until we felt we earned the right after a year or so. Then, we each put a modest diver-flag on our bumpers. (I think my dad gave me one that read "Think Deep.") And, we kept diving fairly frequently, at least for a few years before English grad school and law school distracted us. Nowadays, I like walking up the beach, in a soaking wetsuit, pulling that kayak with the rocket fins and weightbelt and other gear secured properly, getting and sharing the nods and smiles of like-minded souls in pursuit of salty experiences. I shoot my fish and creatures with a camera, but I still can talk abalone and spearfishing, and I like hearing those stories.

Window Tripping

One Beginning.

Merit Badge

Snorkel-cat:
This is the stamp I use to mark my swimming and diving--and have used for years now.

Simple system.  If I swim or dive, I stamp my datebook.  When I look back at the days or months and see red, I am gratified.  If I look back and see a lack of red, I am unhappy.  "Do it for the stamp" may seem a bit lame, but whatever gets me into the pool or ocean is worthy of merit right now.

2013 was not a very red year.  I need to get into shape, better shape, swimming and kayaking shape.

2014: I'm aiming at well-marked pages, plenty of snorkel-cats.  I earned one today.

Wish me luck.

Yearning (Oh, I Miss The Salt and Kelp)

I need to go diving.

(And, to be realistic, this diver would have a camera in his hands, not the speargun, and he'd ditch the tank for free diving.  Well, a tank dive would be fun too.  Oh, and the knife would be strapped to a leg.)

Maybe next weekend--or the one after that.

Early Crush: Sophia Loren, Diver

Still shot from Boy On A Dolphin, I believe.

(I happened on this shot by chance this evening, so I feel compelled to share it.  Thanks to the person who checked out my blog via a page with this photo.)

Time to go diving, I am thinking.

Treasure Hunting

I took these photographs March 30, 2011, a couple weeks after returning from Alaska and the memorial for my friend Keith.  I was attempting to find comfort, frankly, looking to old magazines and books, especially the ones pictured here that day.  I'd talked with Keith at various times about the books I wanted to write, that I haven't yet written.  A crime novel with diving and sunken wrecks; a historical-fantasy of the aftermath of the fall of Troy, also with diving and sunken wrecks; among others. With both of those projects, I have found inspiration in that particular issue of National Geographic and in Kirk Russell's eco-thriller regarding abalone-poaching, Shell Games.  The Surfers Journal is just good fun, good reportage, history, and photographic illustration of watery lives.  

Solace.  Inspiration.  Reminders of debts owed.

I still owe you at least one good book, Keith.  I'm working on it.  Slowly.  

Honor Frost: The Practical Diver

I've written about my hero Honor Frost recently here, and I'd like to share a bit more from her non-fiction Under the Mediterranean. Here are two passages of worthy practical import, and which feature nail polish in particular:

Light in diving is somehow illustrated by a cathedral: for the first few metres where the windows are there is colour, but the floor below is in shade, though there is still quite enough light and one can read if one wants. The explanation of the gradual disappearance of colour underwater is, of course, that as the sun's rays diminish with increasing depth, so the world goes into monochrome. Red disappears first, after about 15 metres, yellow is the last to go at about 30. I discovered this for myself when I cut my finger at 50 metres. My blood oozed out black as ink, and when I looked at my nail varnish it was black too. I can now gauge the depth at which I happen to be swimming by the colour of my nails. (7)

and

Curiously enough, I had less difficulty in equipping myself for underwater drawing than John had had on land. Lead pencils work underwater and so do india-rubbers. Any sheet of light-coloured metal, such as aluminium, makes a serviceable tablet. Notes and drawing made in the water are traced on to paper later, so that a tablet can be re-used. When I do not have to improvise, my standard equipment consists of a portable metal drawing-board with a spring clamp down one side, such as architects use in the field. Sheets of plastic "paper", cut to size, are inserted in the spring to form a block; they can be detached after use. The only modification that had to be made to this portable board was the addition of a second clamp, held by bolts, on the opposite side of the board. Without this, the sheets tended to slip out of the spring when submerged. Plastic or metal rulers are equally serviceable in water, but for longer measurements I find that an arrow from my fish-gun (graduated in units of 10 centimetres in nail varnish) is handier. It is also less likely to be mislaid on a boat, where fish-guns are always carefully stowed. (172)

I'm always trying to match books and readers, and I do like to share the books I value, but I have yet to find another proper reader for Frost's semi-autobiographical study of the essential problems in the proper approach to understanding archaeologically marine sites and remains. The level of expertise may have been superseded, particularly with the advent of more refined technology and diving experience being embraced by serious scientists, but the comprehension of and the appreciation for the underlying issues remain timeless.

Annotations: Honor Frost's "Under the Mediterranean"

As part of a research project back in Fall 2008, I produced an annotated bibliography of 129 nonfiction texts, all associated with aquatic subjects. I read far further in water-related fiction and nonfiction in the last eight months, but I decided on the specific bibliography in relation to teaching my courses, English 1A, English 93, and the prospective elective "Literature and the (Aquatic) Environment." Of course, not all 129 books on my list would suit our courses, but I had to read (or reread) to discover such fitness or lack of fitness. I share my findings for each one itself and for the critical model at work.

Here is one of my favorite books in the bibliography:

Frost, Honor. Under the Mediterranean: Marine Antiquities. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1963. Print.

I love this book by Honor Frost. I would place it in my personal top 10 for non-fiction, though I haven't yet found another reader who will appreciate this text as much as I do. Still, I think certain chapters would work well in the right combination for English 1A, mostly because Frost has that elusive, yet vital quality of being able to ask the right questions. To my mind, asking the right questions is the key to any situation or endeavor, whether intellectual, ethical, emotional, or physical.

Here Frost exhibits her wonderful questioning in a volume half-memoir and half-analysis. Alongside Cousteau, Dumas, and Dugan, Frost was one of that first generation of divers in the Mediterranean who ushered in the dawn of scuba and the practical applications of such diving in the fields of archeology and history. Frost was the first female in such illustrious company, a friend and freelance underwater draftsperson and artist, an essential component for transforming underwater archeology from mere scavenging to an accurate, methodical, fully scientific discipline. Frost begins with her own introduction to diving (in a well in England), but most of the book is organized around types of wrecks, sites, or underwater problems, and the autobiographical material is used to illuminate as needed. Frost focuses her narrative via the problems and the questions that need or needed to be asked; this approach raised the book from the mere record of what-happened to a much more valuable and conscious model of the methodological.
For taste, I want to quote her description of a shipwreck (pictured above). After emphasizing particularly how, if understood properly, a shipwreck may be a time capsule of it's historical present far more than a building or site on land, Frost clarifies the essential and necessary differences between an excavation of a wreck on the sea floor and a building on land, with the essential differences in attitudes necessary for proper handling of either site. Here are Frost's words:

A ship is a mobile, integral mechanism: it reaches the sea-bed only by accident. As a wreck it undergoes a sea change before it becomes stabilized within the local geographical environment. Buildings, by contrast, are imposed on the ground by man's will; even in decay they maintain this direct relationship with the earth. These are differences that must be taken in account in marine excavation. A collapsed machine can be reconstructed if, first, we understand the way in which its parts have been redistributed, and second, we examine its remains in their entirety as a once functional unit. The excavator's approach to architectural remains is quite different, for the size and character of a ruined building can be assessed by trenching through its foundations at strategic points. (Frost, xxi)

Note how Frost moves in this quotation from clarifying the intellectual significance of a shipwreck to the necessary understanding of the underwater archaeologist, the excavator who must imagine the trajectory of the wreckage from the remains on the sea floor and who must have faith --no-- who must have the confidence in that wreckage as the residue of a fully functional, and thus understandable, machine, the ship. In short, when you keep the intact puzzle in mind, you may discern the relationships and placement of the pieces of the puzzle, scrambled though they may be, so much more readily and successfully. Frost says all that so much more succinctly, don't you think?

I've found this passage regarding the ship as "mobile, integral mechanism" useful as a reader and teacher of literary texts and literary lives. I've also approached most people and situations, I realized after reading this passage, as if they were "shipwrecks," if I may say that. We, all of us, reach where we are, become who we are, partially by will and largely by circumstance. And yet the direction of our original voyaging, say, may help others (and ourselves) to better understand the present self. Lord Byron, to use a convenient example, was an obvious "shipwreck" of sorts, and you can chart much more accurately his life, his work, and his effects on others if you keep the "mobile, integral mechanism" in mind even as you approach, say, the "collapsed machine" of 1816 in the wake of scandal, separation, and exile. Byron, as a model, kept afloat far longer than his critics would have credited; Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage III and IV being wondrous monuments to his swimming ability and survival.

As a historical note, "free diver" in Under the Mediterranean and in Cousteau's books refers to a scuba diver, not to a snorkeler as the term is used nowadays; in context, the scuba diver was so much more free than the brass-helmeted diver, trapped upright in lead boots, that he (and she) superseded.

Additionally, Honor Frost, though English, learned to dive in the French style, which arose from breath-hold spearfishing for food during World War II and after, so she brings the swimmer's and the snorkeler's prejudices and judgments to matters underwater. She began as a true free diver, one who begins with the human mechanism and organic considerations rather than with technology and the mechanical imposition of will onto recalcitrant matter and problems. As a swimmer, she's very attuned to the power and effects of gravity and flow, and I like that, whether physical or intellectual. I want to leave this entry with one last quotation:

The law of gravity becomes complex under water, but it is not beyond our comprehension.

I salute Honor Frost and her book as worthy models. And, rereading her book always makes me want to get in the water, the ocean, and to look around for myself.

Mala Pier, Maui: December 2008

Visibility wasn't much that day, I must admit. First, the dive company cancelled on us, and then they called back with a possible dive up in Lahaina . . . but we needed to leave immediately. Keith and I had already begun the transition from boat-dive to leisurely lunch and an afternoon shore dive of our choice.

Still, we jumped in the rental car and headed north. Glad we did. Visibility was poor, as you can see here, but we had a fine time at a new place for us. While we used our tanks, spearfishermen kept slipping down and sliding around us, haunting the ruins of the pier, hunting for dinner. It was distinct fun to watch the breath-hold diving from the bottom.

We also found at least one, perhaps two, frogfish. Now, those are cool creatures.

That's my pal Keith at the lower right.

Do you see the turtle?

Good dive; good memories.

Now, I need to go out and make more memories for the two of us.


P.S. I know that's not much of a shot, but Keith's in it, and there won't be anymore of those photos. Still, I have caught the wonderfully limited visibility. And that's something that a NorCal diver never takes for granted, though purists would probably scoff at diving in these conditions.

Measuring Memories

Sabbatical reflections, Bio 32, and the evidence at hand.

What I like most about memory involves the unfolding and expanding thoughts and feelings that may be triggered, may be engaged, just by looking at such photos as these above or --better yet-- by the objects themselves.

When I handle those underwater survey cards from Fall 2009, I can feel the depths we reached, can see as best I could at the time the murky waters, can resist as I did then the pull of the surge, and so forth. I can revisit the enthusiasm of the class, the high spirits, as we split into teams, geared up, and entered the water.

And, then, there's the mix of memories: the dives; the dive-days, with lunch, coffee-stops, the driving, and the conversations; the cleaning and putting-away of the gear; the house itself; that hardwood flooring and walking across it; all the things I've ever carried or stored in that giant red bucket; the art class, studio, and breakage associated with the octopus; that metal measuring tool for different species of abalone: I've had that particular tool since 1978. And so forth. In the jar, I've sand from Monastery Beach; the big grains are characteristic of that shore, and the memories stretch from this specific collecting to all the times I've been to that beach, including a wild ride in the surf when I was a very young boy. (See the entry "Monastery Beach Memories" for those details; you can click on the appropriate photo in the column to the right for the link.)

And yet, I must confess, I'm starting to get a bit confused whether the memories triggered by that card really belong to Dive #10, say, or an earlier dive that semester. I was participating in a series of training dives off various Monterey beaches and off Salt Point, up on the Sonoma Coast. My memories are not foolproof, though I still think they are fairly accurate, or better, if I take the time to examine and handle such items closely, giving myself time to --what?-- scroll back through the memory-screens, thumb through the memory-files.

I like photos, and I use photos to take me back into time, into past experiences, but artifacts work better, work best.

And that's why I have a garage, study, and office each overfilled with books and stuff. Memory's talismans; flotsam on the sea of Time? What else do you call my mother's PTA scrapbook? I mean, that's a wonderful document of years of service, but can I honor that real work if I just hold onto the title page and a few sample pages? Really?

Perhaps, at this late date in life, I can move towards being a Symbolist and not so much a Materialist. I'm not even going to consider the joys of Minimalism. I'm still not ready.

Keith: Inflatables Ready!

Here is a photo and close-up of my pal Keith Sanders from either 1978 or 1979. I should ask our friend Brad or Keith's brothers about the date, using the Buf-mobile there as an indicator. I can't recall when Keith moved on to his next car. I do recall missing this fine vehicle afterwards. The year is probably 1979, for I think I recall our each buying that style of wetsuit on sale from Steele's diveshop in Oakland; the two-piece above-the-waist bottom and hooded top with beavertail are pretty distinctive.

Keith and I have driven down on a weekday--or so it looks from the emptiness of the parking lot--to dive off Lover's Point in Pacific Grove. We were going to try out Keith's new inflatable boat, but then I wanted to use my own too. The orange pump-up canoe was a gift from my parents, and it had done fine service on the lakes and rivers of Northern California. I think this may have been the first time I would use it for ocean diving. We brought the boats down to this easy shore-dive spot to practice; we wanted to use the boats for expeditions up north on the Sonoma and Mendocino Coasts to enable us to reach more remote locations with scuba gear, specifically. As good divers, we were practicing at the easy location before trying out more extreme ones.

That's the Tinnery Restaurant across the street (or, it will be the Tinnery, at some point). And, while it is no longer in business, I still have the promotional bumper sticker on my "school" clipboard. Yes, I've been using the same clipboard since the mid-70's; this tool has lasted through school, college, warehouse work, driving deliveries throughout central California, swim classes, graduate school, and more than fifteen years as a college instructor: solid craftsmanship. Whenever I happen to notice that old blue legend across the back of the clipboard, I smile at the memories, the good times, it evokes. (The photo below, for the first time, shows me how ugly the clipboard is, but it never seems ugly in my hands.)

During a different dive trip, a bolt of lightning hit that same parking lot.

This particular photo never seemed all that remarkable, merely a document of the tools we were using to head out on the water. Of course, the shot has gotten more interesting for me with each decade that passes, and now that my Best Damn Dive Partner has passed on also, well, every shot counts.

My buddy Keith and our boats. I wonder how far out we really paddled before diving down with the tanks. Far enough.

Wolf Waters

Scattered images from Sunday, April 3, 2011. The rocks and swell; dive partners; and another self-portrait #49.

Point Lobos, Carmel, CA: too much swell, too little visibility. Just up the coast at Carmel River Beach, four free divers had to be rescued. Discretion is the better part of valor, as they say.

Above you can see the swell hitting the point, though we were sheltered in the cove, easing our way into the water from the boat ramp. In the two shots of the surf hitting the rocks, I like how the waves seem to come from different directions. (Or, beautiful from any direction, any angle.)

We didn't even think about heading out there, but hoped to move off the boat ramp, drop down, and explore. Even in that modest hope, we were stymied as the visibility was less than three feet. Hold you hand out at arm's length, and you couldn't quite see your hand. That bad. Wiser heads no doubt expected the sheer murk due to all that swell, but we'd hoped for better conditions since the swell had been coming down. No luck. We bagged the dive and headed back to shore. Frustrating, yes, but also good practice.

Other divers claimed that visibility improved to 10 or even 20 feet further out, but we had already derigged and unsuited by the time they reported back. (I almost said "we'd defrocked," but that's just frustration talking.) Perhaps visibility would have been improved further out in the soup, but the dense murk promised little for a lot of energy. Still: what if, what if? Lobos is one of best spots on the Central Coast for heightened visibility. Cold water, too, from the undersea canyons, but such waters often bring greater range of vision too.

Seaside Phat Burger chicken combo pleased me and consoled me. Maybe we didn't get a full dive in, but we suited up, got wet, meant well, and ate well too.

Next time, you know?

Friends: Maui Farewell

Here are Keith and myself in the parking lot of the main Maui Dive Shop in Kihei. We have just returned the rental gear, and we're just about to head for the airport and our separate flights home. We've had a full week diving, sightseeing, eating, drinking, and talking. From casual jokes to heated debates, if we weren't actually underwater, we were definitely talking.

We never were much for hugging each other, and you can see that in the photo. The awkwardness seems slightly sad, but mostly funny to me now. Classic guys.

December 2008.