Diving: A Family Passion
“Spit in my face mask and rub the saliva around to keep my mask from fogging up?” An alternative to attending a Los Angeles business meeting with my dad?
Marvin Warner, one of the employees at the Los Angeles company, had offered to teach me how to scuba dive!
At age seven, I had learned to snorkel in Lake Lotawana, a man-made lake outside of Kansas City, where we spent our summers. It was fun, but visibility was barely two feet and I saw some tadpoles. Now, I was going scuba diving in the ocean.
The next morning, Marvin and I were in his 20-foot aluminum boat, equipped with diving gear, and anchored in the bay in 30 feet of calm water. Marvin explained each piece of equipment and the fundamentals of diving.
“Never panic and shoot to the surface. If your air fails, swim to the surface without holding your breath, and at the same speed your bubbles rise. Most importantly never panic ─ do things slowly!”
Yes, Marvin taught me to spit in my face mask and rub the saliva around. We strapped on the tank and regulator, weight belt, and swim fins. Then he showed me the proper way to enter the water—sit on the side of the boat facing in and roll backwards into the water while tightly holding your mask, to keep it from falling off. My heart racing, I rolled backward into the water. We dove together so I could get the feel of it.
Weightless! This must be how an astronaut feels in space. I could move effortlessly. My breathing was noisy. The water magnifies everything!
Marvin gave me a tire iron to gather abalone. Abalone produce a suction to attach themselves to the bottom, but they must raise part of the shell to feed. The purists take abalone with their bare hands by reaching under the raised part and flipping the abalone loose. If you are not quick enough the abalone can clamp down on your hand and drown you. Thus, the tire iron.
We each got two nice 8 to 10-inch abalone. This is when the work begins. We had to dig the meat out of the ear-shaped abalone shell. Not an easy task. Then we pounded the meat until it was tender being careful not to overdo it and destroy the meal. Done properly and sautéed in butter there is nothing more delicious.
I wanted to dive again and was eager to go back to California. On my next trip, Marvin proposed that we go to an area below Ensenada in Baja California, Mexico, an area famous for large lobster. (They are called lobster but are actually crayfish as they do not have the great claws of the Maine lobster.) After a three-hour drive, we came to a stop on large cliffs overlooking a rocky beach. Too late to turn back, we managed to find a Mexican fisherman who owned a shack on the beach and a boat we could rent. We lugged our equipment down the steep hill.
The next morning, we set out and soon we were over a rocky bottom in about 40 feet of water. Again, the purist takes lobster by hand, but you really have to be skilled to do that, so we took our spear guns. We had each gotten a decent-sized lobster when I spotted a monster. I got a good shot and hit him solidly, but my monster wouldn't give up and backed into a hole. Even though I could brace my feet against the rocks I could not pull him out. It was getting close to lunchtime, so I left my spear gun on the bottom, returned to the boat, and had lunch figuring that in 20 minutes some of the fight would be out of him. Returning after lunch I braced my feet against the rocks again and started pulling. Eventually he came out and I was able to get him to the boat where Marvin pulled him in. We didn't have a scale, but we estimated he weighed over 15 pounds. I took a picture of the monster that I'm still carrying in my wallet more than 60 years later.
When Betty and I started our 12 years of cruising, we equipped Expectation with scuba equipment and an air compressor. This came in extremely handy to free a fouled anchor and for the occasional spearfishing expedition. By this time, I had a lot of experience with scuba diving, but diving is always an adventure into a different world, and I had the occasional scare.
On one dive Betty and I went through an opening into a cave and realized that the opening that had been so apparent from the outside was impossible to find in the darkness on the inside. No one knew we were there! My heart was in my throat by the time we finally found that opening.
In St. Lucia, I went on a dive with commercial divers who took us through a tunnel. I will admit to real panic even though I knew that if I kept following the guy ahead of me, we would get out. There is something about not being able to tell where the surface is that scares the hell out of me.
I wanted to dive on the famous Palancar Reef with a guide when we had Expectation in the waters off Cozumel. I learned that I had to be certified. In spite of all the diving I had done I had never been certified, so I took a quick certification course.
Crystal clear water, with visibility up to 200 feet, perfect to mingle with Hawksbill Turtles, Splendid Toadfish, and kaleidoscopic schools of tropical fish. Spectacular, and the boat made it super easy. Although there was a fairly strong current, I did not have to fight it because the dive boat drifted with the current, and when it was time to surface, the dive boat was right there.
No spearfishing is allowed so the fish are super friendly. I had taken a plastic bag full of bread to feed the fish and they loved it. However, one huge, 100-pound grouper managed to sneak up on me and grab my bag. Carlos, my diving partner, saw it happen and the two of us chased the grouper, trying to get the bag back before he choked on it. The giant imp, with the bag still in his mouth, would keep just out of our reach. We told the dive master about it, and he assured us the bag would not be a problem for the grouper—apparently it happens frequently.
My last diving adventure was National Geographic worthy! My friend, Stan Starn, invited me on his powerboat, POSH, to dive with the hammerheads. We powered for almost 24 hours from the harbor in Costa Rica to the Cocoas Islands, known as a gathering place for the huge hammerhead sharks. Arriving at the cove where the sharks were reported to gather, we discovered them in about 50 feet of crystal-clear water. The area was thick with the mammoths, and we were able to dive right among them—close enough to touch—without incident. We knew we were in a celebrated place when we were joined by the National Geographic vessel that had come from the U.S. just to photograph our sharks.
Postscript form my son, Jeff:
Pops,
When I was 5 our family and the Lyon’s family drove from Kansas City to Acapulco in the family station wagons, nearly a 2,000-mile drive. I remember when you saw a gas station a mile or so away you would make all the kids walk to get some exercise.
You and Lee had rented a villa and I remember our houseman, Belo, made the best bolillos in the world. Bolillos are a crusty, oval-shaped roll that everyone loved.
We were in some sort of an enclosed mini bay near Acapulco but still in the ocean. You and Lee strapped a Pony scuba tank on my back. I went straight to the bottom and was having a great time not knowing I might run out of air. Apparently, it was so deep that you and Lee could not reach my depth to tell me to surface. Well hell. I was only five years old. Finally, Lee got deep enough to tell me to surface, and I did. That was my first diving experience.
When I was about 16 years old, I was certified at Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs. We did our first open water dive in Ensenada and I remember our dive Master Sid Stovall took a bunch of high school kids on a 300-foot dive. Dangerous and a terrible idea. Years later, I had lost my certification card and I located Sid in Corpus Christi. He said, “How can I know I certified you in 1974?” I reminded him of the 300-foot dive, and I had my dive card within the week.
Since then, I had the opportunity to dive all over the world. On our boat, the Office, I had a compressor and tanks. I dove with sharks, rode giant Mantas, and in one dive alone I would harvest 12 big lobsters. None as big as yours but they were big. After diving Papua New Guinee, Thailand, Malaysia, Curacao, Cozumel and many more I feel very fortunate that you put a tank on my back when I was 5 years old.