My summers diving with the Hansens, on Catalina Island, brought me to the attention of Harold Warner. Harold was the diver for the glass bottom boats. He had a barge parked in ‘Lovers Cove’, just south of Avalon, (it is the barge with the aquariums on it in the picture on the post How I Got to Work on Catalina Island. I’m the one on the right.) This cove had great kelp beds and lots of fish in it, and was where the glass bottom boats took their passengers to see the marine life in the Marine Gardens

The glass bottom boats came into the cove, and during their route through the Garden would stop at the diving barge. The diver swam under the boat holding a hunk of fish in his hand and the local fish knew that they could get a few bites, if they got there quickly enough. The diver regularly had several hundred fish trying to eat his hand. It was a good show.

The two big paddlewheel boats had a glass section in the bow and one in the stern. It took two divers to put on a good show, because the time was limited due to the number of trips the boat made each day. There were four boats, two big ones and two small ones.

Harold offered me the job of being the second diver the next year, when I came back to the island. Now I was in heaven. We used scuba gear, and I would work seven days a week for the entire season, that was Memorial Day to Labor Day, and earn $25 a day. In those days that was very good money.

I had that job for four years, and it, combined with my night jobs, got me through college with no debt. Besides the money I earned, I learned a lot. I was in the water five hours a day, (15 minute shows, 18 to 20 a day, seven days a week), 490+ days for four summer sessions approximately 1,800 hours.

Those hours along with some other commercial diving, and 26 years of teaching SCUBA’s diving classes at Santa Ana College, gave me over 5,000 logged hours by the time I retired in 1991.

As I look back on my diving career, I was a NAUI, (National Association of Underwater Instructors), instructor for 28 years and signed SCUBA cards at various levels of diving classes for over 3000 students. My book, Scuba Safe and Simple, was a top seller in the 70s and 80s. Now it is still selling a few dozen copies a year as a, ‘What diving was like in the old days’, book for new divers.

I started, along with Art Ullrich, Larry Cushman, and Glenn Egstrom, the International Conference of Underwater Education, known as IQ, at Santa Ana College. I had the facilities, Art had the administration, Larry had the design and artwork, and Glenn had the program. The conference was held annually in different places, like Dallas, Toronto, and San Diego over the years. I served on the BOD of NAUI for six years, and am an inductee into the NAUI Hall of Honor. One of my students, Jeff Bozanick is also in the Hall of Honor, and it was my great pleasure, and honor to introduce him at his ceremony of induction in Las Vegas.

Diving has been very good to me. It has made me happy, helped me financially, brought me in contact with some outstanding people, both as mentors and as students. It even provided me with lobsters, fish, and abalone, in the old days when I couldn’t afford to buy hamburger.