Large underwater cave in Laguna Beach?

[Jake]

I'm wondering if any SoCal divers can help me identify a location to satisfy my curiosity.

I'm reading "The Cave Divers" by Robert F. Burgess currently; in chapter 16 he recounts some very close calls divers had in caves. One of the stories involves a diver named Don Tooker who is hunting lobsters in Laguna Beach (presumably the one in Orange County). Burgess recounts it as follows:

Tooker dived and moved along the bottom playing his light beam over the rocks and marine growth. A rocky overhang loomed ahead. He angled down and went under it, surprised to find its eelgrass-covered wall receding into a large underwater cavern. Exotically beautiful niches opened up before him....

...Then he spotted what he had come after--a large six-to-seven-pound lobster....Finally, after ten minutes of chasing it deeper into the cave, the struggling prize was his.
​

(I took out some text for brevity.)

Tooker then spends the next 10-15 minutes lost in this cave, deep enough that one or several different corridors might lead back to a "main cavern." After trying one passageway, he turns around and swims 60 feet in another direction, still in the cave. Eventually he finds a way out shortly before running out of gas.

Does anyone know where this location is? I haven't been to every reef in Laguna, but I can't think of any location that fits this description. If the place actually exists I have no intention of going there to also get trapped; I'm just wondering out of curiosity.

Maybe @Sam Miller III would know?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

I'm wondering if any SoCal divers can help me identify a location to satisfy my curiosity.

I'm reading "The Cave Divers" by Robert F. Burgess currently; in chapter 16 he recounts some very close calls divers had in caves. One of the stories involves a diver named Don Tooker who is hunting lobsters in Laguna Beach (presumably the one in Orange County). Burgess recounts it as follows:

Tooker dived and moved along the bottom playing his light beam over the rocks and marine growth. A rocky overhang loomed ahead. He angled down and went under it, surprised to find its eelgrass-covered wall receding into a large underwater cavern. Exotically beautiful niches opened up before him....

...Then he spotted what he had come after--a large six-to-seven-pound lobster....Finally, after ten minutes of chasing it deeper into the cave, the struggling prize was his.
​

(I took out some text for brevity.)

Tooker then spends the next 10-15 minutes lost in this cave, deep enough that one or several different corridors might lead back to a "main cavern." After trying one passageway, he turns around and swims 60 feet in another direction, still in the cave. Eventually he finds a way out shortly before running out of gas.

Does anyone know where this location is? I haven't been to every reef in Laguna, but I can't think of any location that fits this description. If the place actually exists I have no intention of going there to also get trapped; I'm just wondering out of curiosity.

Maybe @Sam Miller III would know?

Thanks in advance.

Lt. Col. Donald K. Tooker and I were dive buddies and met in @Sam Miller III 18 week NAUI Advanced Class in around 1978 or 1979. That full story was written by Don in a Skin Diver Magazine article a few years earlier. We talked a lot about that experience of his and he and I dove that "cave" off South Laguna Beach together several times for lobster afterward. The "cave" is not quite as extensive as one would think. Don's dive was at night and there are several very long cracks in the rocks that have room to swim through, but at night it looks like a solid roof when swimming down the channels on the bottom. Those channels branch off several times as well. The actual underground portion does go back in under the cliff face perhaps 35 feet and there is small branch in the back that is a very narrow passage that goes to the right another 15 feet or so. Don told me he had gone back in there on that dive. Coming out at night leads to those channels and it can feel like you are in a cave.

Small world story: I was diving with Don one day and my father was there. Turns out he knew Don because Don's mother was my father's secretary for years. I had no clue.

Sam and I have many Don stories. There was the time in Baja when Don convinced the Federal Police to provide us an escort into the sea in our full dive gear because the tourists at La Bufadora were crowding us. I digress.....

 

[garyw90]

Lt. Col. Donald K. Tooker and I were dive buddies and met in @Sam Miller III 18 week NAUI Advanced Class in around 1978 or 1979. That full story was written by Don in a Skin Diver Magazine article a few years earlier. We talked a lot about that experience of his and he and I dove that "cave" off South Laguna Beach together several times for lobster afterward. The "cave" is not quite as extensive as one would think. Don's dive was at night and there are several very long cracks in the rocks that have room to swim through, but at night it looks like a solid roof when swimming down the channels on the bottom. Those channels branch off several times as well. The actual underground portion does go back in under the cliff face perhaps 35 feet and there is small branch in the back that is a very narrow passage that goes to the right another 15 feet or so. Don told me he had gone back in there on that dive. Coming out at night leads to those channels and it can feel like you are in a cave.

Small world story: I was diving with Don one day and my father was there. Turns out he knew Don because Don's mother was my father's secretary for years. I had no clue.

Sam and I have many Don stories. There was the time in Baja when Don convinced the Federal Police to provide us an escort into the sea in our full dive gear because the tourists at La Bufadora were crowding us. I digress.....

Sounds suspiciously like Shaw's Cove.

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

Sounds suspiciously like Shaw's Cove.

Very similar reef structure as seen at Shaw's Cove, but south at the opposite side of the city. Boat access only (or a very long long surface swim).

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

As an aside, Don Tooker really was an amazing guy. He passed away some time ago. He flew F4U Corsairs in WWII transitioning into fighter jets in Korea and in Vietnam. He ejected from his fighter jet when it blew up during an in-air refueling mishap over the Pacific. He wrote two books about his adventures in military aviation during three wars, "The Second Luckiest Pilot" and "Stand Well Clear." He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a combat mission in Korea.

In his home he had a long hallway. As you walked down the hall he had 8X10 framed photos taken from a 16mm film showing him bringing in his on-fire shot-up Corsair in for a landing on an aircraft carrier, trapping, and being hauled out of the cockpit by the fire crew. Don was covered in oil and on fire as well. He said the first thing his CAG said to him was, "Tooker, you F'd up my flight deck again. I'm not sending you back out on another mission until tomorrow..."

One day we came up from a dive and he had a bigger lobster than I did. His exact words, "Fighter pilots get more tail." I miss him.

 

[Jake]

@Scuba Lawyer He sounds awesome, and thanks for the lobster story. That gave me a good laugh.

 

[chris kippax]

Great stories!
He sounded like an absolute legend!