Orange County --did you know????????

[Sam Miller III]

Some interesting historical diving facts about Orange county (the OC!) California from one of my articles from long long ago

DID YOU KNOW....

Orange County....
A few little known facts about Orange County;

In the genesis....Orange County was the fountain head of recreational diving in California, the US and for the world.

It had the most manufactures -- US Divers, Voit, Sea Tec, Inflatable systems, JBL, Mares, Spearfisherman, Mark V, Newport divers, Sea Quest, Del Mar, Sea Suits, Water Wear, Kettenhofen Wet suits, Sampson,Sea Pro, Riffe International, Alexander Spearguns, and many more lessor known and now forgotten manufactures

Divers cove/Pic nic cove was selected as the location for the world's first Competitive Spear fishing meet in 1950 and every year to the early 1960s.

Divers Cove was not named as a result of recreational diving activity

Two world record fish were speared off Orange county's coast; the BSB & WSB.

It's waters did contained a variety of shell fish; Mussels, Oysters, Pismo Clams, Scallops, & Lobsters

It has a train and several airplanes, an ocean going barge and several WW 11 landing craft sunk off it's coast.

It has an underwater canyon

It had the second recreational diving ordnance in California. (Aka the Laguna beach dive ordinance)

It had one of the first California game reserves at Heisler park, named after Glen Vedder, the architect and driving force behind the Laguna beach diving ordinance.

It has a number of piers that are dive able.

PADI's first office was in Orange County.

In the genesis of instruction Orange County had more LA County Certified Underwater Instructors than LA County.

It had one of the first dive shops in California; Lyle Hoskins and sons (Bill Now you know!)

Three OC residents were honored as "Fathers of Spearfishing" at the 2000 Millennium Free Diving conference ( The late Ron Merker (Dr. Bill's Instructor.) Allan "Omar" Wood and Dr. Sam Miller,111).


Now you know!
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Copyright 2015 Dr. Samuel Miller,111 and Dr. Samuel Miller, IV may not be reproduced or copied in any format for private or commercial usage with out express permission of the authors and the TPR news paper

 

[iamrushman]

that's Bitchin and cool dude......Far Out, thanks for sharing.

 

[Sam Miller III]

'that's Bitchin and cool dude......Far Out, thanks for sharing.'

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Strong ho-dad surfer lingo from a resident of Florida

FYI Bitchin in surfer talk is pronounced " BBBBich -INNNNN"

The main lesson is to remember where it all began ...In Southern California!
( not Florida, New York, Chicago or Texas....recreational diving began in SoCal; Los Angeles County, Orange County and San Diego County )


Bill did you notice---- the first dive shop in OC


SDM

 

[Divebum Don]

Thanks Sam for bringing it full circle! ...but you well know hodads and surfers would never hang out together... ;~)

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Hey Sam, Did Rene have his shop in Socal? Wasn't he the first to sell an Aqualung in the US

---------- Post added July 22nd, 2015 at 10:15 PM ----------

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Strong ho-dad surfer lingo from a resident of Florida

FYI Bitchin in surfer talk is pronounced " BBBBich -INNNNN"

The main lesson is to remember where it all began ...In Southern California!
( not Florida, New York, Chicago or Texas....recreational diving began in SoCal; Los Angeles County, Orange County and San Diego County )


Bill did you notice---- the first dive shop in OC


SDM

And don't ever god damn forget it!!!!!!!!


Do you by chance know who was the first dive club in Norcal?
i believe it was the Richmond Pelicans.

 

[diverrex]

Thanks Sam. I have only been diving for 10 years so I always appreciate your historical context.

It is interesting that recreational scuba diving started in Southern California, but not really surprising since we start many things.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Hey Sam, Did Rene have his shop in Socal? Wasn't he the first to sell an Aqualung in the US?
And don't ever god damn forget it!!!!!!!!

Do you by chance know who was the first dive club in Norcal?
i believe it was the Richmond Pelicans.

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Sorry for the late response I don't live on the SCUBA board and often it will be some time before I can find time to respond.

Question --Did Rene have his first shop in SoCal?
Yes it was called "Rene Sports" located at 1045 Broxton Avenue, Westwood LA 24 Bradshaw 2-1596 ( SoCal and LA was considerably smaller in the 1940 &1950s)
In March 1952 the name was changed from Rene sports to US Divers

Question -- Wasn't he the first to sell an Aqualung in the US?
No... JYC came over to US on a boat . He sold first units to Arnie Post of Arnies Sporting Goods or was it Arnies Sports? in NYC.
( Just what a snow bound New Yorker needs...so later on Rene picked up the dealership)

Question-- Do you by chance know who was the first dive club in Norcal?
i believe it was the Richmond Pelicans.

I don't know who was first dive club in NoCal.
During the genesis of recreational diving the Asruris brothers were very active in NorCal If still around they would know

There were several books published in the 1950-60s that listed all the dive clubs in the US and as I recall the world...There were very few clubs so the list didn't take up too much space.

Skin Diver Magazine (SDM) published two editions the May 1958 & the January 1963 which listed all the know dive clubs. I reviewed the May 1958 and did not see a listing for a club called "Richmond Pelicans." However I was surprised at the number of clubs in NorCal.

As would be expected California clubs dominated the lists since diving was essentially unknown out side of California and a few of the major cities of the US

After all this is where it all began........Certainly no in NYC or Chicago or points east

Hope this helps...
SDM

Bill did you notice? ...the first dive shop in OC!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Thanks Sam for answering my questions.
I am interested to know about some of the first dive clubs in Norcal since this is where I live and dive.
I know this much: The only shop That sold a S.C.U.B.A. in this area in the late 50's was Bamboo Reef in San Francisco which was owed by a guy who was one of the first to dive the Doria. I know this because I have a friend (who is pushing 80 now) bought one of the first double hose regs available in the area. He and his friend/dive buddy had to work their butts off to save enough to put their money together and go down to SF and buy one brand new Aqualung and and a tank. They used to share the reg. While one guy used it the other would freedive around, then they would trade.

Most all the diving on the north coast was freediving for abalone and there was a small separate industry born up here to support and supply that need.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Thanks Sam for answering my questions.
I am interested to know about some of the first dive clubs in Norcal since this is where I live and dive.
I know this much: The only shop That sold a S.C.U.B.A. in this area in the late 50's was Bamboo Reef in San Francisco which was owed by a guy who was one of the first to dive the Doria. I know this because I have a friend (who is pushing 80 now) bought one of the first double hose regs available in the area. He and his friend/dive buddy had to work their butts off to save enough to put their money together and go down to SF and buy one brand new Aqualung and and a tank. They used to share the reg. While one guy used it the other would freedive around, then they would trade.

Most all the diving on the north coast was freediving for abalone and there was a small separate industry born up here to support and supply that need.

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Eric,

I appreciate your interest in dive history which should be preserved with accuracy for the future generations rather than I think, I heard, I suppose, I was told....Or the wild stories from the modern self declared historians who remember events that never happened, equipment that was never produced and people who never were involved..

The dive shop you elude to would be the Bamboo Reef. It was founded around the early 1960s by Al Giddings and Leroy French, but was sold to an eastern transplant many years ago. Leroy departed the US and has been living some where in the tropics for many years. AL has totally retired and at last report was living in Montana.

One of the great Camera housings of that era was the Giddings housing for a 35 MM SLR Nikon. It was a bullet proof housing which was designed by a SoCal diver Bob Dunn...who also designed a number of other great housings

Al was one of the divers on the SDM trip to the Andrea Doria in the 1970s???

It should be noted that the first dive on the AD was a few hours after it sunk by Peter Gimbel ( Of the NYC Department store fame) and a photographer.

A few months later in the fall of 1956 Peter enlisted west coast -SoCal divers Earl Murray, Bob Dill of NEL fame and Ramsey Parks the founder of the Santa Barbara City College commercial diving school, to explore the AD.

SCUBA had only been in the US for less than ten years and was crude and unreliable at best. The wet suit was only a few years old, they had no instrumentation or floatation. It was the equitant of the early flights across the Atlantic

Al Giddings was a diver on the SDM trip to the Andrea Doria which occurred some 20 or more years later with modern equipment.

I suspect but at this juncture I cannot verify but one of the the first club in NorCal would have been the San Jose Flipper Dippers. They were very visible in the diving community and their use of the word "Flipper" indicates a term that was used commercially as well as in common use in the 1940 & 1950s to denote dive fins The remnants of the clubs membership celebrated their 50 years as a club some years and immediately disbanded. I would suspect there are a few still around but ageing

San Jose also had the late Stan Sheely's dive shop from the very beginning of organized diving. As I recall he became visible around the early 1950s. He made and marketed a number of aftermarket items for double hose regulators. several of which Stan gave to me for my collection.

In about 1958 he got the jump on the rest of the diving community by producing and unsuccessfully marketing the first red and white dive flag in California and one of the first in the US. He had 500 flags produced even before they were officially adapted by the diving public in 1960. Stan's dive flag did not sell well in California, especially in San Jose NorCal...Per Stan he sold a few the first year a few more the next year but still had a huge pile gathering dust.

Along came Bob Mitchel on a sales call. Bob was the founder and owner the San Diego based "Aqua Craft" and travel the coast servicing his dive store customers. By that time the flag had been adapted by the diving world and was being actively promoted on every cover of SDM. Bob needed products to sell and Stan had a stack of diver flags so they struck up a deal.

Stan sold his dive flag inventory to Bob for he same price he had brought them for 67 cents a a piece with the understanding that Stan could purchase any quantity of dive frags in the future for 67 cents each. Stan never order a flag from Bob.

Bob marketed the flags all over the western states and the US for a handsome profit.

That is how the dive flag was introduced to California and a large portion of the US.

It is called dive history.

Before Stan departed to the big reef in the sky he made arrangement to donate his collection of vintage (antique?) diving equipment and assorted paraphilia to the local museum. I was contacted as a consultant and spent considerable time and effort identifying equipment and a number of dive flags he had proposed prior to the adaption of the red and white flag.

There is a display of Stan's dive equipment at a San Jose museum I would suggest that if you are truly interested that you make a visit and pay homage to the true pioneer of NoCal diving.

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I published the following DYI article some time ago in my dedicated column "The Way it was...." in my monthly in the now defunct San Diego based national dive magazine "Discover Diving."

It is about one of the great pioneers of diving the late Charlie Sturgil and a mask he made for me so many years ago, but also FYI in paragraph one also describes how he dove for abalone prior to the introduction of a dive mask

"The Mask,

One of the great pioneer divers of all times was the late Charlie Sturgil. "The Old Walrus," as he was affectionately known, started his diving career in 1929 in the frigid waters off Northern California where he hunted for abalone by a method he described as "feeling for abalone." He would dive on a reef, feel until he found an abalone and pry it off, without the use of mask, fins, snorkel or thermal protection.

Charlie began diving with a mask using a Japanese mask in the late 1930s which was loaned to him by his good friend Bill O'Conner. A few years later after the end of WW 11, Charlie, a master tool and die maker and an inventor of sorts, developed the necessary tooling to produce masks on a semi-custom basis for himself and a few close friends. I consider myself very fortunate to have been included in the latter category.

In early years during the genesis of recreational diving the masks were either too large, too small, too stiff or after a few dives, would rapidly deteriorate into a gummy, sticky mess. This did not make for comfortable diving! After using a number of the masks of that era,the Japanese imports, and the American made *Sea Net, I decided it was time to contact Charlie to ask him if he could make one of his custom masks for me.

After checking my meager finances, found I could possibly afford one of Charlie's masks, so I gave him a call. "Sure, Sammy, I'd be happy to make a mask for you, come on over", Charlie replied to my request. Within moments I was off to the temple of Southern California diving, Charlie Sturgil's garage.

I was met by this jovial hunk of a man with his infectious, ever-present smile. "Hey ya, Sammy" was always his cordial greeting. Alter a few moments of catching up on the diving scene it, was time to get to work. "Sammy, I'm now making two masks; the original for $6.00 and a new oval model for $8.00", Charlie explained. After considerable soul searching and penny counting, I opted for what I felt I could afford, the original round mask for $6.00.

Now, Charlie's garage was something to behold. It appeared to be in total disarray, and the best way to describe it would be the day after a big sale in a bargain basement. Diving equipment in various stages of repairs, pieces of metal, lengths of stainless rods scattered about... Omnipresent was the huge metal turret lathe and miscellaneous metal working machines. But to Charlie, it was his arena, it was where he excelled in turning these seemingly scrap pieces of metal into custom spear points, spear shafts, yes, even masks.

Charlie knew the location, size, shape and type of everything in his garage. His storage system was logical and certainly workable, but it still defies the imagination how he managed to find anything, let alone make anything, but he did.

Charlie went to work with the speed and skill of a emergency room surgeon. He immediately uncovered a length of 5 inch O.D. soft rubber World War 11, surplus firehose, from which he cut a 4 inch piece. He placed the piece of rubber hose in the wooden mold and proceeded to his trusty bench grinder where he slowly cut a 1/8 inch wide, 3/32 deep groove all around the edge for the glass. This was followed by the rough contouring for the forehead, cheeks, and upper lip. He then went to his metal rack and withdrew a piece of 3/4 x 16 inch 22 gauge stainless steel, which he placed in his specially constructed mold and carefully, yet skillfully, forced the stainless steel around the mold forming it into a familiar round mask shape. His next step was to form the band evenly and smoothly around the mold creating the lip for the compression hand with light rapid laps of a hammer. Using silver solder, the welding process of the era, he soldered the tabs for the strap and the compression screw tabs to complete the band. A piece of pre-cut 1/3 inch glass, the same kind used for window glass, was taken from the shelf and fit into the groove; the compression band placed around the mask and the compression screw tightened.

At last, the mask was assembled. My own custom Sturgil mask! Charlie proceeded to take some cursory measurements of my then youthful face, and returned to the grinding wheel, skillfully grinding a little here, a little there, another trial fit, a little more grinding. Finally, a perfect fit. A final hand finish with fine sandpaper, attaching of the strap, cut from a truck inner tube, and I was the proud possessor of a real genuine Charlie Sturgil Original Style Diving Mask.

This occurred many years ago when diving as well as life was much simpler, a time when pride in workmanship and ownership were at a premium. Charlie made almost 40 of these one of a kind custom dive masks, however only three are known to have survived the rigors of our disposable society, mine, Alex Pierce's of Toronto, Canada and Charlie's widow's Laura's mask which now on loan and rests in a Southern California museum. And indeed they are museum pieces... the three remaining masks are all almost sixty years old and represent an era which was experienced by only a precious few which will never be experienced again upon this earth.

Charlie has reverend position in the fraternity of diving pioneers; he won the world's Spearfishing contest in 1950 with a pole spear, was a LA County Underwater Instructor and serendipity developed much of the spearfishing and SCUBA equipment which has become mainstream in todays diving.

I will never forget Charlie, nor will anyone who ever knew him.... nor will there ever be another mask like a Sturgil Mask.

Dr Samuel Miller"

<< copyright 2115 by Dr.Samuel Miller,111 and Dr.Samuel Miller,IV may not be reproduce for private or commercial use with out the specific written permission of the authors >>

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post script;

* the first American made dive mask was designed and patented in 1940 by Frank Roedecker and produced by Pops Romano who owned the first recreational diving manufacturing company "Sea Net" located in Terminal Island San Pedro California. The mask is known as the Sea Net mask and today is highly prized by collectors.

I used my Sturgil mask for about 10 years until Bud Brown's "Swimmaster wide" view appeared and switched to that mask which I still use. The 60 + year old Sturgil mask is as good as new and could be worn if I so desired..

We Charlie, Frank and myself were all members of a long forgotten long disbanded dive club called the Southern California Skin Divers. Only two members are still alive, Harry Vetter (LA Co & NAUI #4 & your truly LACo, NAUI #27 & PADI 241 or 2241.my records were lost)

Charlie passed on November 15 1984, His devoted wife Laura passed on a few years ago at the age of 90.

About 25 years ago at the "Fathers of Spearfishing" gathering at Seatec/inflatable systems in Corona California I organized a "Tribute to Charlie." Nothing formal, we just stood around and told stories about our experiences with Charlie--and what stories were told...The experiences we had!

If Charlie knew you and liked you he always addressed you in the familar; Ie Sammy, Bobbie, Jimmie,--Those he didn't have great admiration or didn't know well it was formal Sam, Bob or Jim.

His daugher Laura Lee was married to Billy Meistral, one of the twin brothers who founded Dive and Surf and the very sucessful Body glove. Billy and his brother Bobby passed on several years ago and are now diving on that big reef in the sky.

A SoCal spearfishing club The Fathomiers has been presenting the Charlie Sturgil spearfishing meet for about 30 years...It came full circle when Charlie's grand daughter, Laura Lee Gonta won the meet several years ago using one of Charlie's legendary pole spears.

I still have a number of items custom made for me by Charlie; the mask, points, stringers, dive float frame etc. All are as good as they were when he made them so many years ago, no longer is use they are religated to places of honor in my garage, a silent testimony to days and dives of the past.

So now you know...Just a little about Charlie Sturgil and small part of the rest of the story of recreational diving

SDM

you will note it is 4:00 AM ..I couldn't sleep so wrote this..


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[Sam Miller III]

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Eric,

I appreciate your interest in dive history which should be preserved with accuracy for the future generations rather than I think, I heard, I suppose, I was told....Or the wild stories from the modern self declared historians who remember events that never happened, equipment that was never produced and people who never were involved..

The dive shop you elude to would be the Bamboo Reef. It was founded around the early 1960s by Al Giddings and Leroy French, but was sold to an eastern transplant many years ago. Leroy departed the US and has been living some where in the tropics for many years. AL has totally retired and at last report was living in Montana.

One of the great Camera housings of that era was the Giddings housing for a 35 MM SLR Nikon. It was a bullet proof housing which was designed by a SoCal diver Bob Dunn...who also designed a number of other great housings

Al was one of the divers on the SDM trip to the Andrea Doria in the 1970s???

etc......

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update
Leroy French...from a knowledgeable friend :

"Leroy French opened another small dive shop in the Willows Shopping Center, Concord, CA. in the early 80's. He was there a little over a year (I purchased my first custom wetsuit from him). The shop was closed and Leroy left the country without notice due to some legal issues he had. Very recently Leroy returned to the US and has written some articles in the NAUI Journal."

SDM


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