A first look at realism - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 31

Years later their wet suit business evolved into the highly successful line
of Body Glove products.
In the early years Dive n' Surf struggled to survive, and the Meistrells,
who were superb divers, supplemented their income by taking on spe-
cial diving projects. One project they did regularly—which still gives
me the willies just thinking about it—was the inspection of the Edi-
son power station's half-mile-long intake pipe. Their job was to check
for obstructions and the general condition of the pipe— on the inside,
mind you, not the outside! They entered the pipe from the land end
with twin seventy-two-cubic-foot scuba tanks and their underwater
camera and notepad. The water flow would then push them the half
mile through the pipe to the deep end, where, so the plan went, they
would emerge and come to the surface. If they had encountered a ma-
jor obstruction, however, there would have been no way to reverse and
go back because of the current pushing them through. All I can say is,
they deserved a princely sum to do that kind of work.
The Meistrells also ran dive boat trips to Catalina Island. I was some-
times invited along if they didn't have a full load of paying customers;
this gave me the opportunity to dive in places I couldn't reach in my
little boat. One of the most spectacular and memorable sites we vis-
ited was the Farnsworth Bank seamount on the far side of the island.
It wasn't really a bank, more like a rocky pinnacle jutting up from deep
water to within sixty feet of the surface. The location on the seaward
side of Catalina Island meant there was almost always a strong current
or surge from the swells rolling in from the open Pacific Ocean.
The top of the seamount is quite small in area and it is covered with
a forest of algae called sea palm ( Eisenia ), which thrives where there's
a lot of water movement. Dropping down from the top you come across
large clumps of the beautiful California purple hydrocoral ( Stylaster
californica ). Although Farnsworth Bank is now a marine preserve, col-
lecting this purple coral for public aquarium exhibits was permitted in
the early years. We found the best coral heads at 130 feet and deeper.
It became a dangerous challenge to carefully chisel them loose and bring
them up to the boat, given the limited bottom time and air supply we
had at that depth.
On one memorable dive in 1966, on a Sea World boat, we located