I was born July 13 (yes, on a Friday), 1956, in Pittsburgh, PA, and grew up on the intercoastal waterway on the east coast of Florida, just south of Cape Kennedy. Activities on and in the water were literally an everyday kind'a thing for me and the gang I grew up with. I had been scuba diving for eight years even before I was certified in 1973. Most of our serious diving was in open ocean, miles from shore, in 60 to 100 feet of water. We could always count on a swift Gulf Stream current and plenty of wind chop, but the vis was usually 30 to 80 feet with 75 to 80 degree water temperatures.
In 1976, the Navy brought me to Pt. Mugu, California (on a motorcycle) to work on airborne radar and weapons systems, and I've lived within 20 miles of that base ever since. During the first 12 years or so I practically lived at Anacapa Island on weekends, on a 20 foot boat that I had. Between boats I would continue diving along the coast from a 4-man inflatable raft that I would launch through the surf and row out to the outer kelp beds. Then, about 12 or 13 years ago, I discovered kayak diving, and the fact that it suited my shore diving needs perfectly. Needless to say, I've never gone back to the raft.
When I'm not kayak diving, I am a single father of 2 girls, 18 and 19. For nearly 20 years, I was a Senior Manufacturing/Test Engineer for a company in Thousand Oaks, California, that produces high resolution imaging and pre-press systems for the printing and film-making industry. The product I was latest involved with was used to re-expose all the special effects and computer generated frames in the movie "Titanic" and other recent major releases. You might find it interesting that one high-resolution VistaVision frame contains over 100 megabytes of pixel data and there are 24 frames in one second of film!
In case it's not clear from my photo galleries, I also enjoy hiking, sailing my 18' Chrysler mono-hull (Buccaneer), mountain biking, blading (yes, all that safety gear is still quite necessary!), snow skiing and water skiing, mountain climbing, and just about any other activity you can think of doing outdoors or in the water.
In 1996 I self-published my very successful manual entitled "KAYAK DIVING - The Complete Guide to Outfitting and Using Your Dive Kayak". A few years ago, I re-released this publication as an e-Book on CD-ROM, with a new and topically expanded title of "Kayak Diving and Fishing, Surfing, Exploring & Play!"
In 1999, I became involved in diving and kayaking with disabled adventurers. I regularly work with Denise Dowd, of the Santa Barbara Rehabilitation Clinic, in diving and kayaking with groups of individuals having various disabilities ranging from CP and MS to quadriplegia.
I designed and wrote (for better or worse) this entire web site and I really enjoy this type of work too! My newest venture is underwater digital video. In the year 2000 I bought a Sony TRV-900 (and later a TRV-950) and an underwater housing and lighting system manufactured by Ocean Images. So, with the exception of lobster season, I've been trading my pole-spear in for my video camera on most of my dive outings. I also designed and built a digital video editing studio computer with 512MB SDRAM and 520GB of hard disk space. I have over a dozen projects in mind and have started to add some clips on this web site and on my CD from that endeavor!
The Halibut picture, which also appears on the back cover of my book, was taken in 1996 at Leo Carillo state beach, a few miles north of Malibu, Ca. I took this California Halibut in 50' of water with a pole-spear. It's 44" long and weighs just over 30 pounds. CLick HERE for the full story!
