Kayak Diving in the 70's

Growing up in Malibu was a bit of a tease because there was all this great diving to be done but no way to get there except to swim. I dove with free divers and their long paddleboards but there was no place for tanks. My sit on top kayak was a bridge between kayaks and paddleboards. With these S.O.T.'S one could straddle the craft like a horse and get into the large hatches.

The kelp beds were hundreds of yards off shore and fairly deep. My friend Dan DeVault and I finally went to a garage sale and got some scuba tanks but the tank was used up by the time we got to the good diving.

Here is one of the first editions of the fiberglass kayak with a tank in the back and probably another in the front. These boats didn't have a lot of flotation in the back but just enough. These boats were sluggish in the surf but once they were moving they would plow through anything.

The kayakmobile was an 59 VW with a truck bed on the back that I built from plywood. It had 1200 cc's and only 36 horsepower but would go anywhere and get 40 mpg for $200 dollars.

When we got back it was fat city. There was plenty of room to put lobster of "bugs" inside and fish. There was private beach in Malibu we had to paddle into that had a rock with abalone stacked on top of one another 4 deep. One tank in the back and as many as two more in the front. We did free diving also.

This was Dan and I with a large sheepshead fish that tasted like crab. Also lots of scallops and other fish. Nowadays most people just take pictures which is much easier on the wildlife. There is a sustainable way of fishing that allows for some harvesting. The otters which used to inhabit the whole pacific coast took any thing that wasn't in the cracks. The beds of abalone that we do have in places will go away when the otters come back like they have around sea otter island.

Now Pacifikayaks. The new kayaks will have a choice of a hatch in the back or tank well or fishing well. The wells in the back were good on the old kayaks because when coming in through the surf the back would fill up with the wave that just broke in back of us and help the kayak go straight in with the bow up.