Avalon’s connection to the history of scuba diving
35th Harbor Clean-Up
to feature tribute to
scuba's pioneers
BY JON COUNCIL
The Annual Avalon Harbor
Clean-Up has reached its 35th year.
The event is scheduled for Saturday,
Feb. 20. Throughout those 35 years,
’ to the thousands of scuba divers
and dedicated organizers who have
participated in the environmental
impacting cleanup, Avalon’s com-
munity is vastly appreciative and
grateful.
To those same divers, they too
owe a certain degree of thanks, to
the adventurous spirited first gen—
Watson
From page 1
Dakar seems to be perpetually
about 100,000 people behind in its
infrastructure.
The traffic is horrible and very
little attention is paid to traffic
laws. While there is extensive bus
service, with lines crisscrossing
the peninsula, the buses are uni-
versally way too crowded and it’s
not uncommon to have to wait two
or three buses to find one that has
enough room to squeeze aboard.
It was on one of those buses
that I made my first trip into the
downtown area of Dakar to regis-
ter for my French language classes
at the Institut Francais. For the
equivalent of about 30 cents, you
get a one hour ride in an ancient
bus, many'of which were abused» "
for years and years someplace else
before they came to Senegal (the
emergency escape notices were
written in English .
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eration scuba pioneers who helped
usher in a new era of underwater
exploration along with newly devel-
oped skill sets and equipment to
make it all possible.
As a tribute and thanks to all of
the early scuba pioneers as well as
this generation of harbor clean up
participants, there will be a vintage
dive gear exhibit on display next to
the stage on Crescent Avenue dur—
ing the Harbor Clean up event on
Feb. 20.
The exhibit features one of the
largest private collections of vintage
dive gear in the US. and includes
some of Frank Sinatra’s gear, items
that belonged to Jacques Cousteau,
movie equipment from James Bond’s
“Thunderball” along with some of
I wasn’t even entirely sure how
far I had to go or, more impor-
tantly, where I was supposed to
get off.
It really didn’t matter anyway
since I was mushed‘up against the
spare tire dangling from a chain
behind the driver and couldn’t re-
ally see where we were going.
My landlord had told me that
the bus stop at which I needed to
“dc-bus” would be the same stop
that everyone else on the bus want—
ed.
Sure enough, somewhere in the
madness of downtown Dakar, we
came to a stop and the bus emptied
out. So I followed suit.
The stop happened to be near
the Marche Sandaga, or the San—
daga Market, one of several big
marketplaces around town.
I‘ try to avoid cliches like “You
can find anything you want there,”
but at Sandaga, it’s true. Spread
out over several city blocks, the
places that somehow qualifies as
one of the modern wonders of the
world as well as one of the ancient
wonders of the world at the same
time.
Jacques Cousteau. Courtesy photo
the rarest pieces of first generation
scuba gear still in existence. The
exhibit will be available to the pub-
lic to view, photograph, ask ques—
Not only are the goods for sale
here from all over the world (from
oranges to sunglasses to iPhones
to barbecues), but they’re sold by
people form everywhere and re-
cent immigrants to Senegal from
as far away as China are well rep—
resented here.
Don’t worry about finding your
way around in this maelstrom of
merchant madness, you will have
plenty of people offering 'up their
services to escort you around (and
escort you to their own booth). Be
forewarned, though, that even if
you end up not buying anything,
your self—appointed “guide” will
still expect some form of payment
for “helping” you.
The best thing to do is just po-
litely decline their help from the
outset.
If that doesn’t work (and it
probably won’t) you can always
pretend you don’t speak French
or English or Spanish or any of
Marche Sandaga is one. of those :sthe'rhalf dmeaianguagesmany of
these folks speak.
Like the nearby Marche Ker-
mel, which tends to focus on meat
and seafood (vegans might want to
avoid this place), Marche Sandaga
forA: Better Avalon
www.ABeterAvalon.mm
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Cell: 818.399.7897
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SERVICES
tions regarding it and to simply
enjoy learning about scuba history.
The display is set up as a gesture
of gratitude to all those who do so
much for the community of Avalon
during the Harbor Clean up and to
acknowledge those early pioneers in
diving who created the equipment,
dive practices, instruction models
and scuba industry which helped
make this annual underwater clean
up event possible.
Every diver today is essentially
standing on the shoulders of those
undersea pioneers who cut their
teeth with the most rudimentary
levels of equipment. It shouldn’t
come as much of a surprise that the
groundbreaking efforts of scuba’s
pioneers were substantial. It should
is one of those places that predate
history. Both Sandaga and Ker-
mel were active marketplaces at
the time of European contact more
than 500 years ago and it’s diffi-
cult to imagine that there was ever
even a single day in the past 1,000
years where there wasn’t some-
thing being bought-and sold here.
PRAYER DAY
I concluded my registration
business at the Institute in prepa-
ration for the beginning of classes
on Monday and figured now was a
good time to head out of the down-
town area and back to the Casbah,
my delightful condo I had rented
in the northern part of town.
One thing I hadn’t counted on,
however, was that today was Fri-
day and that means prayer day in
the religion of Islam, which repre—
sents about 90 percent of the popu-
lation of Senegal.
What this meant was that just as
I was leaving the Institute to find
my bus back home, the call to the
faithful began blaring from loud—
speakers around the city and the
whole downtown area suddenly
became packed with young Mos-
DR. JARED YOUNG ER
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For a Saturday Clinic
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be remembered that just as with any
blossoming industry, that early on,
the angle of the learning curve is, if
nothing else, incrediblyimpressive.
Southern California, including
Catalina Island played unique roles
with the pioneering community of
scuba divers. Geographically, south-
ern California is literally a divers
wet dream. Coastal waters teem—
ing with marine life and generally
boasting moderately warm and clear
conditions year round all had a
magnetic effect on any would-be
undersea explorers and drew them
from all over the country to see
what had been largely inaccessible
to the average person prior to the
early 19505.
Dive, Page
lem men headed to prayer in the
city streets. At one point, I round-
ed a corner and coming straight
for me was a wall of young robed
men (the women aren’t allowed to
pray in public) with their prayer
rugs in hand marching straight to—
ward me.
There wasn’t really anywhere
else to go so I headed straight into
the crowd like a salmon swim-
ming upstream saying “perdon”
here and “excuse moi” there.
One by one, they began setting
their prayer rugs down in the mid-
dle of the street and before long
the entire downtown area came
to a standstill. All traffic stopped
and the non-Moslems in their cars
and taxis and delivery trucks sim-
ply had to wait for a half an hour
or so.
In the meantime, in my quest to
find the bus stop for my return trip
home, I had gotten “fenced in,” as
it were, in the middle of a sea of
prayer rugs and their owners.
Wisely surmising that it
wouldn’t be kosher for me to step
on someone’s‘pr-ayer rug, I simply
had to start asking for permission
to pass by each person, one by
one. I wasn’t sure what the reac—
tion would be, given that they were
right in the middle of prayers and
I was obviously not an adherent to
their religion.
But rather than impatience, I
was greeted with apologies and
toothy smiles as the pray—ers
pulled up their rugs, giving me
enough room to pass.
My work for the day done, I
found my way to the “Dakar Dem
Dikk” bus stop (the name of oneifiof
the local transportation agencies)
and made my way home again'to
plan for my weekend adventuresj-v.
NEXT WEEK: ILE DE
GOREE A
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