A Coffee Cup for the Decades

 

One of the great benefits of scuba diving is the people you meet and the friends that you make.  Some of these friendships last a lifetime connected, over the years, by posts and messages on social media and an annual exchange of Christmas cards.  

For me, one such friend is David Porter.  I met Dave when he learned to scuba dive in the very first class that I taught as an assistant instructor with Ed Stetson in the Summer of 1985.  As it turned out, David needed a place to live for the 1985/86 UCSB school year.  He wanted to move out of the college student ghetto of Isla Vista in order to raise his GPA as he would be applying soon to law school.  I mentioned that I had a spare empty bedroom in my mobile home that it would rent cheap.  The class ended, nothing more was said.  A few weeks later, days before school started, he called and asked if the room was still available.  I replied it was.   He moved in shortly thereafter. Having another diver living in your home means you will always have a dive buddy.

At the same time I was assisting with Dave’s certification class, I was finishing up my SSI Dive Control Specialist (e.g., Divemaster) certification with Curt Wiessner at Santa Barbara Aquatics.  Between the two, I was spending a lot of time in the water.  When the summer ended, the number of dives declined.  I started swimming laps with my mask and fins in the 25-yard pool at the nearby Los Caneros Court Club in order to keep in condition for diving.  Someone once remarked to my brother Bob, who was also a member of the club, “some nutjob is snorkeling in the swimming pool.”  Bob replied, “oh yeah, that’s my brother” and quickly added, “he does that to stay in condition for scuba diving.”  

I kidded with Dave that“I am getting waterlogged.  I need to dry out before these wrinkles on my hands become permanent and I grow gills.”

After final exams were completed in early December, Dave was packing to go home to San Francisco for the Christmas break.  We exchanged Christmas gifts early.  

“I saw this in San Francisco and knew I had to get it for you” he said as he handed me the package.  I opened it and immediately got the joke.

Inside I discovered a Federal Penitentiary Alcatraz Swim Team” coffee mug. I have that mug to this day!

As many of my dive buddies will attest, I am a coffee hound.  Black, no cream or sugar.  I could not start a day of diving without a cup of brew from the 7-11 across the street from my house or board a dive boat if it didn’t have “navy coffee” already brewing in the oversized percolator.   Nearly 40 years later I still have and use that mug. 

Dave took the Rescue Diver course taught by Dennis Divins and Ed Stetson in the spring at UCSB.  Dave moved back into Isla Vista for his senior year. That summer, Dave and I worked for passage as rescue diver and divemaster, respectively, on weekend dive charters to the Channel Islands.  I monitored dive operations, he responded to divers needing assistance.  We would harvest scallops during our dives and barbeque them at my place when we got back.  We did lots of diving that summer. 

Dave went on to become President of the UCSB Scuba Club.  We had great times diving, skiing at Mammoth, visiting Marineland just before it closed, and on the annual UCSB Scuba Club dive trip to Catalina Island.  He also got certified as an assistant instructor before graduating in June 1987.  The assistant instructor rating allowed him to be a scuba instructor that summer at the Club Med in Playa Blanca, Mexico.  Years of French classes in school sealed the deal.  I went down to the Club for a week that August.  When I got to the Club, the Chief of the Village asked me if I would consider taking a two week position as a scuba instructor to fill in for an injured instructor.  It took me about 10 seconds to say “yes.”  It turned out I could only stay a week, so Club Med flew Ed Stetson down to work the second week.

He married his college sweetheart, Annie, graduated from law school, started a practice, renovated a house in Sausalito that had been in his family for years, and, with Annie, raised two boys into adulthood.  The bio on the law firm’s webpage states “he enjoys hiking, mountain biking, surfing, snow skiing, and fishing. He was a rescue diver and scuba diving instructor before becoming an attorney.”  He sure was, one of the best.

Every so often, I will be clutching the mug filled with hot coffee and remember with great fondness the great times we had diving.  It is funny how an inanimate object can evoke such strong and wonderful memories.