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14 SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | OCTOBER 2020 By Sherrie Chaparro, Resident Gene and his wife Lin moved to our community from Temecula in January 2019. They have five adult children and seven grandchildren. Given Gene's lifelong interest in scuba diving and underwater photography, it is not surprising they decided to move to the "Island." Like his father, an airplane pilot, Gene learned to fly at 15 and holds an Airline Transport Pilot certification. He started his career in aviation, then moved on to finance before retiring. As a child Gene's favorite television show was Sea Hunt. His first introduction to scuba diving occurred during his high school years, although he didn't aggressively pursue it until his late 20's. Gene developed an interest in photography through his father, and it seemed natural to combine his two hobbies of photography and diving. Some of Gene's favorite dives are wreck diving and deep diving, photographing subjects like Purple Hydro Corals on deep reefs over a hundred feet down off the back side of Catalina. Or taking macro (magnified) shots of one-inch long Nudibranchs (small colorful snail like marine life). A favorite local wreck is a 366 ft. destroyer escort ship sunk off San Diego in 120 ft. of water. Depending on conditions, a typical San Diego boat dive will last about five hours and consist of two one-hour dives. A Catalina dive will take all day with traveling to and from the island, with three separate dives at different locations. Of course, I asked him about shark sightings, which apparently is an oxymoron, because Gene says typically you will not see a shark coming! Seriously, though, sharks have little interest in divers. Gene's real concern is entanglements from fishing line and discarded fishing nets. Although kelp is beautiful to dive through and photograph, entanglement in kelp, which has happened to him a few times, is a concern. If you are caught in kelp, it does not work to pull on it, since the strands are extraordinarily strong when pulled straight. Instead, carefully pull kelp away as it naturally wants to float when untangled. Never take a dive knife and start cutting, you may cut an air hose! Also, kelp strands will snap like an asparagus stem if sharply bent. Over the past 30 years Gene has qualified many students in basic and advanced scuba diving, as well as various specialties such as underwater photography, wreck diving, deep diving, and diving with mixed gas. He stopped teaching scuba diving a few years ago, since he no longer felt at the top of his game and did not want to be taking eight students alone to 30 feet for their first ocean dive. The most important thing he tells students Meet Gene Shabinaw, Resident Scuba Diver & Photographer Deep dive

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