An Interview with Leslie Leaney, Project Co-chairman
Very few people know it, but Santa Barbara is recognized as the birthplace of deepwater commercial diving technologies. That’s set to change on April 5, 2025, with the unveiling of the Deepwater Diving Monument at a prominent location adjacent to the Santa Barbara Harbor. For several decades the vast majority of deepwater diving helmets used by commercial divers worldwide have been made in Santa Barbara.
The following interview with Leslie Leaney, project co-chairman, explains how the Deepwater Diving Monument project has gone from idea to reality. In addition to being this project’s co-chair, Leaney is co-founder of the Historical Diving Society USA, Founding Trustee of Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, Founder and Publisher of The Journal of Diving History, and recipient of 2023 California Scuba Service Award.
CDN: The Deepwater Diving Monument in Santa Barbara is a unique project for the California diving community. Exactly what is it and why?
Leaney: Well, the “what” is that the Deepwater Diving Monument is a 10-foot-tall monument that recognizes Santa Barbara as the historical birthplace of deepwater commercial mixed gas diving. It comprises of an eight-foot-tall bronze diver, mounted on a two-foot-high granite-clad base, and depicts a commercial diver wearing a Kirby Morgan Superlite 17b diving helmet. The Monument is located on the walkway entrance to Santa Barbara harbor and is a tribute to the local divers who during the 1960s developed international deep water mixed gas diving.
The “why” is the historical fact that, casting off from Santa Barbara harbor in November 1962, Hugh “Dan” Wilson used his Japanese abalone diving helmet, that he had modified from a free flow helmet into a demand helmet using helium, to successfully make a 400-foot dive in the Santa Barbara channel. Wilson’s dive launched the rapid and massive transformation from air to mixed gas diving for deep water around the world. History shows that the equipment and operations developed by the Santa Barbara divers in this period revolutionized the international diving industry. A month after Wilson’s dive, Hannes Keller made a 1,000-foot mixed gas scientific dive just down the coast off Catalina Island. News of Keller’s dive went around the world, partly because two lives were lost during it, but news of Wilson’s dive did not make it past the local newspaper. Hardly anyone outside a small group of local divers and historians even remember this.
Many of the divers responsible for the advancements of this period, like Bob Kirby, Bev Morgan, Lad Handelman and Bob Ratcliffe stayed in Santa Barbara, and over the following decades mentored several of the area’s younger divers. All those pioneering divers have passed on and a very small group of local diving historians and divers wanted to ensure their important contributions to the world’s industrial economies was properly recognized; and now it is. The area’s most important on-going contribution to the world economy. Mission accomplished! On time and on budget, thanks to committed teamwork.
CDN: Where did the idea for the Monument come from? The events you mention are half a century old.
Leaney: The Monument is basically combination of two similar ideas separated by about twenty years. A couple of decades back I went to the port of Broome, Australia, to buy the retired equipment of one of the many pearl diving companies based there. My hosts showed me around the small town of Broome, and I was very impressed by a life-sized bronze statue of a pearl diver, which was erected to recognize the town’s international status as the center of the world’s pearl diving industry. At the time I was President of the Historical Diving Society (HDS) and when I returned home to Santa Barbara, I suggested to the HDS Board that we look at doing something similar for Santa Barbara. We discussed some ideas and made a few notes, but at that time the HDS Board had already agreed to help support Scrap Lundy’s work with the Cannery Row Foundations project to erect the Cannery Row Divers Memorial at San Carlos Beach in Monterey. We did not have the capacity to take on a new very large project. So, the idea for a Santa Barbara statue was shelved, and with changes in HDS administration and my workload, it was never reintroduced.
Around this same period my friend, US Navy Master Diver and SEALAB Aquanaut Bob Barth, asked me to help with fund raising and promotion for the USN Mark V Monument in Panama City, Florida. This was a project Bob and Dave Sullivan had partnered with retired Royal Navy Clearance Diving Officer Paul Guiver of Divers Gifts & Collectables in the UK, who is also friend.
Paul and I stayed in touch after the Mark V project was completed, and in 2021, he contacted me asking what I thought of the idea of having a second monument in the US to recognize commercial divers.
I told him about my earlier idea, and I went looking for my notes. So, the Deepwater Diving Monument project has those two very similar ideas as its parents.
CDN: So, you and Paul started the project together?
Leaney: No, no. It was far too big a project, and we always knew we would need a team before we could take a meaningful first step. Paul already had his friend Tony Sexton, a fellow retired Royal Navy Clearance Diver, as his business partner in their parent company, Monument Projects Limited. Through my work with the Journal of Diving History I hold positions with historical organizations in Asia and Europe and have a lot of international contacts. What I ideally needed as a partner was someone local with commercial diving experience and strong community ties here. Santa Barbara is famous for strict building codes and lengthy processes, and with my workload, dealing with those things were beyond what I had the time and resources to tackle. I knew Don Barthelmess, who had headed up Santa Barbara City College’s Marine Diving Technology (SBCCMDT) program. Don had also received the HDS Nick Icorn Diving Heritage Award for his work in bringing back the Purisima diving bell to Santa Barbara. The Purisima is another Dan Wilson contribution to Santa Barbara diving history, and you (California Diving News) showed a photo of it on the cover of a recent issue. Don was sort of pre-qualified for the project, plus was retired, and had the time and knowledge to battle through the permit processes. We had both worked for HDS and Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM), and he agreed to join me.
We met with Paul and Tony in November 2021 at DEMA Las Vegas and became co-chairmen of the project. We headed up design, location, fund raising and everything else, while Paul and Tony of Monument Projects Ltd, became the Prime Contractors. Don and I formed a committee to assist us, and recruited Don’s wife Carol Kallman, who is a successful fund raiser, Association of Diving Contractors Executive Director Phil Newsum, Aqueos CEO Ted Roche, Mike Morgan from Kirby Morgan, and Greg Gorga from SBMM. Everyone on the committee was connected to the Santa Barbara diving community in some way, and all worked as volunteers. This has been the team from start to finish, and in the spirit of giving something back to our community, we agreed that we would gift the Monument to the city. We were extremely fortunate to garner the early unwavering support of Mike Wiltshire, the City Waterfront Director. Mike was the critical player in moving the project through the city system and selecting, and approving, the site. Without his cooperation and support I doubt we would be where we are today.