Women Divers Hall of Fame 2015 Calendar!

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Women Divers Hall of Fame 2015 Calendar!
Lotte Hass
Valerie Taylor
Dottie Frazier
Valerie Taylor,
Andrea Doria
The women who dove the
The cruise ship, Andrea Doria, was launched in 1951 as the flagship of the Italian
Line, and for five years set the standard for luxurious, trans-Atlantic travel. On
July 25, 1956, the 697-foot-long liner collided with the MS Stockholm as it was
approaching the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and sank in 260 fsw. Uniquely
situated where the cold Labrador Current encounters the Gulf Stream, surface
fog, unpredictable currents, low visibility, thermoclines, fishermen’s nets, and
unpredictable North Atlantic surface conditions combined to give the now-infamous
wreck the reputation of “The Mount Everest of Scuba Diving.” A number of WDHOF’s
accomplished members have dived the wreck. Those featured here hold specific
records, as follows: Janet Bieser, (WDHOF 2000), Captain of the RV Wahoo and
youngest woman to dive the Doria in 1981 (aged 21); Cecelia Connelly, (WDHOF
2001), YMCA Dive Instructor and oldest woman to dive the Doria in 1986 (aged 56);
Evelyn Dudas, (WDHOF 2000),
owner of Dudas Diving Duds Westchester, PA, and first woman
to dive the Doria in 1967; and Sally
Wahrmann, (WDHOF 2002), Crew
of the RV Wahoo and woman with
the most logged dives on the Doria
(60). With Trimix unavailable to sport
divers prior to 1991, all of these
PAINTING: KEN MARSCHALL
COURTESY MADISON PRESS BOOKS
icons dove the wreck on air.
Zale Parry
Simone Melchior-Cousteau ,
June Kieser,
2001
June was the first woman nationally certified as an instructor in 1959 and the first woman member of the YMCA National Scuba Committee. June started diving in 1952 with her
husband, became a volunteer scuba instructor at the YMCA in 1954, and continued to teach through the 1970s. She served on the Council for National Cooperation in Aquatics
Scuba Committee, and was a founding member of the Underwater Society of America and the American Littoral Society. Having pioneered setting standards for diver and
instructor certification, June instructed sport divers, police, fire departments, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy cadets, and lectured extensively on the importance of diver training.
2013
Simone Melchior Cousteau was the daughter of the Director at Air Liquide - the company which was to become the mother corporation
of Aqua-Lung. In 1937, she married French naval officer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and her father introduced Cousteau to Émile Gagnan,
the engineer who developed the first on-demand regulator. The rest is diving history. Simone was very much a pioneer scuba diver in her
own right. Figuratively and literally the “First Lady of the Ocean,” she was the first to observe the design and manufacture of an air tank
and apparatus with hoses attached to breathe air while underwater. She was part of the team that tested the Cousteau-Gagnan prototype
regulators, and, as a free diver, she witnessed Jacques on his first underwater excursion using one in the Marne River outside Paris. Within
hours, she used the same rig to become the first woman to use scuba and participate in events that could truly be considered as the birth of
modern scuba diving. Simone went on to play an essential role in the development of scuba diving technology as well as undersea operations.
A passionate diver, she was a full member of the team that eventually became known worldwide for the films that literally established scuba
not only as a sport but also an essential tool for exploration and science, and for military and commercial operations. Acting as mother, healer,
nurse and psychiatrist to the all-male crew of Calypso for 40 years, her nickname was “La Bergere,” the Shepherdess. Simone was part of the
team that filmed The Silent World, the first documentary to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1963 Simone Melchior-Cousteau
became the first female aquanaut when she visited the Conshelf II undersea habitat in the Red Sea.
Photos: top left, Capt. Janet Bieser; top right, Capt. Janet with Evie Dudas; middle right:
Cecelia Connelly; bottom left: Evie Dudas; bottom right: Sally Wahrmann with Capt. Janet.
JANUARY 2015
Mo n d ay
T u e S day
W e d n e S day
T h u r S day
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S aT u r d ay
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Photo Credit: Alanna Sutton
S u n d ay
Simone Cousteau
2000
Valerie is a marine conservationist, underwater photographer, videographer, scriptwriter,
and painter. In addition to having played herself in Blue Water, White Death, she worked
on many other Hollywood and Australian feature films. She writes and takes photos for
National Geographic and many other top magazines, and has also been on the cover
of National Geographic. She has conducted many experiments, including the mesh
and banded suit experiments for shark bite protection, the shark pod experiments, and
others. Her most memorable experiences in diving: “Blue Water, White Death, looking
into the eye of a shark while it tries to chew your arm off. Surfacing above a submerged
reef in the Banda Sea and seeing my dive boat slipping over the horizon. Then building a
tiny island from dead coral plates and anchoring myself using my hair ribbons as a rope
and weight belt as an anchor so I could stand and not get swept away in the current
when left behind in the Banda Sea.”
Danielle Claar
2012 WDHOF/Toth Advanced Dive
Training Grant; 2014 WDHOF Graduate
Scholarship in Marine Conservation
New Year’s Day
2012 was a busy year for Danielle. She
completed her NAUI Instructor Course,
graduated with honors from the University
of Hawai`i at Hilo with a Bachelor of Science
in Marine Science, got a job working with
the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection at the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve
and, while there, taught open water
diving! Moving forward to 2014, Danielle is
attending graduate school at the University
of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada,
pursuing her PhD. She is studying corals and
their symbionts, and how these ecological
communities are influenced by human
impacts. Using her scholarship funds, she
participated in three weeks of dive intensive
research in July and August at Kiritimati
(Christmas atoll), participating in a variety of
surveys, including fish counts, coral/benthic
composition, urchin counts, and collecting
coral samples for genetic analysis. She says,
“It was an honor to meet all of the WDHOF
women that attended the 2012 BTS, where
I was inspired by all of the knowledge,
experience, and innovation represented
by all of your many accomplishments.
I hope to remain in contact with the WDHOF
members, and continue to learn from you
in the future.”
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Dottie Frazier,
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Donna M. Tobias,
2001
Donna was the first woman to become a US Navy deep sea (hard hat) diver, in 1975. At a time when
diving was considered sea duty and barred to women, she had to be granted a special waiver from the
Pentagon to begin training in Norfolk, VA. Wearing a suit that weighed 70 lbs. more than she did, she
worked on search and salvage operations, underwater repairs of surface ships and submarines, and on
the conversion of two YFN (barges) into diving and salvage liftcraft. Donna also served as a submarine
escape instructor, hyperbaric chamber operator, and a scuba instructor at a Navy scuba diving school.
In the late 1970’s, she participated in leading-edge hyperbaric treatments for medical purposes and the
evaluation of one-person portable recompression chambers.
June Kieser
Fran Gaar
Donna Tobias
2000
Swimming by age 3, rowing her own skiff at 5, Dottie knew the ins and outs of fishing and lived aboard boats
more than on land. By 10, she was using one of the masks her dad made out of pieces of fire hose, glass,
tape, glue and straps from an old inner tube. Growing up on the sea made it easy for Dottie to find work on
commercial fishing boats as deckhand/cook, and on all-day fishing boats as galley girl for over 10 years. In
1940, Dottie started teaching skin diving classes. She then started manufacturing rubber suits for Navy UDT
divers in Hawaii and on the west coast. Dottie had a dive shop called Penguin from which she ran dive classes
and sold her wetsuits. She was an actress in several films that featured diving, including Beyond the Reef with
a young Ron Howard. In 1953 she became the first female scuba instructor in the world and, later, she became
one of the first female hardhat divers. Dottie is the only woman diver honored by inclusion in the Skin Diving
History Museum website (www.skindivinghistory.com).
Martin Luther King Day
Zale Parry,
2000
Zale Parry is known to millions as Lloyd Bridges’ co-star of the 1950’s television series, Sea Hunt, but this ageless beauty boasts a long list of other credentials, both in and out
of the water. In 1954, Zale set a woman’s deep diving record at 209 ft/64 meters in the open sea as part of an experiment to test the Hope-Page non-return valve mouthpiece,
which became a standard feature in all regulators from that day forward. She was the third female instructor to graduate from the L.A. County UICC program. Besides her diving
expertise, Zale’s artistic talents are manifold. She is an accomplished underwater photographer, and in 1957, she co-founded the International Underwater Film Festival that ran for
17 years. In 1960, she became the first elected woman president of the U/W Photographic Society. In 2001, Zale published a book with Al Tillman entitled, Scuba America Vol. I,
the Human History of Sport Diving in America. Among her many honors, Zale is a recipient of the NOGI Award for Distinguished Service, DEMA’s Reaching Out Award, and, in 2001,
she was made a “Lifetime Ambassador at Large,” by the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Sylvia Earle
, 2000
Sylvia is a marine biologist, oceanographer, lecturer, consultant,
author, former Chief Scientist at NOAA, and founder of Deep Ocean
Exploration & Research, Mission Blue and SEAlliance. She has
led more than 100 expeditions and logged more than 7000 hours
underwater, including leading the first team of women aquanauts
during the Tektite Project in 1970, participating in ten saturation
dives, most recently in July, 2012, and setting a record for solo
diving in 1000 meters depth. Today, Sylvia is Explorer in Residence
at the National Geographic Society. Recently, she led the Google
Ocean Advisory Council, a team of 30 marine scientists providing
content and scientific oversight for the “Ocean in Google Earth.”
“Her Deepness” (as the NY Times called her) has authored more
than 200 scientific, technical, and popular publications, lectured
in more than 80 countries, and appeared in hundreds of radio and
television productions. Her film, “Mission Blue,” and her book, Blue
Hope, were released in 2014. Among the more than 100 national
and international honors Dr. Earle has received are the 2013 National
Geographic Hubbard Medal, 2013 French Legend of the Planet
Medal, and the 2009 TED Prize—in support of the “wish” they
granted to help establish a global network of marine protected areas.
She calls these marine areas “hope spots... to save and restore...
the blue heart of the planet.”
Dr. Eugenie Clark
Frances Gaar,
2001
Frances was a stage and cinema actress and water ballet star who had a long and varied
career. She was supervisor and soloist of the famed “Sea Hunt” show at the NY World’s Fair
in 1964. She was a champion swimmer in college, and declined an offer to be a stand-in
for Esther Williams in order to study acting in New York City. The only performer to combine
scuba with water ballet, she gave exhibitions on cruise ships, pioneering and popularizing
underwater tours in the Caribbean. She was founder of the Aqua Lung School of NY, where
she trained thousands of instructors and students, and was PADI’s first woman master
instructor. As PADI’s first Mid-Atlantic regional director, she conducted its first Instructors’
Institute along with PADI’s president (and co-founder) Ralph Erickson.
Lotte Hass,
Dr. Eugenie Clark,
2000
Lotte Hass has been called “First Lady of Diving.” She was the first underwater model and one of the first female underwater
photographers, having learned to dive and take underwater pictures on her own, unbeknownst to her employer and future husband,
Hans Hass. Borrowing Hans’ camera while he was away, Lotte took images of fish in the Danube River which were published in
an Austrian magazine, and she soon became an established underwater photographer in her own right. Her career began in 1949
as the only woman on Hans’ crew during the filming of Adventure in the Red Sea, during which Lotte dove using a Drager closed
circuit rebreather - which she learned to operate in the water! She has co-produced numerous films and co-written many books that
document the adventures aboard their research vessel Xarifa.
Evelyn Bartram Dudas,
Evie Dudas
2000
Since 1961, Evelyn has been diving the wrecks off the East Coast. She was the
first woman to dive the Andrea Doria, one of the first women to use mixed gases
in diving, and also launched her own custom wetsuit company when none could
be found commercially. After the untimely death of her husband in 1982, she
continued to expand Dudas’ Diving Duds into a full-service dive facility and raise
four children on her own. Her daughter, Suzy, was the first woman to dive the
Doria on a rebreather, so they are the first mother-daughter Doria divers. Evie is
an active wreck and cave diver who continues to instruct to this day.
Dr. Sylvia Earle
2000
Eugenie began her diving career as a result of her underwater interests and studies, and is a world-renowned ichthyologist and authority on sharks. Popularly known as
“the shark lady,” this vibrant 93-year-old still dives! Eugenie received her Ph.D. in Zoology from New York University in 1950. During her graduate studies she worked at
both Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Woods Hole Biological Station. She has received numerous awards, grants, honors, and other recognition, including having
a fish named after her. She has authored books and papers, and been featured in films and documentaries. Although she is now retired from teaching in the Department of
Biology at the University of Maryland, where she joined the faculty in 1968, she still holds the title of Senior Research Scientist and Professor Emerita. She currently works
in the Center for Shark Research at the Mote Marine Laboratory, which she founded, as Senior Research Scientist and Founding Director.
Circa 1950s. Various international magazine
covers and media images of Lotte Hass.
Proceeds from the sale of the 2015 Women Divers Hall of Fame Calendars are used
to support our scholarships and grant programs.
photo: Jill Heinerth
Evie with future
hubby, John, and
the Andrea Doria
compass
A special thank you to all of our advertisers who helped make this calendar a reality.
Please visit our website for more information: www.wdhof.org
Celebrating WDHOF Pioneers and Legends
15th Anniversary
2000 - 2015
Evie on her 1st dive on the stern of the Andrea Doria
photo: John Dudas
Evie on the Viking
Starlight, 1967
Evie loading Viking Starlight
for first Andria Doria dive
Evie aboard the Seeker, 1990,
preparing for an Andrea Doria dive
Calendar committee: Bonnie Toth – design & layout; Darlene Iskra – scholar sidebars;
Joan Forsberg, Janice Raber, Mary Connelly – copywriting, editing and proofing.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. $15.00
2015 CALENDAR
All rights reserved. No part of this calendar or the images herein may be reproduced in any form whatsoever.
©
With the Women Divers Hall of Fame 15th Anniversary coming up in 2015,
this calendar is a beautiful tribute to our Legends and Pioneers.
Order yours now — don't be left out! Order a few extras for gifts, too!
Each month features vintage photos and stories about these incredible women. Also
highlighted each month is one of our scholarship or training grant recipients.
Lotte Hass,
2000
Lotte Hass has been called “First Lady of Diving.” She was the first underwater model and one of the first female underwater
photographers, having learned to dive and take underwater pictures on her own, unbeknownst to her employer and future husband,
Hans Hass. Borrowing Hans’ camera while he was away, Lotte took images of fish in the Danube River which were published in
an Austrian magazine, and she soon became an established underwater photographer in her own right. Her career began in 1949
as the only woman on Hans’ crew during the filming of Adventure in the Red Sea, during which Lotte dove using a Drager closed
circuit rebreather - which she learned to operate in the water! She has co-produced numerous films and co-written many books that
document the adventures aboard their research vessel Xarifa.
Circa 1950s. Various international magazine
covers and media images of Lotte Hass.
Each calendar is 12" x 12" (opens to 12" x 24") and is individually shrinkwrapped.
Cost per calendar: $15. Calendars may be ordered online at www.wdhof.org through
our secure NY Charities site — follow the link on the home page (designate that your
donation is for calendars).
PhotoCredit: Patrick Robinson. NMFS 17411-00
AUGUST 2015
S U N D AY
M O N D AY
Roxanne Beltran
W E D N E S D AY
T H U R S D AY
F R I D AY
S AT U R D AY
1
Photo (left): 1953. Lotte with her rebreather and her underwater Akustische Leica housing.
2013 WDHOF/Toth Advanced
Dive Training Grant
I have always dreamed of diving in
Antarctica in order to see the world’s most
pristine underwater ecosystem firsthand.
With the grant, I was able to obtain a
keyperson sponsorship with Diving
Unlimited International, purchase a custom
DUI DrySuit, and participate in a DrySuit
certification course. Since my certification
in October, 2013, I have completed 20
drysuit dives in Alaska and California.
I am currently pursuing a Master’s degree at
the University of Alaska Anchorage, where
I work with Drs. Jennifer Burns and Ward
Testa, on a project aiming to understand
the population-level consequences of
differences in Weddell seal reproductive
and molt timing due to changes in sea ice
extent and fishing pressures.
I feel incredibly honored to have been
awarded the Advanced Dive Training grant.
In addition to the short-term benefits, the
grant has opened up many opportunities
for me to explore. While in Antarctica last
month collecting data for my Master’s
project, I became acquainted with some
of the Antarctic Program support divers,
and was able to take a look inside the dive
locker! Thanks to WDHOF, I now have the
proper training and equipment, and am
one step closer to achieving my goal!
JULY 2015
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T U E S D AY
Photo (above): 1949. Lotte Baierl with an early underwater camera and face mask.
Inset (above): 1950 The Red Sea. Hans Hass and Lotte Baierl wearing oxygen rebreathers
with their early underwater camera housings. All photographs courtesy The Hans Hass
Institute. All rights reserved.
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History of
Diving Museum
A very heartfelt, sincere
thank you to our advertisers...
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every calendar sold is a 100%
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And another huge thank you to all of our pioneer and legend
members who grace the pages of this calendar!
The women who dove the Andrea Doria (Capt. Janet Bieser, Sally Wahrmann,
Cecelia Connelly and Evie Dudas), June Keiser, Simone Melchior-Cousteau,
Valerie Taylor, Donna Tobias, Zale Parry, Dottie Frazier, Lotte Hass, Dr. Sylvia Earle,
Frances Gaar, Dr. Eugenie Clark, Evelyn Bartram Dudas
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