Santa Barbara has a new statue that honors the city’s contribution to the profession of deepwater diving.
On Saturday, the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum installed the Deepwater Diving Monument, a bronze statue representing Santa Barbara’s history as the birthplace of deepwater diving.
Located at the harbor near the museum, the statue depicts a professional diver from 1982 wearing the revolutionary Kirby Morgan Superlite 17 Diving Helmet.
According to Don Barthelmess, a former diver and instructor at Santa Barbara City College, the journey to fund and install the monument took over three years. Barthelmess was the co-chair of the committee dedicated to installing the statue.
“It honors all the diving pioneers that emerged here from Santa Barbara and honors our city as the birthplace of deepwater commercial diving,” Barthelmess said.
Santa Barbara’s history with deepwater diving goes back to the 1960s, when a diver named Hugh “Dan” Wilson conducted a 400-foot dive off Santa Cruz Island. Wilson pioneered the use of oxy-helium mixed gas, known as Heliox, instead of regular air.
The new technique allowed divers to work longer and kickstarted what was known as the Santa Barbara Helium Rush.
The creation and installation of the statue were funded by private donors. Barthelmess said they did not use any public funds for the project.
Greg Polutanovich from Simi Valley sculpted the monument.
Now that the project is complete, Barthelmess says that it is a little bittersweet for him. He said that deepwater diving by its nature tends to happen away from the public eye, and people have not always gotten the credit they deserve.
He added that the monument will help remind residents of the work of divers who help provide a lot of the work for things they use every day.
“It’s basically a profession that has been out of sight and out of mind to the general public,” Barthelmess said.
“But, you know, having been raised in this industry for 46 years now, … I felt it was important to give back to the profession and more importantly to this community that pioneered the use of it.”
