Monday, January 24, 2011

Bob Meistrell-Dive Pioneer


Spent Friday morning at Bob Meistrell's house doing a interview with my co worker, Greg Browning. The interview took place in Bob's shell collection room. As you can see he has a extensive shell collection. What you don't see is cabinets full of shells on the other side of the room. Shell collectors can see the value of some of the shells in the photos already. Bob told me he had another collection of shells valued at a 100k. Wow. Bob and his twin brother are the founders of Body Glove Wetsuits way back in 1953. He talked about stories of going diving in the early years and not knowing the basics and fundamentals that are taught now in dive classes. They learned from their mistakes. Surfing up north with no wetsuits with just heavy wool tops that they would swing above their heads to wring them out and put back on. Amazing how they changed the shape of surfing by inventing the wetsuit.