Scuba Diver Happily Thaws Out in Balmy Crystal Cove Waters After Frigid Swims in Antarctic

Scuba diving in the frigid waters of Antarctica helps a person appreciate the finer things of life, says Joseph Valencic, a research diver and adventurer from San Clemente.

“You become quite reflective living in cold isolation,” said Valencic, an admitted warm-weather advocate who is finding life more comfortable these days researching Crystal Cove, a 1,200-acre underwater park planned between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach that, he says, “will provide the finest scuba diving in Southern California.” It will go to a depth of 120 feet.

Valencic’s three exploratory trips to the Antarctic were aimed at better understanding the polar region and locating forms of marine life that adapt to the frighteningly cold water--which forced him and four colleagues to wear 14 layers of undergarments in order to survive the four-degrees-below-freezing environment.

The group dynamited three-foot-wide entry holes through 20-foot-thick ice just to reach the water, he said. “If you want to feel how cold it can get in the incredibly icy water,” said Valencic, professor of marine sciences at Saddleback College, “place ice cubes on your lips and forehead for an hour,” the duration of a day’s diving.

When placed in that type of environment, he said, “the distinction between necessity and luxury becomes vague, but when you’re out in such a remote area you can get along with very, very little.”

But given the right equipment, he added, “man can do almost anything and remain at least reasonably comfortable.” The efficiency learned in those cold waters, he noted, was used in dives for his recently completed survey of Crystal Cove, a project commissioned by the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Land for the above-water part of the park was donated by the Irvine Co.

“We’re using the same underwater video cameras here that we used there,” Valencic said, “and we’re using them with the efficiency we learned in the cold because we were limited in the time we could stay in the freezing water.”

Those cameras, he said, not only provided some breathtaking pictures of the undersea world of Antarctica, but the videotape could be viewed instantly by the underwater scientists. Impressed with the results, Valencic is teaching an underwater videotaping class at the college.

And now, completely thawed, Valencic enjoys home pleasures, including scuba diving with his wife, Lauri Valencic, 34, a community college counselor.

Jennifer Celaya, a sixth grader from Country Hills School, won a Brea-Olinda Unified School District spelling bee by correctly spelling accelerator and then helped give members of the sponsoring Kiwanis club a test of the 15 words students were required to spell to become finalists.

The words were stationery , tetanus , pittance , turquoise , interim , porridge , particular , soccer , discipline , suffocate , suitor , mischievous , illegible , obelisk and tumultuous.

Only five of the 25 Kiwanians spelled the words correctly.

In fact, in a spirited spelling bee of their own after the school contest, two Kiwanis Club finalists both misspelled connoisseur, the final word. Kiwanian Joe DePuy then spelled fluorescent and rendezvous to win.

David E. Curtin, 36, and wife Diana Curtin, of Newport Beach, have a good sense of humor--which they probably need as finalists in the 10th International Imitation (Ernest) Hemingway Competition. After all, last year’s winner wrote “The Snooze of Kilimanjaro,” a parody of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”

The Curtin entry in this year’s contest is called “In Another Contra,” spoofing Hemingway’s “In Another Country,” and if they beat out the other 22 finalists from the 1,782 entries submitted, they win dinner at Harry’s Bar & American Grill in Florence, Italy, plus a plane ride there and back.

“I tried another parody called ‘Kindergarten of Eden,’ after an unpublished Hemingway story with the title of ‘Garden of Eden,’ but it didn’t make it,” he said.

But wait.

David Curtin, a veterinarian, is in deep conflict. He said the Hemingway winner will be picked on April 6, the night of the Hagler-Leonard fight “and I don’t know if I can handle waiting both of them out.”

He added: “I hope I have a better chance than Leonard.”

Acknowledgments--Jill Stocklia, Placentia mother of two who is attending school to earn her registered nursing degree, named volunteer of the year at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Anaheim. She compiled 800 volunteer hours in 1986, the most of all volunteers.