ORANGE COUNTY STYLE : In their own words : All employment opportunities are definitely not run of the mill. Here, a half-dozen Orange County jobholders describe their unusual occupations

Pati Pavlik, tattoo artist, Laguna Beach: When I first started doing tattoos in 1978, I thought, “What’s my mother going to think?” But she and my dad have always been very supportive. In fact, my mother just came in for cosmetic tattoos--permanent eye-liner and augmented eyebrows.

More than 60% of my clients are women. It’s a pretty gutsy thing for a woman. Ten years ago my clients were mostly biker girls, but now they include career women, artists and designers. A tattoo can set them apart. They usually pick out images of nature, like an exotic flower, or they might choose a very personal pattern, usually for a part of their body that doesn’t show in public. They start out with a little design and then come back for more. The ultimate compliment is when a client asks me to sign my work. But I finally put up a warning sign that says tattooing can be addictive.

Most men like tattoos that make them feel masculine or are symbols of their jobs and interests. Lifeguards like dolphins, sailors like anchors. The most unusual request was from a man who had the names of all of his girlfriends running up his arm--he came in and wanted void written over the top.

FRANK NOSALEK, mountaineer, Disneyland: You have to know mountaineering and rock-climbing for this job. Disneyland doesn’t train you. Climbing the Matterhorn is part of the park’s entertainment program, but everything about the climb is real--the equipment, the technique, and certainly the safety procedures. We use a safety line at all times to climb up, and we rappel down. We have to be careful to stay away from the bobsled track--it would be very dangerous if we dropped any of the gear we wear.

There are eight Matterhorn climbers--seven guys and one girl. She’s treated the same as anyone; we’re all very team-oriented. Two of us go up at a time. No one tells us where to climb. We work with the contours of the mountain, as we would out in the real world. We challenge ourselves by charting new routes. We don’t have to check with anybody before we try something new, but the rule is: Never take risks.

We sometimes see people who don’t realize they’re in view. We see people kissing in the bobsleds and misbehaving in the Skyway buckets. Sometimes people who think we’re pranksters will call the security guards and say, “There’s some guy up on the Matterhorn!”

LISA BABILONIA, paleontologist, Knott’s Berry Farm: I work in the Discovery Center, at the end of the Kingdom of the Dinosaurs ride. When I first read about the job in an ad in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Bulletin, I wondered how much real work I would be doing and how much would be pretend. I didn’t want to be just a mannequin. But the job has exceeded my expectations.

Right now I’m preparing the fossil of a 35-million-year-old saber-toothed cat. I sit in a large room and extract the bone from the rock with hammer and chisel. That way people at the park can see what paleontologists really do, how we study prehistoric forms of life through fossils.

Part of my job is to tell people about my work. They’re great--very understanding. If the bones I’m working on are very fragile and the work is delicate, all I have to do is say, “Hold on a minute,” and they’ll stand there quietly and watch me work.

The youngsters who come through are so smart. Many of them know the names of the dinosaurs and some facts about them--and I’m talking about children as young as 5. I have had intelligent conversations with some 5- and 6-year-olds.

MARTHA YOUNG-WHEELER, turtle and tortoise caretaker, Fountain Valley: For the past 13 years I’ve been caretaker to more than 400 turtles and tortoises. They all live in a two-bedroom house called Casa de Tortugas that was built especially for them by their owner, Walter Allen, a retired oil man. He built an adjoining house for himself, too.

Mr. Allen pays me $25,000 a year to tend to the animals’ needs--feeding, sheltering, caring for them if they’re sick or injured. I breed them in the obstetrics room--there were 400 when I started, now there are 425. Over the years we’ve successfully separated three sets of Siamese-twin tortoises.

I got the job because I love turtles and Mr. Allen recognized that. I’ve been hooked on turtles since I was a child and had a water turtle that died. When I grew older someone gave me a tortoise, and I heard about the Turtle and Tortoise Club. Mr. Allen was a member and that’s how we met. Now we give tours by appointment. Nobody else has a job like mine--of course, there are not too many people like Walter Allen who would build a house just for their turtles.

MICHAEL AND RENA WEISSHAAR, violin makers, Costa Mesa: MICHAEL--We’ve made violins, violas and cellos in our own shop for 13 years. We also appraise, restore and sell instruments. Right after high school, I began working with my father, who is a violin maker in Los Angeles. Then I went to a state school for violin making in Mittenwald, Germany.

The most unusual work we do is convert violins for left-handed players.

RENA--I was a cellist, but decided to go to violin-making school--where I met Michael.

Our work is very technical and precise. Our first big decision is to carefully choose the finest wood. Violin makers tend to put every penny they have into wood. Trees in the Swiss Alps produce the best resonance.

There are many steps between choosing the wood and putting on the finish. In one of them, chiseling the scroll, you get to show artistry, not just craftsmanship.

A good finish preserves the wood and protects it from pollution and a player’s sweat, without interfering with the sound vibrations. Everyone tries to equal the fine finishes of the 18th Century violin makers, but their recipes cannot be reconstructed chemically, because of oxidation.

It takes me 200 hours to make one violin. I’m not interested in speed. I make it as perfect as I’m capable of.

GARY L. CROAN, wood boat restorer, Huntington Beach: I restore classic wood boats--anything that was built before 1960 and was of limited production. I repair them and I buy and sell them, too.

People think they have to be real careful with wood boats, that they’re beautiful but only for show. They worry that they can’t take them on the ocean, just on lakes. Or that they have to be varnished all the time.

None of that is true. Wood boats are well-built and strong. They endure. Once they’re in nice shape, they can be kept operable and seaworthy pretty easily.

The people who are interested in classic boats range from regular working people to doctors and lawyers. They’re inexpensive enough for just about anyone to afford.

I belong to the Antique and Classic Boat Society and I chair informal gatherings where people get together to have fun with their boats, like yacht-club openings and opening-day ceremonies. We have about 80 members in the Southern California chapter.

I didn’t always specialize in wood boats. When I started my business, I’d buy some boats, fix them up and sell them. Then in 1977 I began to specialize in boats with Graymarine engines. It turns out that those motors are usually in older, classic boats. Now I have customers all over the country: New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, Alaska--even Germany and South America. Wherever there’s water.