In 1977, D.I. Bolding, Public Relations Director for Exxon, showed up at our Santa Barbara Funk Zone warehouse. He asked us to photo-document the marine ecosystem as it developed beneath Platform Hondo. Platform Hondo was newly installed in 1976 in 850 feet of water, 5 miles off the Gaviota Coast. We spent the next three-years diving, documenting and publishing our adventures from Platform Hondo, and my work with her has just begun.

Platform Hondo was new. The structure was bare. We installed camera mounts to photograph from a consistent view. First to grow were the California Mussels, the spat of which had attached itself to the oil rig during transport from the shipyard. Everything else followed. Brittle stars competed for space. Juvenile fish of many types appeared in the marine matrix. Deep sea Baccacio Rockfish hovered at 120-foot depth. That was as deep as we dove on Platform Hondo.