Posted by Greg Heilig on July 01, 2004 at 10:15:55:
In Reply to: Sad to Announce that Paul Meister died last evening posted by Elaine on June 24, 2004 at 09:28:03:
Ted Sharshan just notified me by email of Paul Meister's recent passing. I have to admit that I am stunned by it.
I remember Paul as an extremely intelligent person who carried himself with the air of a holy man. Paul Meister:High Priest of scuba diving! I say this mainly because of his extreme intelligence and his infinite patience in answering my many millions of questions to him whenever I attended some of his many research dives that he would organize at Whites Point.
And the fact the he did NOT need a buoyancy compensation device and the fact that he consume NO air.
Every time I would dive with him, he would don his fancifully colored wetsuit without a BCD and his TINY tank (63 cu. ft?) and make me feel more like the air hog that I always was. And of course his tank would always be HALF FULL after every one of those dives.
Through his calm, friendly low-key manner, he always made me feel welcome to join him on his research projects and welcome to ask anything that came to my mind.
I believe the professional scuba community would do well to pursue his dream of directly involving the recreational scuba diving community in serious marine biological research projects. This is a win for the marine biologists and a win for divers such as myself.
He will surely be missed!
Greg Heilig