After more than a year of planning and nearly a century of history, a new plaque at Boomer Beach in La Jolla’s Scripps Park honors the Bottom Scratchers diving club. The Bottom Scratchers, considered one of the earliest free-diving associations in the United States, formed in San Diego in the 1930s with a focus on catching local seafood to feed members’ families. The participants didn’t use snorkels or fins but instead held their breath while diving deep into the ocean, often off La Jolla. An article in a 1949 edition of National Geographic illustrated this new and evolving water(wo)man culture.

The new plaque was unveiled the evening of May 10, and is embedded in a boulder. The plaque was donated by San Diego Freedivers, and installation was handled by the San Diego Parks & Recreation Department. Last year, the La Jolla Parks & Beaches board gave its support to the then-proposed plaque and boulder. At the time, members shared stories of what the Bottom Scratchers meant to them.

Volker Hoehne, a San Diego Freedivers member who helped shepherd the project said, “A bunch of guys decided to go into the water and get fish to feed people, so they made little goggles, but no wetsuit, no speargun, no spear, no fins. They got in the water and thought ‘Look at all this stuff!’ So they formed this club called the Bottom Scratchers.”

To become a member, Hoehne said, “you had to dive down to 30 feet and get three abalone on one breath … and get a 3-foot lobster in 20 feet of water … and then catch a shark by its tail and bring it in.”

The new plaque is intended to honor the Bottom Scratchers and note the tombstones at sea. “The Bottom Scratchers dedicated every dive to preventing the waste of sea life and helping others appreciate the wonders of the sea and ask others to do the same.”