Message from Peter Toth:

"St Stephan, King of Hungary: June 2008, I finished statue #73. This is a very important statue to me, as it is my first one on the European Continent. St Stephan was the first King of Hungary, around 1000 AD, and he introduced Christianity to the country. If not for him, there would be no Hungary today." It is located about 20 miles from Budapest, in the town of Delegyhaza. It is in a Park dedicated to King Stephan, adjacent to the Post Office."

Catalina Island

After diving a lot of different sites all over the world, I decided to experience the waters off our California coast. The water is not as warm as I would like, but the underwater scene, with the kelp forests, is not common in other places.

I chose to dive off of Catalina Island. The dive boat left the pier with about six or eight divers on board. Several were from the East coast. The divemaster paired us up as buddies and we prepared for the dive. My buddy was a man from New York named George. He had a camera and said he wanted to stay close and take a lot of pictures. That was fine with me.

It was not long before he had taken all his photos so he motioned that he wanted to swim around some. We headed out exploring as we went.

Eventually we felt a strong surge and we surfaced to see what it was. We were very close to the shore cliffs and the waves were crashing against them. Looking at our air gauges we signaled that we should head back to the boat, which was about a hundred yards or so away.

We submerged and headed toward the boat. After a few seconds I turned to check on my buddy and he was not to be seen. I circled back around and looked for him. I widened my search, and no George! I surfaced and waited for him to show. No George! After a proper amount of concern, and a diminishing air supply, it became apparent that it was every man for himself. Heading towards the boat, I swam for a while and then surfaced to find it no closer and in a different direction. In a new direction I headed and surfaced to find the same thing. This time my air was gone and I had to stay on the surface and use my snorkel. I was not making headway and I saw the divemaster jump in and swim to me. He reached me and took off my weight belt and tank and dropped them and assisted me back to the boat. I asked about George, and he said forget it.

Back on the boat exhausted, the others told me how George had abandoned me to get himself on the boat. The divemaster was livid and prohibited him from diving again, and banished him to the front of the boat. The current had become so strong that I would not have made it back, if not for the divemaster. He jumped back in and went to the exact spot he dropped the equipment and dove down and salvaged it.

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