Torrance resident says ‘divine intervention’ kept him off deadly dive boat

If not for unforeseen hip surgery, Torrance resident Dale Sheckler, 62, could have been one of the victims in Monday’s tragic dive-boat incident in the Channel Islands.

He had planned to book the three-day Labor Day trip but the surgery changed his mind.

Recovery crews were still working Tuesday to bring ashore more bodies of the presumed 34 people who died after the boat caught fire in Platts Harbor on the northern end of Santa Cruz Island.

Sheckler called it divine intervention that he wasn’t on the boat.

“My heart goes out to those who lost their lives and their families, but at the same time it feels like (by) divine intervention I was not on that boat,” he said.

Sheckler, who estimated he had dove off the boat 100 times, said the boat’s operator, Truth Aquatics out of Santa Barbara Harbor, had an impeccable reputation. He said the company built the boat from the ground up in 1981. Whenever he was on board, he said, the crew always went over fire and evacuation procedures before departing.

Sheckler said that while the bunks down below were somewhat cramped, the vessel was actually more spacious than a lot of other dive boats. Sheckler and his wife, Kim, were the longtime publishers of California Diving News before selling it a few years ago.