Off the coast of Catalina Island — At first, the fish avoided the intruder. A couple of beefy sheepshead hid in the kelp near the shore. The electric orange Garibaldi swam in the other direction. A small school of blacksmith darted away. By Jori Finkel
After a year in development and a month of delays, the first of three swim-in, swim-out pavilions by the artist Doug Aitken had just been submerged in a dive park off Avalon, Calif., and moored to the ocean floor.
The 12-sided structure, lined with mirrors to capture the sunlight, glowed with an otherworldly beauty as we approached it at a depth of 15 feet. This is what it must feel like to be inside a kaleidoscope, I thought as I swam through one of its open sides.
I had joined Mr. Aitken on his first dive to his destination artwork on a sunny day this month, a scuba novice waddling in my fins down steps outside the grand Catalina Casino, straight into the Pacific Ocean. The project’s producer, Cyrill Gutsch, and two diving instructors tagged along.
