2 divers ID’d in trio of Mendocino abalone deaths

A North Coast vacation that ended in grief over the loss of three abalone divers Sunday was built around a cross-country business association that had turned into friendship and an invitation to come west, some who knew the victims said Monday.

Two of the men who died, Bay Area attorney Tae Won Oh and Atlanta-area real estate broker Hyun Kook Shin, had worked on a commercial property deal together before Oh suggested a diving trip on the Mendocino Coast, those who knew them said.

Shin, who was to have celebrated his 50th birthday Tuesday, brought along his wife and several friends, including a childhood friend from Fort Lee, N.J., who also died, his sister said. His name was being withheld pending notification of his family.

It was unclear how much abalone diving experience could be accounted for among the 10 or so who took part in the adventure, though Shin, his sister said, had spent years diving and fishing.

Oh, 49, a Dublin resident who practiced law with the Stanzler Law Group in Palo Alto, mostly as a commercial litigator and real estate transactions attorney, was a physically active man who got kidded for coming to work banged up from playing soccer, said Jordan Stanzler, a partner with the firm.?Stanzler said he believed Oh had been abalone diving before, but he did not know how many times.

Most of the others in the party were from Georgia, brought together for the West Coast adventure by Shin, a longtime diver with decades of experience in the waters of Key West and the Atlantic, though whether he had ever swum in the Pacific Ocean wasn’t clear, the sister said.

The group had just arrived in Caspar Cove at a home Oh had rented near the southern point when six of the men clambered out onto the rocks below the bluff-top house for their first foray into the water, according to accounts from the scene.

Oh and Shin were among them, along with the New Jersey man. The sky overhead would have been beautiful and clear, and the ocean surface mostly free of whitecaps, when the divers stepped off the rocks near the mouth of the cove, Mendocino Coast District State Park Superintendent Loren Rex said Monday.

But it took a mere instant for them to realize they were in serious trouble - the power of an incoming groundswell overpowering them immediately as it swept around the point and into the cove, according to accounts from the scene.

The cove was virtually empty of locals - divers familiar with the area and with forecast conditions apparently having decided to stay home that day, Rex said.

“There were some surfers in the water, but the visibility was really bad and, like I said, with that swell coming through, it was not a good diving day,” he said.

Shin apparently had recognized the conditions were challenging enough that he urged an older man, a close family friend, to stay ashore because he has knee trouble, the sister said. But Shin and the others apparently felt they were safe to enter the water themselves.

Moments later, Shin was calling for help as the waves overtook him, the family friend later told his sister. Two others helped Shin to some rocks, but he was soon swept back into the surf that claimed his life, she said.

Oh also perished, as did the Fort Lee man, who was missing for several hours before his body was recovered from an inlet at the base of a cliff, the Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department said.

Two other men found clinging to rocks near the point also were rescued uninjured by the fire department’s rescue boat.

Shin’s wife and other friends witnessed the unfolding tragedy, his sister said, as did an off-duty Willits firefighter who was fishing from shore when he saw the divers’ distress and called 911.

Little Lake Fire Chief Carl Magann declined to identify the firefighter, who he said was wrestling with the fact that despite his training, without the proper equipment on hand, he couldn’t rescue the men.

Stanzler said Oh, the Bay Area lawyer, and Shin, the Suwanee, Ga., broker, had become acquainted through a real estate transaction involving the sale of the Stockton Flea Market by Oh’s family and their related purchase of an Atlanta shopping center.

“Terrible news,” he said. “It seems senseless, pointless.”

Shin’s sister, grief-stricken and having read how dangerous the quest for abalone can be, said it was unclear to her why diving is even permitted.

“I don’t understand why they let people die every year, diving,” she said. “They should maybe not let that happen.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.