Deep Dive: Group Leader and Naturalist Margery Spielman Inspires a Lifelong Love of the Ocean

Into the Deep

Making that dream come true took tremendous persistence. At 16, Margery pleaded with her overly protective father to let her learn to scuba dive. Concerned about his teenage daughter driving alone to night classes in Santa Monica, he would only agree to let her go if she could find a friend to join her.

Margery immediately called her closest companions — but not one of them shared her diving enthusiasm. "The only underwater experience they were interested in was the submarine ride at Disneyland," she recalls with a laugh. "He finally agreed to let me go by myself, but it took a lot of my heartfelt tears for him to realize that scuba diving was my true calling.”

In the scuba diving class, Margery was the only young woman among a group of older men — a dynamic that would repeat itself throughout her early diving career. "It was the men's club," she explains. "They were spearing fish and bagging lobsters, and here I was, a naïve 16-year-old girl." During her first open-water dive, the equipment was ill-fitting, designed for the men who dominated the sport. But the moment she slipped beneath the surface, Margery became enchanted by the sheer beauty of the underwater world around her. "I just wanted to marvel at everything," she says. "It was like crossing into another world — a surreal, weightless journey into liquid magic. That Christmas, Santa gave me my first wetsuit. Then, on my birthday, the big surprise was an underwater camera.”

Then she began working at a local dive shop — one of the first to carry underwater photographic equipment. “The owner, Col. John D. Craig, was a pioneer diver and underwater cinematographer, like Cousteau. In the 1950s, he had a television show called ‘Danger Is My Business,’” she says. So, besides going on the dive boats for free, many of the shop’s clients were professional Hollywood filmmakers.

Her natural comfort in the water and her striking California presence quickly caught the attention of one of the shop’s regular customers, who hired Margery to star in a 1969 episode of Bill Burrud’s "The Challenging Sea" television series. From there, she began modeling for diving equipment catalogs and soon transitioned into television and film. In the ‘70s, she lived and worked in a Hollywood studio and was able to join the Screen Actors Guild as a stunt diver for television and underwater film production.

Along the way, she also became a NAUI and PADI diving instructor in the 1980s and taught scuba and oceanography courses at Ventura Community College and Ojai Valley School. Margery is also an accomplished artist and has exhibited her artwork in numerous Marine Art Expos, including Maui, Kauai, Pebble Beach and Paris. Her work is in the collections of the late Jacques Cousteau, Jean-MIchel Cousteau and the late Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Cousteau Society

By the late 1970s, Margery began freelancing for The Cousteau Society, working on special projects including still photography, public speaking and illustration. She designed the distinctive logo for their Parc Océanique Cousteau in Paris, France, and in 1987, she did the research and logistics for the two-hour television special on the California Channel Islands, entitled, “At the Edge of a Human Tide.”

Her dedication and persistence finally paid off when she was invited to join the Cousteau Diving Team on a dolphin expedition in the Bahamas. Becoming one of the crew's first three female divers was an incredible milestone in an era when women were rarely accepted into professional diving.

Her expeditions were nothing short of magical. On nine separate trips to Grand Bahama Island, she had thrilling interactions with Atlantic spotted dolphins. On her first expedition, they soon discovered that the dolphins responded more enthusiastically to the women’s higher-pitched vocalizations.

Elderhostel Hires Margery

In 1995, John Prince, lead naturalist for the Channel Islands programs, recommended Margery to Elderhostel founder Marty Knowlton to teach a new program, Myths, Monsters and Mermaids. "I nervously studied up for my interview with Marty," Margery laughs, “but halfway through, he told me, ‘It wasn’t an interview, you’re already hired.’”

Margery went on to teach Remembering Cousteau, Swimming with Whales and Dolphins and The Kelp Forest. When John decided to retire, he began mentoring Margery to take over the Channel Islands programs. “I spent about a year collaborating with him on the islands, learning the trails and the environment, and developing my own slide presentation.” she says. “Then, when he officially retired, I became the lead naturalist for all of Road Scholar’s Channel Island programs.”

Old Friends: The Channel Islands

Just off Southern California’s coast, five of the archipelago's eight islands comprise the Channel Islands National Park (Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel and Santa Barbara). For three decades, Margery shared the wonders of this living classroom with well over 20,000 Road Scholars — not just teaching facts and figures — but making learning fun. “I’ve been greatly inspired by my Road Scholars’ spirit of adventure and passion for learning.”

To Margery, the Channel Islands — often called the "Galápagos of North America" — aren’t just a workplace, they’re a sanctuary. "The Channel Islands are like old friends," she explains. "I’ve seen the islands in all their seasons and moods — the rain, the fog, the hail, the sun. I have favorite trees and plants. I even have ‘conversations’ with a pair of ravens who I like to believe recognize me.”

"Taking people out to the islands, my intent has always been for them to be safe, to have fun, to learn new things and to make great memories," Margery reflects. "It made me feel like I was giving them a gift. We all have our gifts. Some people have a hard time finding out what their gift is, and when they do, they don’t know how to share it. Thankfully, Road Scholar gave me the platform to share mine.”

Margery approached every learning adventure with infectious enthusiasm, eager to impart an understanding of how distinct elements of the environment rely on one another. Whether encouraging participants to plant milkweed to help our monarch butterflies or discussing the impacts of global warming, her focus was always on inspiring “reverence for life.”

“My hero, Captain Cousteau once said, ‘People protect what they love.’ I love these islands and I love Mother Nature, so, naturally I want to inspire in others the same passion I have for our environment. Over the years, my Road Scholars have certainly inspired me with their adventurous spirits and inquisitive minds,” says Margery. “I’ve learned so much from everyone. Having an insatiable curiosity myself, if I couldn’t answer a question, finding the answer became my next research project. Yet the job of a naturalist isn’t just knowing the names and facts about a place. What’s more important is understanding how all the myriad elements in a place are related to each other.” Taking her passion further, Margery also helped develop Road Scholar's beloved Explore the Channel Islands With Your Grandchild program.