Carl Czajkowski, 66, who died tragically on Tuesday while diving off Duck Pond Road in Cutchogue, is a man remembered for his sense of fun and his passion for life.
According to Southold Town police, Czajkowski, of South Jamesport, was found after they received a report of an overdue scuba diver who was spearfishing in the Long Island Sound. After a search of the area, Czajkowski found in the water and had died, police said.
On Thursday, Dr. Czajkowski’s daughter Lori Lebel remembered her beloved father, smiling through her tears.
“He was so much fun,” she said. “When we were kids, he’d take my sister and me diving. We would build pirate forts to keep us busy while he was diving and then he’d approach, like a pirate, and attack our fort. He was always whistling and singing and dancing.”
Besides his passion for diving, Dr. Czajkowski loved playing bridge, she said. “He played bridge with the same partner for 20 years, and he was in local tournaments all the time.”
Dr. Czajkowski, she said, had wanderlust in his blood; his favorite trip was to South Africa, where he did cage dives with Great white shark. “He loved it; he was like a kid in a candy store,” Lebel said.
Her parents, Lebel said, fell in love in Brooklyn, where they both grew up in Flatbush. “The lived two blocks apart and met when they were both working in a donut shop as teenagers.”
Her mother Donna was with her father the day he died, she said, her voice breaking. “When he went diving and didn’t come back, she called 911,” she said.
Dr. Czajkowski and his wife had been married 42 years, celebrating their anniversary on June 5.
Reflecting on her father, Lebel said, “My dad was really big on duty and responsibility but tempered that with fun. He’d tell you to get the job done, but you don’t have to be serious — you can have fun while doing it. A ‘whistle while you work’ kind of thing,” she said.
Dr. Czajkowski earned his Ph.D at Stony Brook University and went on to become a research scientist at Brookhaven National Lab.
“He loved being able to solve problems,” Lebel said. A research and nuclear scientist and metallurgist, her father loved solving puzzles, she said.
“He loved looking at things, the way that they worked. His specialty was systems failure analysis, looking at things that broke and working backward, like a detective, to see how, and why, and looking forward to see where the future problem would be,” Lebel said.
Once at their home, a glass pane broke in a door after a cork popped and hit the glass. “He took a magic marker and drew a funky line on the glass door and told us at 10 a.m. the next morning, that would be the exact pattern of where the glass breaks would be —and he was right. He was able to tell you where it was going to happen, based on science. That was the best example, for me, of what Dad did for a living, because as a little kid, you don’t understand. It was awesome.”
Lebel, 36, and her sister, Kim Flournoy, 39, of San Francisco, both shared special moments with their father.
“My dad and I used to watch horror movies. We’d find the bloodiest, most awful slasher flicks every week when I a teenager. We’d bring in takeout and watch them, ” she said. Her sister shared a fascination with science fiction with their dad.
Of her parents’ love story and long marriage, Lebel said it set an example for the couple’s daughters, both of whom married men their dad adored. “They taught us that you’ve got to be true to yourself. The marriage won’t work if you’re not who you are.”
Her parents, Lebel said, were always together. When he went diving, their mom would go with him, and sit on the beach.
Although his death was a heartbreaking tragedy, Lebel said, “He was doing what he loved, he was happy, and he went quickly,” she said. “There’s comfort in that.”
The Suffolk County Medical Examiners Office is still determining the cause of her father’s death, she said.
“My father always said that when he went out, he wanted it to be a party, not a funeral,” Lebel said. “He wanted everyone to celebrate and talk about how much fun life was, and how much he got out of it.”
Her father, she added, embraced life, traveling around the world, speaking several languages, reading “everything he could get his hands on”, sharing time with family and friends. “‘I’d like my dad to go out with a celebration and for us to be happy that he had such a great life. My dad rocked.”
The family will receive visitors on Sunday, Oct. 19 from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at the Coster-Heppner Funeral Home in Cutchogue. A service will be held on Monday at 10 a.m. at Old Steeple Church in Aquebogue. Interment will follow at St. Charles Cemetery. The family asks that memorial donations be made to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
