Check this vintage ad out...

[Bigbella]

Mmm, that's some good turtle, along with the bugs . . .

 

[scubadada]

View attachment 627946

Mmm, that's some good turtle, along with the bugs . . .

Sad

 

[coldwaterlloyd]

Please tell me the Star Fish is there strictly for decoration ...

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

Speaking about vintage, I got up early and caught an episode of Highway Patrol. Unimportant other than they had a diver in the story. Old 72, double hose, weight belt, and I only noticed a depth gauge. The scene was ltaking place on a SoCal beach.

The crooks, disguised like fishermen, were going to make a getaway on a boat off the beach. The diver was trying to be helpful when one of them knocked him out from behind. As they made the getaway, one of the crooks comments "doesn't he know it's dangerous to go diveing alone".

When Brodreck Crawford interviews the diver, he refers to it as ,Skin Diving a couple of times I haven't heard that since I was a kid.

The old early '50's Buick patrol cars took me back as well.

Do you remember the name of the episode?

 

[boulderjohn]

How long until basic scuba training is back to "one compact lesson"?

When I was very young, in the early 1960s, I used to visit my cousins on the Jersey shore. One year my older cousin (by 4 years) spent every day spearfishing on scuba. A couple years ago I asked him about his training. He told me that he had bought all the equipment in a local sporting goods shop, and the salesman had told him how everything worked. That was his one compact lesson. He was never certified.

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

Please tell me the Star Fish is there strictly for decoration ...

Yummy

 

[Bob DBF]

Do you remember the name of the episode?

I had just got up earlier and was making coffee so I wasn't thinking straight yet, so I didn't get it then.

Did a search on the details just now and it's called Harbor Story. I thought I saw a weight belt but there was none when rewatching on YouTube, considering he had no wetsuit, was diving an old 72, and was in good shape, that would work.

I dove like that when I started, only I wore a Mae West for emergency surface floatation most of the time.

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

I had just got up earlier and was making coffee so I wasn't thinking straight yet, so I didn't get it then.

Did a search on the details just now and it's called Harbor Story. I thought I saw a weight belt but there was none when rewatching on YouTube, considering he had no wetsuit, was diving an old 72, and was in good shape, that would work.

I dove like that when I started, only I wore a Mae West for emergency surface floatation most of the time.

That’s one I found on YouTube but missed the diving part. Ugh

 

[Bob DBF]

That’s one I found on YouTube but missed the diving part. Ugh

There is no diving, just a diver on the beach, two scenes about 30 seconds to a minute each.

 

[Angelo Farina]

How long until basic scuba training is back to "one compact lesson"?

This is a very relevant point, which explains the whole difference existing in the past (more or less until 1980-85) between scuba training here in Europe and in the USA.
Here scuba diving did mean using CC rebreathers. These were very dangerous devices. For using them it was mandatory going through extensive training, involving getting complete control on breathing, buoyancy, trim, kicking and swimming with hands (in the proper, efficient and controlled way, of course).
The training did involve also complete understanding of physics laws and human physiology.
Albeit touristic courses did exist regularly here since 1948, these courses were long and demanding. Just a small percentage of students did complete it succesfully.
And a significant fraction of these succesfull students were females: they appeared to be favoured getting the self control required for using safely those CC pure-oxygen rebreathers.
Air tanks instead had an immediate success in the USA, for a number of reasons clearly exploited in the advertisments of the time. One of them is that compressed air OC scuba systems were thought to be easy and safe to use, requiring just minimal training...
So, while diving courses in the USA started from "just one lesson and there you go", here we started with 6-months long courses with more than 100h spent underwater (most in a pool or in a confined water, not in the sea) and extensive theoretical and behavioural training.
Slowly we converged worlwide to an intermediate level of complexity for the first diving course, coming from very far starting positions.
It is very interesting how the evolution of equipment accompained this evolution in didactics.
The key point for me was the general adoption of the BCD, around 1980.
This meant that now also OC divers had a bladder for controlling buoyancy, making finally possible to get rid of the CC rebreather for teaching buoyancy control.
However this way breathing (and brain) control was substantially lost, as with a regulator you can "just breath", while with a CC pure oxygen rebreather you must always keep your lungs under control and your brains in full awareness of symptoms of hypercapnia, hyperoxia and hypoxia.
Here we still have ARO courses, for divers who want to be trained "in the good old way"...