Most of the "funny signals" described above were developed in genesis of NAUI by the Larry Chushman, who at one time was NAUI President. He was a very acomplished line artist so over a period of several years he collected, developed, printed and shared with is close friends a series of humorous "Unoffical" NAUI Underwater hand signals...Only a few copies have survived the passage of 30 plus years...
AND
Just because you never knew and should know.....
The very first verified Underwater Signaling system was developed by the Sea Sabres Underwater sports club (SS) in the David Star Jordan swimming pool in North Long Beach California in the very early 1950s. The Sea Sabres under president Bob Reutherford discovered a need for an effective UW signaling system and the club developed one over a series of dives and pool sessions. Bob was an ex WW11 USAF type, so he relied on USAF signals as the basis for the Sea Sabre System.
In 1954--fifty three years ago-- the SS signaling system was printed in a booklet format by North American Aviation, the club sponsor at that time. 5000 copies were distributed through out the world's known diving community of that era; divers through out the world at last had an established system to communicate underwater.
A copy of the basic hand signals and a article by Bob was printed in part in the now defunct Water World magazine in 1955.
Bob was an active Los Angeles County Underwater Instructor therefore the system he worked so hard to perfect was accepted by LA county immediately after its public appearance in Water World and was included in the LA county training manual beginning in 1954
A few years later a US government grant was issued to an Eastern ivy league college to developed an effective UW signaling system--they copied the Sea Signaling System almost in total--and received $$$$ for their efforts!
In October 1956 the USN released part 3 of Navships 250-538 which was titled "Self contained diving." This document established the regulations for the use of SCUBA by the USN and introduced and incorporated the Sea Sabres Signaling system in total to the USN document as the "Official" USN signaling system
In 1968-9 the late Ralph Erikson, along with Bob Chow and John Cronin was one of the three founders of PADI, copied the Sea Sabre signaling system in total and produced an "Official" PADI document as the "Official" PADI signaling system and immediately marketed it to the then and still gullible members. The Sea Sabres Signaling System was never protected by any legal document...One could assume the PADI document is...
About 15 years ago I had a dedicated column titled "The way it was" in the now defunct nationally distributed
]Discover Diving magazine. One of my articles was titled The Sea Sabre Signaling System...It covered the history of UW hand signaling as I have described above, and of course also little about Bob Ruetherford, who was known world wide to the pioneer divers as the father of Sea Sabres Underwater Signaling System.
Sadly Bob has been diving in the big reef in the sky for a long time --
Now you know a part of the rest of the story ...
It happended a long time ago--before NAUI, PADI and the term SCUBA...
The rest of the story will be printed in within a few weeks in the Legends of Diving series at the Portage quarry webb site; ~~ www.portagequarry.com. ~~
It will also be discussed in my lecture of the Legends of Diving in August this year..
sdm
