I honestly cannot recall seeing the original, it would have been off the air when I was four years old. I watched Sea Hunt in syndication as an afternoon show on a UHF station (remember those stations) and wanting to take scuba lessons at my high school in my senior year (we moved at the end of my junior year, so it would wait another decade). I suspect the number of people crediting Sea Hunt with the inspiration to dive is like the number of people who claim to be at Woodstock, marched with Dr. King, etc, it increases every year but in no way reflects the actual lower number. But, for that generation, Sea Hunt and Mike Nelson became emblematic with scuba, just as Piper Cub stood for every general aviation airplane.