Old School Scuba

[NW Dive Dawg]

I wonder how solid his back kick was, though?

Oh..... no back kicks, frog kicks or dolphins kicks or "full cave" certs for Mike! He was always full speed ahead and using his arms in a full on "freestyle" swimming motion to cut through the water chasing down bad guys and saving the world.............

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I began diving in 1959, and wasn’t certified until 1963 (LA County, which we imported an instructor). My first dive equipment in 1959 was a 38 cubic foot tank and a Healthways Scuba double hose regulator, mask, fins and snorkel. It wasn’t until the next year that I got a wetsuit (White Stage wetsuit). It was cold to dive in the Santiam River, but I did it (I was 14 years old at the time). My instruction “manual” was J.Y. Cousteau and Frederick Dumas’s book, The Silent World. I read that book probably three times, and it gave me the information I needed to dive that scuba unit.

When we watched Sea Hunt, with Lloyd Bridges, we noted with some humor the equipment lapses (double tanks to single tank in the same scene), weight belts under the harness,

Concerning weighting with the wetsuit, we simply did that according to how deep we planned to dive. This was before we had any buoyancy compensation devices. Some divers used milk jugs to compensate at the time (cave diver mostly). After I became a NAUI Instructor (NAUI #2710), I started researching buoyancy compensation, and published on it in NAUI News and at the NAUI International Conferences on Underwater Education (NAUI IQ6 and IQ7). It was a problem with wetsuits, but not dry suits as dry suits could compensate for the loss of buoyancy by adding air.

Now, even dry suit divers use a buoyancy compensator in the form of a wing. It becomes a redundant system, but cave divers need redundancy. However, today’s recreational divers have also started using technical diving equipment, which may not be necessary for their diving, but do increase redundancy and also dive shop sales.

SeaRat

 

[captain]

My first tank and regulator along with a Squale mask and Churchhill fins bought in 1957 at age 14. I still have the tank and regulator, still in divable condition. Instruction was The Silent World and any other publication about diving I could find.

Me using the same tank and regulator entering the grotto at Silver Springs during the Sea Hunt anniversary in 2011.

 

[Diver With Altitude]

My first dive was circa 1975 on a family vacation in Curaçao. My dad and I did a resort course. No BC, I don’t recall having an SPG, and I don’t think any weights, either. We did a shore dive from the hotel swimming area, which was surrounded by a pier with shark netting suspended from it. To get out to the wall, we swam through a very large hole in the shark net. I felt perfectly comfortable, except when looking down into the bottomless blue/green abyss and wondering what might come swimming up out of it. We stayed shallow, of course, but at one point, our instructor shot straight down along the wall and came back up with a large branching black coral in his hand.

 

[mac66]

Didn't mean to hit and run. Took off for the weekend and forgot about posting.

Thanks for all the replies, very interesting.

BTW, the name of the movie was called 'Monster From the Ocean Floor' it's on Amazon Prime. Kind of a cheap B movie but the diving is fascinating. The hero drives an electric powered submersible which was provided by Aerojet General for promotional consideration. It was pretty cool.

 

[Gene]

I'm loving reading these old school scuba posts. Totally taking me back to my Florida childhood.
I forgot to say in my earlier post that I sometimes do simple dives in our Florida springs with my adult kids just hand-holding a stage bottle with reg and spg.

 

[mac66]

Here are some screen shots from the movie





And the sub...wikipedia says the sub is electrical powered, the guy in the movie said it was man powered so I don't really know.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Here are some screen shots from the movie





And the sub...wikipedia says the sub is electrical powered, the guy in the movie said it was man powered so I don't really know.

M66,

Thanks for the photos. I’m sure we could look up the submarine and see whether it was battery or human powered. I may have a book in my library which references this sub.

The regulator the woman is wearing is a DA Aqualung, and it is so out-of-position that it would be very difficult to breathe through. There is at least a foot of water pressure, in addition to the inherent resistances of the regulator itself. The regulator had no “Venturi” effect, as the intake is pointed toward the inside of the can, and not down the hose. This means that you have to keep sucking to get air out of it. With the position so high over her back/head, she did a great job just to be underwater with it.

SeaRat

 

[tursiops]

Your lungs will get you a few pounds buoyancy swing from full to to empty, so if your weighting is right on, just controlling your breathing is enough to deal with the weight change from a full to empty steel 72.

Yes, but not the weight change from thick suit compression. We needed drop weights.

 

[James79]

Yes, but not the weight change from thick suit compression. We needed drop weights.

Yeah, I'm a pansy.... 3mm is my limit. If I need more than that it's too cold, lol.