What brought me to diving was Cousteau's The Silent World. I watched it at a movie theater, with a Hard Hat diver's dress out in front to attract attention. That was before it won the Academy Award!
I also watched the original Sea Hunt series on black and white TV at the Salem, Oregon YMCA just after my swim team practice. It was fun, but not as authentic as Cousteau's movies and TV series later. When I went through the U.S. Navy School for Underwater Swimmers in 1967, the instructors were really down on the series, and told us never to "...act like Mike Nelson," especially with our mask up on our foreheads. If that happened, it was worth about 50 pushups, or 100 flutter kicks on our back on the twin 90s Aqualung, with a mask full of water.
SeaRat
