Short essay on influence of sea hunt

[JamesBon92007]

Another important lesson I learned from Sea Hunt is at 19:52 in this episode.

I don't get it. Don't use a J-valve? Or always check your J-valve?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

At 19:52 in the video he's not checking her J-valve.

 

[Compressor]

I don't think SeaHunt influenced me but the show Flipper certainly did. I remember saying some day I will dive in waters like that. And..... I kept my word.

 

[scrane]

Oh, please. Lloyd Bridges wasn't a diver until he was trained for the show itself. Zale Parry was already an accomplished diver. And JYC would know that when someone cut the EXHAUST side of his double hose regulator he was in a lot less danger than the script suggested!

Who's Zale Parry?

 

[Akimbo]

Who's Zale Parry?

Click here: Zale Parry

 

[drbill]

I count Zale as a personal friend. She was a REAL diver back in the 1950s, setting the women's deep diving record here off Catalina in the mid-50s, featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated and still a diver today. She comes out to Catalina to dive once a year and is a real treasure.

 

[AfterDark]

Sea Hunt was what sparked my interest in diving @age 5?6?, actually putting my head in the water with a mask and snorkel on for the 1st time was how/when I fell in love with diving. We have Sea Hunt re-runs via DVDs all the time at my home.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

If someone was coming at him with a big knife to cut his regulator hoses my money would be on Lloyd Bridges over Jacques Cousteau any day. To say Lloyd Bridges was not a real diver is like saying Donald Trump is not a real President.

Well, Lloyd was an actor; Jacques Cousteau was a naval officer. Not only that, but his Undersea Research Group was doing reconnescence on German naval activities while France was occupied, and reporting it to the Allies at great risk. Some of his officers served in the French-Indochina War too. Cousteau himself would be somewhat at a disadvantage, as he had suffered a disabling arm injury in an automobile accident. I think he mostly recovered, but it kept him out of naval air ops (and therefore may have saved his life during WWII).

For me in Salem, Oregon, my motivation came from Cousteau's The Silent World at the Elsinore Theator, and was completely enthralled. That whole summer I picked strawberries and beans to earn enough money to buy a scuba unit, a Healthways SCUBA double hose regulator and a 38 cubic foot tank.

I did watch Sea Hunt, but mostly looked for the mistakes in the film; the weight belts under the Scuba harness, changes in gear in the middle of a scene, etc. Sea Hunt was fun to watch, but Cousteau was the real thing. I learned scuba diving by reading Cousteau's book (again, The Silent World) at least three times. I finally was certified four years later, by LA County Instructor Roy France. We had to "import" him from California, as there were no instructors in Salem, Oregon in 1962-63.

When I subsequently went through the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers, the Navy instructors were very harsh on anyone who mimicked the Mike Nelson signature face mask on the forehead thing. That cost anyone so ignorant as to do that 25 push-ups, immediately, and even if that person had two 90s on his back.

SeaRat

 

[scrane]

Well, Lloyd was an actor; Jacques Cousteau was a naval officer. Not only that, but his Undersea Research Group was doing reconnescence on German naval activities while France was occupied, and reporting it to the Allies at great risk. Some of his officers served in the French-Indochina War too. Cousteau himself would be somewhat at a disadvantage, as he had suffered a disabling arm injury in an automobile accident. I think he mostly recovered, but it kept him out of naval air ops (and therefore may have saved his life during WWII).

For me in Salem, Oregon, my motivation came from Cousteau's The Silent World at the Elsinore Theator, and was completely enthralled. That whole summer I picked strawberries and beans to earn enough money to buy a scuba unit, a Healthways SCUBA double hose regulator and a 38 cubic foot tank.

I did watch Sea Hunt, but mostly looked for the mistakes in the film; the weight belts under the Scuba harness, changes in gear in the middle of a scene, etc. Sea Hunt was fun to watch, but Cousteau was the real thing. I learned scuba diving by reading Cousteau's book (again, The Silent World) at least three times. I finally was certified four years later, by LA County Instructor Roy France. We had to "import" him from California, as there were no instructors in Salem, Oregon in 1962-63.

When I subsequently went through the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers, the Navy instructors were very harsh on anyone who mimicked the Mike Nelson signature face mask on the forehead thing. That cost anyone so ignorant as to do that 25 push-ups, immediately, and even if that person had two 90s on his back.

SeaRat

Seems they didn't teach irony in the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Seems they didn't teach irony in the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers.

No, they didn't. But Bob Means did. Here's a short story from my experience at the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers:

On our first day at Key West, we were formed up into a running squad. We snaked our way downtown, singing as we ran very early in the morning. I often wonder what the residents of Key West thought of us and our running through their town. The instructors at Key West were Underwater Demolition Team members, and some were also SEAL Team members.

Key West at sunrise is much different than the tourists can imagine. Running in formation, singing at the top of our lungs so as to wake up anyone within earshot, we jogged in two lines, looking for all the world like a centipede with its legs synchronized chasing a bug with a green head, white back and green trunk. We were in shorts, and the instructor would stay in front of us, daring us to catch him. He stopped us in an alley, dark and cool in the early morning air. The ground was damp as he dropped us for pushups, then had us roll over onto our back. He shouted, "Dying Cockroach Position!” and we lifted our legs straight up into the air, along with our arms. "Head up, I said HEAD UP!!" the instructor shouted. One of the guys had let his head touch the ground. We stayed in this position, silently, for several minutes. After running and singing, at first this was a relief, but then the unusual static posture started getting to us. My neck muscles groaned audibly in my ear. My legs were getting quite heavy, and starting to shake. I was just about to put my head down when I heard an death wail, a loud "AAAAHHHH!" and a thump.

It was Bob Means. He hadn't been at Jump School, but he had joined us for Scuba School. I had enjoyed his company, and his fun-loving spirit. So it was with some trepidation that I looked over to see him with his eyes closed, laying on his side on the ground and not moving. The instructor shouted,

"Means, what the hell is going on?"

Means replied, "Sir, I died."

The whole class broke into laughter, lost their position, and guffawed on the ground. The instructor, sensing he was loosing control, shouted

"Alright Ladies, everyone up, form up, and we'll do a little more running."

But he couldn't help smiling about Means' antics.

We trotted out of the alley, took a left turn and headed for the beach. Instead of just running on the sand, we crossed over to the water, and ran into the ocean paralleling the coast. At first, he had us just running. Then we went a little deeper, running in ankle deep water. After five minutes of this, he had us run out just a little more, until we were almost knee deep in the water.

Running in this deep water was like moving your legs in jello. The water slows the legs down, and we had to lift our knees very high to clear the water's surface to keep going forward. Exhausting, totally exhausting! When we ran back to the school, we were dragging, and our songs didn't have the spirit of earlier that morning. We must have sounded like hoarse frogs dying of thirst trying to sing.

Copyright 2018, John C. Ratliff
from my manuscript, which I hope to publish this year: Between Air and Water, the Memoir of an USAF Pararescueman.

The reason for the no-mask-on-forehead metronome (pounded into our heads) was that on a mission, if a rogue wave knocked that mask off our head, it would compromise the mission. Even now, I hesitate to put my mask on my forehead, though it's great for photos.

SeaRat