So, the other day...

[Firebrand]

I was over at my parent's house, and my dad used to be a scuba instructor. He was constantly receiving new manuals from various sports publishers, and I recently read one from 1983. The concept hasn't really changed, but the tables have gotten more conservative. However, when I came to the chapter on tank and valve selection, I had to laugh. The book recommended use of the "J" valve, advocating the availability of a reserve the valve can provide. I can understand that, but then it went on to say that if you are diving with a "K" valve, it is recommended you stay above 40 fsw so that if you run out of air, you can safely make it to the surface. Wow, the wonders of technology.

 

[pants!]

Well when you're diving with no SPG, how do you know how much air you have left til there isn't any?

 

[Firebrand]

...but I was taught that if I ascend, I should be able to get a couple more breaths out of a tank! "Thank you 'J' valve for letting me run my tank down even further!!!"

 

[Grajan]

Thats how I, and probably quite a few other SB 'geriatrics', used to dive.

Suck tank out - pull the reserve - ascend to 20'
Suck tank out again - ascend to surface
No problem having no air for the BC - no BC

Maybe this was the origin of the safety stop?.. ...

It reminds you how young this sport is.

Well when you're diving with no SPG, how do you know how much air you have left til there isn't any?

 

[ScubaSixString]

Thats how I, and probably quite a few other SB 'geriatrics', used to dive.

Suck tank out - pull the reserve - ascend to 20'
Suck tank out again - ascend to surface
No problem having no air for the BC - no BC

Maybe this was the origin of the safety stop?.. ...

It reminds you how young this sport is.

i read something about that reserve thing being easy to screw up during filling. Instead of having 500 reserve, you had 500 total or something like that......

and to think, you didn't know how "unsafe" it was

 

[Grajan]

Not quite, you could not really end up with ONLY the reserve but, if the handle got caught on something and was pulled down accidentally, it was really easy to end up with NO reserve. You reach round to tug it and it does not budge - bad feeling.

We planned our dives pretty carefully and did not wait until the absolute last breath to pull it. With the early regs they got harder to breath quite progressively so it was easy to tell where you were heading. We also practiced free ascents pretty thoroughly.....

Training was very rigerous compared with nowadays but overall safety standards were, in retrospect, pretty low.

i read something about that reserve thing being easy to screw up during filling. Instead of having 500 reserve, you had 500 total or something like that......

and to think, you didn't know how "unsafe" it was

 

[Rick Inman]

Thats how I, and probably quite a few other SB 'geriatrics', used to dive.

Suck tank out - pull the reserve - ascend to 20'
Suck tank out again - ascend to surface
No problem having no air for the BC - no BC

Geriatrics?? I resemble that remark.

Now that we have these fancy-schmancy SPGs, we can suck our tanks down to 500 psi, ascend to 20', suck tank out, ascend to surface.

See, things have really changed...

 

[H2Andy]

oh things have changed indeed...

at the National Park in Bonaire, they have an exhibit of diver's gear back
in the '50's

their depth-gauge?

a red piece of ribbon

 

[Grajan]

I'm not THAT old.......

oh things have changed indeed...

at the National Park in Bonaire, they have an exhibit of diver's gear back
in the '50's

their depth-gauge?

a red piece of ribbon

 

[gcbryan]

With no BC how were you weighted? Were you weighted as we are weighted today and just had to contantly swim to keep from sinking or were you weighted just enough to get down and had to pick up rocks to stay down at the end of the dive?