Here are three photos of me diving vintage, using my Mossback Mark 3 double hose regulator. This regulator is an updated DA Aquamaster with a brand new first stage, which allows three low pressure ports and a high pressure port for my SPG (submersible pressure gauge). These were taken by Sid Macken (another vintage diver) on September 1, 2012 in Big Cliff Reservoir.
I'm also wearing my own, patented Para-Sea BC, which I tried to get several manufacturers to make but did not succeed. It is in my opinion a better BCD, incorporating a parachute-style harness and having no waist strap. I developed it in the early 1980.
I'm also wearing the SeawiscopeEY, which when flipped down over my mask, allows magnified, very close-up viewing of small things. The SeawiscopEY allows easy viewing of my gauges, watch, and very little critters. I watched a hydra on a leaf, feed in the Clackamas River. I also very closely observed lampreys spawning. Developed by an optomitrist, who was teaching optometry at the Hong Kong University, he developed it for those divers getting older who lost their near-vision ability. The EY on the end is for "Ever Young." I have been using the SeawiscopeEY for several decades now, but don't know whether it is still available.
The other photo was taken of me by Bruce Higgins (also a vintage diver) at his Edmonds Underwater Park, on Puget Sound, Washington. I'm wearing my UDS-1 (Unified Diving System-1, by U.S. Divers Company). Unfortunately, my UDS-1 is no longer servicable due to lack of the ability to get the three cylinders hydrostatically tested. They have a very large (one and a quarter inch) openings for a unique valve system that incorporates the regulator first stage into the manifold. This system is the best breathing scuba ever developed, but was unsuccessful due to several problems involving the harness and the cowling (I had to reinforce the handle, for instance). But I could breath it down to zero on the gauge without feeling any breathing resistance, and when I finally did I had three breaths left in the unit. It also had a 750 psi J-valve incorporated into the manifold, activated by me left hand on the bottom of the unit (where it could not be inadvertently tripped).
I'm now 79 years old, and my diving has decreased for a number of reasons, but not because of physical problems. It has to do with my wife retiring, and not having weekends where she is working and I am free to go to the river and dive. I dive solo, but only at a few spots which are either shallow (the Tualatin River), or have lifeguards (High Rocks on the Clackamas River).
SeaRat
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