What was diving industry like 40 years ago?

[Nemrod]

Then as now, I am sure instruction quality varied widely from here is the book (and the book was the "New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving"), read it, thanks for stopping by to the training I got from one of the earliest NAUI instructors that began with pushups and lap swimming, one hour of lecture, two in the pool, twice a week for twelve weeks. We calculated tables, SAC rates, depth and bottom time over and over because then we dove mostly without an SPG and it was critical to learn how to know your air and time your dives vs. depth. I still do it to this day and rarely need to look at my SPG and then only to confirm what I already know.

We did buddy breathing drills, doff and dons and in the end did them with no masks and once they turned the lights off in the pool sos we did it all in the dark. There was also a Hell night that began with laps, then a doff and don, more laps and then buddy breathing and then more laps and then compute tables and then more laps and an end to end underwater swim and so on.

But diving was much more free and easy. Local diving in ponds, lakes and rivers was all an adventure. The Keys were an exotic destination. The biggest difference though I observe is that back then the majority of divers were young people, under 35 yo and today the majority of divers are old people, over 35 yo. Back then diving was a sport, today it is a relaxing hobby. Well, y'all can relax now, I will relax when I am dead, for now, it is GO TIME, no matter what I am doing. Relax my axx.

N

---------- Post added December 30th, 2012 at 12:36 PM ----------

Then, 1968, on my way down to our boat:

Now, 46 years active diver:

N

 

[Rich Keller]

Well, about 45 years ago I recall my older brother (maybe 20 at the time) getting his tank filled at some gas station in Portchester, NY. He dived for clams in 15-30' in Long Island Sound. I'll have to ask him about his equipment when I see him next. I do know he resembled Mike Nelson--I think I still have his old round mask.

Were these the 1800psi tanks?

 

[Charles2]

I got my original NAUI certification in Cookeville,Tennessee on 8/1/66. My instructor was Will Crawford, Inst. 5530. I took the class with two of my buddies. Will said that we would one day need a certification card because sooner or later, shops that filled tanks would start asking for them before they would do the fill. I do remember that the course was quite strenuous. I think that in order to qualify, we had to tread water holding our hands in the air and without the benefit of fins for at least 15 minutes and then swim an ungodly number of laps. There seemed to be endless drills on buddy breathing, mask clearing, navigation and the like. Doff and don drills were done by completely removing all equipment, placing it on the bottom, and then placing your weightbelt on top of the equipment to make sure it stayed on the bottom. You then swam to the surface and waited until instructed to return to your gear and put it back on. I don’t remember anything being that difficult – just strenuous.

Will had a compressor and could fill our tanks there in his garage for around $1, I think. There was some pretty good diving at a TVA lake just north of there where a town named Willow Grove was under about 35 feet of pretty clear water after the lake had filled from the TVA work. We went to Florida several times to dive off the Keys and John Pennekamp park - great times. Also while on these trips we would dive the Blue Grotto in Williston. I don't remember anyone checking for certification cards in the 60's, or even the70's for that matter. I think that if you showed up somewhere with tanks and equipment, most folks just assumed that you were smart enough to have gotten some training on how to use it or maybe you were so dumb that you wouldn’t be part of the gene pool for very much longer anyway.

My equipment was almost exclusively Voit because that is not only what Mike Nelson used but also what James Bond used in Thunderball. White tanks for the good guys and black tanks for the bad guys. Although both of my buddies used those new-fangled single hose regulators, I stayed with the tried and true Voit two staged double hose regulator for a long time. Our tanks were 72 cuft and were filled to 2400 psi. All of our dives had to be planned since there was no such thing as a wrist computer. We followed our slowest bubble to the surface and did not normally do safety stops. Most of the time, we only did one dive per day because we only owned one tank and had to travel some distance in order to get it filled. We all carried a wrist mounted depth gauge, compass, and watch. We all had J-valves on our tanks, but it would have been unusual to finish a dive with more than one of us having pulled the reserve valve. Our instructor had been pretty rigid about requiring us to plan each and every dive and we took running out of air pretty seriously.

Our wetsuits were ¼ inch thick and, of course, it was always compressed at depths so that we had to wear less weight in order to maintain a proper buoyancy if our dive was going to be deeper than about 60 feet. My two-piece wetsuit had a built in hood and a beaver tail and was a real pain to put on or take off without help. I had a contoured plastic back-pack for my tank that was very light-weight and comfortable. My weight belt was standard 2” webbing with a wire clasp that was easy to manipulate. I used full-foot fins and one of those masks that looked like it had a hose clamp around the outside. I had a small spear gun with a trident point that I used for a little fishing from time to time although we were pretty careful not to collect anything that was against the law like game fish.

 

[Doc]

What is widely believed to be the first Liveaboard in the Caribbean, maybe the world.....

 

[rstora01]

Started diving in 1970 still in high school: My mother worked for an Ear, Nose and throat doctor. One of the patents was told he could no longer dive (inner ear issues). He mentioned to my mom that he was a diver and wanted to know if she knew anyone interested in diving gear. Well, I bought the following for $85.00. 72 cf steel tank J valve with backpack, US divers calypso reg, Heathways reg, knife, weight belt with weights, Dacor depth gauge, SPG.

Took scuba lessons (not a recognized cert.) . Only other equipment I bought was a parkway wetsuit and something called a mae west co2 inflatable vest. Already had fins, mask and snorkel. No BCD available at that time to my knowledge.

Went diving in some of the inland lakes, quarries and great lakes (from Michigan) and froze my ass off. There were no computers so we used an underwater watch with a depth gauge and navy decompression tables. But there was never any problems cause the 72 cf tank would run out of air (2300 psi on a good fill) well before approaching deco. Lots of fun times

 

[drbill]

I started diving in the early 60s and moved to Catalina in 1969. When I moved here I finally had to get certified. Los Angeles County training was extensive... several weeks with lots of classroom, pool and open water work. It took us through current rescue (albneit without as much equipment to learn, etc.). No SPGs... relied on J-valves (which weren't always reliable in thick kelp). No BCDs, only backpacks (although some of my students, who came from well-to-do families, could afford Mae Wests). My wetsuit was quality... no need to sew or cement after a dive. My first ocean dive was off a charter, the Golden Doubloon, on August 24, 1969. In fact, the dive boat was my transportation to the island from the mainland when I moved here!

 

[mdb]

Dr. Bill:

Eddie and the Golden Doubloon! Many a weekend on that boat.

Barry Friedman from Sea d Sea was the usual dive leader.

 

[agilis]

Forty years ago there were countless acres of healthy vibrant coral reefs from Florida's East Coast, the Keys, and so much of the Caribbean that for years is it was possible to dive places (from shore!) in the Caribbean that had never seen another diver. The logistics might be difficult, but a rental four wheel drive and some borrowed tanks made visiting brilliant empty beaches with rainforest almost to the water's edge and coral gardens that started waist deep. The equipment was a mix, single hose Healthways and double hose Aqua Lungs, cruddy fins, home made repairs to deteriorating rubber, j valve 1800 psi tanks, a few weights. An old flat depth gauge that read down to an insane 500 feet after the indicator needle had made several circuits of the dial.

I dived Negril Jamaica when there were only fishermen there. A temporary road had been hacked out so they could film parts of a movie. Papillion, I think. Then one little hotel expanded. I met Jackie Kennedy and Ted Kennedy and a couple of the Kennedy kids there, one sun struck afternoon at the Saturday al fresco brunch at Rita Hojan's old Sundowner, the only hotel in Negril, way out by Rutland Point. They had perfect anonymity and privacy. Not a single security guard. No phones of any kind. Generators provided electricity that far out from the tiny village where I lived. No motor traffic except for a truck which made the hazardous journey in carrying mail and supplies like kerosene once or twice each week. Otherwise, no traffic, no vehicles of any kind. You could sleep on the road. Dogs and cattle did.

Communication with the outside world was possible only with two-way radio communication, and there was only one of those huge machines in Negril. No shops of any kind. No police station. One doctor, but he had served the Royal Family before semi-retiring to extreme rural Jamaica. Spent a fair amount of time sewing fisherman up, dispensing pills at his own expense. He had a small pool blasted into the ironstone behind his house which we stocked with small sea turtles. Black Billed and Yellow Billed Jamaican Amazon parrots nested in the nearby forest. A few chicks fell from their nests every spring. We rescued those we found, raised them on banana, bread and veggie mash for a couple of months, after which they had no problems rejoining the flocks, despite speaking a mixture of Jamaican Patois the Queen's English. Some Jamaicans kept their little birds. On a return to Jamaica 20 years after I lived there one old friend still had his. Its name was 'Pretty'.

I lived there for almost a year. The best year of my life. The reefs, the perfect sugar sand beaches over 50 yards wide, empty except for the occasional fishing boat, the pure limpid perfection of the sea, unlike anything I've seen before or since, anywhere.

 

[DCBC]

Can any of the senior members here shed some light on how recreational diving industry was in the 70s or even earlier? Were there charter boats or dive resorts? Any liveabaords? What were the popular places in the Caribbean or wherever you went for diving? How about diving gear? What were your brand / equipment choices? Was it expensive to be a recreational diver? Lets hear it ...

I became certified in 1965 (age 12) and became an Instructor in 1971. I would describe diving 40 years ago as being made-up a close group of certified divers who were competent (often trained to a higher standard than the average Instructor today). Diving instruction was more focused on dive clubs than the local dive shop. Clubs also provided a means of mentoring divers after certification.

There were Charter boats available. The Skipper would take you out to the dive site, count heads and when everyone was aboard, return. Buddies actually stayed within touching distance during the dive. There were fewer dive shops and air was available through private compressors or Fire Halls.

There were equipment choices, but sometimes these were from mail-order. I ordered my first wet-suit complete with hood, mitts and boots in this manner at a cost of $65 delivered. The costs didn't seem to be as high as they are today. In any regard they weren't beyond the reach of a teenager who worked on a ranch in the summer to make some money for equipment.

As previously noted, the environment was more pristine. There weren't Dive Resorts by today's standards, but were places and vessels that catered to people wanting to go diving. It was a much better situation than it is today imo. It was less about turning a buck, than developing confidence and competence.

 

[daniel f aleman]

1975