It would be my pleasure. I am not trying to engage in controversy and will likely not follow up with any posts on here. I will just be sharing some cave diving early history, my personal experiences, and some personal perspective. If it is filmed, I will try to post it.
Really the only thing that I will address that might be remotely controversial is how Bill and I (and others) always run our wing inflator off the left post so that in event of a roll off, we are immediately notified by a non responsive wing inflator. This is how it was done in the WKPP in the beginning per Bill and Parker, et. Al.
Some other tidbits: Breathing the long hose was Zumrick’s (best man at my wedding and all around amazing human being) brainchild. Bill also credits Zumrick with the first backplate made out of a stop sign and the first to bring back mounted buoyancy control to doubles and cave diving. He got the idea from the At-Pack that he got while doing a surgical internship in San Diego before coming to the Navy Experimental Diving Unit in Panama City where he spent the majority of his Navy career.
I’m going to be compiling more of these interesting historical items in the months ahead. I don’t post on here often, but will try to make some of it available in the future.
When I saw Bill mentioned, I just had to let everyone know he is still as active as ever. Zumrick retired from diving in 2005 because of advancing myotonic muscular dystrophy. He and I went together on his last dive at Ginnie and it was a great honor to share that experience with him. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Zumrick and Bill for their years of friendship and a lot of great diving. I have learned more from them than they will ever know. Not many humans have brought more joy into my life than these two crotchety old guys.
Godspeed and safe diving,
RB