Diving in the 60's

[boulderjohn]

I will take what passed for harassment dives any day over this kind of childishness.

"Childishness" is a kind term.

The PADI course talks about signs of panic. It lists a bunch, including equipment rejection. A diver may throw away a regulator and shove the mask off the face. If you see a diver riding high on the surface, struggling frantically, with eyes wide open in panic, the regulator tossed aside, and the mask sitting askew on the forehead, barely on, you should probably conclude that the diver is in panic. You take all the clues together as a whole. If you see a diver resting comfortably on the surface, chatting amiably with a friend, with the mask resting comfortably on the forehead, only a true imbecile would take that single cue as a sign of panic. Unfortunately, we do have imbeciles among us.

 

[DandyDon]

If I'm floating in the water chatting with my buddy with my mask on my forehead, I am exhibiting no signs of distress. I exhibited GREAT distress during training. When I calmed down, I had to swim most of the pool to go retrieve the mask I had thrown off my face in an attempt to breathe. Neatly on the forehead? No way.

I only wear my mask on forehead while on the boat or shore. When I am in the water, including surface, both mask & reg are in place to use. One surprise wave in the face can quickly lead to choking & lost mask.

 

[Akimbo]

… One surprise wave in the face can quickly lead to chocking & lost mask.

Not necessarily: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...ons/398734-preventing-mask-loss-vs-spare.html

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I enlarged the woman's mask from the Coke ad and then began an on-line search for that model.

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No luck so far, but that is because I got so distracted during the search. These types of mask/snorkel combos go back a long way:
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The one above appeared on Scubaboard a few years back.

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It seems that it took a few years before the designers of these things figured out that you didn't need to put the snorkel smack-dab in the middle. Must have been very distracting. Eventually, they refined the concept and diminished the number of cross-eyed divers they were creating.

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After a while, they went to twin snorkels:
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Below is the Dutch Princess Irene wearing one:

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They got to be pretty popular:
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Even Sandra Dee wore one in her movie "Gidget."

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I found an example of this Riviera Cannes model:

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And then realized I once owned a 1950s Riviera Monaco model:

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I loaned it to a girl at the country club and she laid it down on the concrete edge of the pool and the convex, amber plastic surface got too scratched up to use anymore. I gave it to my little brother.

Anyway, it looks like they are still trying to perfect the mask/snorkel combo idea. Here is one that is currently on the market:

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And below is a REAL Mickey-Mouse swim mask:

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Wow! you really did some research!
Thanks for all that, pretty cool.