Vintage diving...what was it like?

[james croft]

Those are great pictures with the proper orange weight belt with wire buckle and the horsecollar BCs and the inflatable rubber boat with landing gear and the inflatable heavy duty rubber 3/4 air mattress (body board). Those are rare I should think now. My inflatable air mattress, 3/4 length, is orange Hypalon and it makes a wonderful surface float for beach dives, don't remember when or where I bought it. N

You can still get those air mattressses. They were a canvas/ rubberized style that we used for body surfing. I rode a big wave at VA Beach at Dam Neck Navy Station in the 70's on one for about 800 feet or so. We talked about it at my 30 year class reunion.
Anyway I stlll have one and I don't remember where I got mine either but it is fairly new. I used a double skeg foam board for boogey boarding now but those old blow-ups did the trick. They were very bouyant.

To be honest though they were used by mostly tourists on the east coast. The locals used boogy boards made of foam.

I use a foam board for boogie boarding with twin skegs and duck foot fins.
Most grocery stores sell air matress boogie boards at the Outer Banks in NC. I don't use mine for diving support but may use a tube float if necessary.

Those are great pics.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thalassamania, you have the same haircut and the same smile in the last piture that you have in the first picture, too cool, thanks for sharing the pics.

That's not me, I'm no where that handsome, that's Lloyd Austin, the DSO at UC Berkeley.

 

[scubapro50]

I was cleaning up my backroom the other day and found a 1967 CENTRAL SKIN DIVERS catalogue. At one time I had a whole box of such stuff from BERRY and NEW ENGLAND DIVERS but through it away years ago before the internet and Ebay.

 

[Thalassamania]

Wow, those are great photos!!
I love looking at stuff like that.

They are all photos from the UC Berkeley Research Diving Program site.

Hey, was that Monterey penninsula? The shoreline looks very familiar like Monestary and Lobos.

Most of the pictures are from Monestary and Lobos, a few are from Tahoe.

I also love the skin outside beaver tail suits. I had a guy make me a suit that looks exactly like those beaver tail suits in your photos. The only difference is it's lycra on the outside. I got a lead on getting skin both sides material and I'm going to make an old school suit just like those. They were the best.

I sill dive that style suit, but mine is skin two side just like you're gonna make, warm and comfortable and totally overkill here in Hawai'i.

The History of the UC Berkeley Scientific Diving Program

[SIZE=-1][FONT=tahoma,arial,helvetica,geneva]Scuba 101[/FONT][/SIZE]

Thal's story about dives with the Berkeley Progam

 

[Gilldiver]

This is me yesterday after diving the wreck of the steamer Volund in The Race between Fishers Island and Long Island NY. I used my double 72's with a sherwood 2 post manifold and a DW Mistral. The back up reg is a single hose Posidon from the late 60's. I also had a 40 of O2 with a Conshelf SE2 (not vintage - Oh well).

The tanks were pumped to about 2700 psi and the Mistral was a hard breather till about 1500 psi. Pulling myself against the current to the anchor line and down, I turned on my side a bit to just about cause a free flow to help with the breathing effort.

Down on the wreck, things were fine at the 90-96' I was at for my 30 minute bottom time. For the DECO phase on the O2, I was able to keep the double hose mouth piece controled a lot better then other times by using the Posidon "Hocky Puck" ring to hook it.

Pete Johnson

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I sill dive that style suit, but mine is skin two side just like you're gonna make, warm and comfortable and totally overkill here in Hawai'i.

Please, you gotta tell me where you're getting those suits made.
I could order the material and probably figure out how to make my own, but it's nice to have options. The guy that makes my other suits quoted me a price way over what I can pay for a skin x 2 suit

 

[rligon]

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[Nemrod]

This is me yesterday after diving the wreck of the steamer Volund in The Race between Fishers Island and Long Island NY. I used my double 72's with a sherwood 2 post manifold and a DW Mistral. The back up reg is a single hose Posidon from the late 60's. I also had a 40 of O2 with a Conshelf SE2 (not vintage - Oh well).

The tanks were pumped to about 2700 psi and the Mistral was a hard breather till about 1500 psi. Pulling myself against the current to the anchor line and down, I turned on my side a bit to just about cause a free flow to help with the breathing effort.

Down on the wreck, things were fine at the 90-96' I was at for my 30 minute bottom time. For the DECO phase on the O2, I was able to keep the double hose mouth piece controled a lot better then other times by using the Posidon "Hocky Puck" ring to hook it.

Great report, great picture, wow! Yeah, turning on your side or back is a good trick, been there and done that, lol.

You might get yourself a PMDSV or ask Luis about his DSV design. I have both and use both for double hose tech diving.

N

 

[gndpdr]

the also have voyage to the bottom of the sea ..fun to watch the dive sceens ..

 

[Nemrod]

You can still get those air mattressses. They were a canvas/ rubberized style that we used for body surfing. I rode a big wave at VA Beach at Dam Neck Navy Station in the 70's on one for about 800 feet or so. We talked about it at my 30 year class reunion.
Anyway I stlll have one and I don't remember where I got mine either but it is fairly new. I used a double skeg foam board for boogey boarding now but those old blow-ups did the trick. They were very bouyant.

To be honest though they were used by mostly tourists on the east coast. The locals used boogy boards made of foam.

I use a foam board for boogie boarding with twin skegs and duck foot fins.
Most grocery stores sell air matress boogie boards at the Outer Banks in NC. I don't use mine for diving support but may use a tube float if necessary.

Those are great pics.

Yeah, I have a foam board also and use my Duck Feet for body surfing but the heavy duty rubber mattress was a good surface float for skin diving and scuba. BTW, on a recent four hour solo shore dive sans BC, I had my Boogie Board tethered to my dive flag float just in case I needed it for surface support.

Have you ever used those large foam paddle boards, like a surf board but larger, some had underwater windows in them? Kayaks have mostly replaced them now.

N