diving in the 70s and 80s

[Snash]

Originally Posted by hilrosepaul

What you mean like blackie the binbag?

thats the fellow

Black Bag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am sure Ole Yeller came to my rescue back in the 80s and saved me many a time when:

1) My BSAC beard was being pulled by a lobster underwater
2) the wreck I was attacking with my crowbar collapsed on top of me
3) I tripped and fell down a well when coming home blootered from a BSAC club night


Hmm, I feel a book or 2 coming on
Snash

[hilrosepaul]

What a page: Category:Viz characters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roger Irrelevant - Brilliant!!! (Wibble Wibble Hatstand)

[frosty the snowman]

Originally Posted by hilrosepaul

Couldn't think of anywhere else to put this....................

I've been given a load of old DIVER magazines. By old, I mean 1979 onwards.

Flicking through them (I'm up to about 1982/3), I can't help but be amazed by the diving then. 40-60m on a CMAS two star ticket? On Air? On Tables? In wetsuits?

WOW!!!

Hats off in a big way to the guys and girls who were diving then

Almost as amazing are the number and size of the beards in the pictures

Thankyou. It's nice to hear someone showing the elderly some respect. I didn't have a beard then but I did regularly dive to reasonable depths with what would now be considered unreasonable equipment!

Originally Posted by Odin

Thank you...
It was fun, lot less clutter.
Used to get all my dive kit apart from 82cuft cylinder and 16lb weightbelt into my yellow Spiro bag (Wetsuit/ABLJ/DV/BIG knife/Depth gauge/compass/torch/SMBand reel)
Got technical when I started using a Pony cylinder and a drysuit....

Quite. My knife was so big that if I dropped it I shot to the surface!

Originally Posted by Snash

OOOOO - yellow spiro bag - now there was an old friend - RIP .

Kinda like a Viz Character: "Yellow Spiro - The Faithful Dive Kit Bag"

Snash

I still have mine. Full of old woolly bears!

[Hickdive]

I had a yellow Spiro bag, very proud of it I was, even though some blithering fool in the design department had decided that the very thing was a metal slider on the zip very useful in a RIB.

Anyway, I was standing in my LDS the other day and there was a modern version. Its got 'Aqualung' on it nowadays but its still big and yellow with black bits, I nearly bought it out of nostalgia

Ah, the eighties, a single spiro 100, the RNPL/BSAC 72 tables, 5 at 10, 5 at 5 and at least a four hour surface interval.

[Odin]

It was even more fun in the 70's (before your time Frosty!)... I even remember helping make the boat at my first branch... West Lancs!
I had the job of painting the trailer whilst the senior members stood around, drank beer and chatted...

[Allan Carr]

I started diving in 1964 in the days of home made wet suits, twin hose valves and no buoyancy compensators. You didn't really need an SPG because when the pressure in your cylinder (1800 psi / 120 bar to start with) fell, you had to suck harder. Didn't stop us shooting down to 140 feet on a 50 cuft cylinder (about the equivalent of a 6l 232bar). Were we mad? Of course we were.

Looking back on it, it's a wonder that any of us survived. However, I do think that we were far less complacent about the potential dangers than a lot of divers seem to be these days. We did lots of hairy dives but were always watching for potential problems or equipment not behaving quite as expected. No redundancy in those days - your back-up was your buddy.

My oldest Triton is 1975 and has the story of how three buddies and I found the wreck of HMS Dartmouth in the Sound of Mull (sank October 9th 1690). I have a few more from the late seventies but unfortunately most of the mags from that era were thrown away in various house moves.

[scubagit]

Guys, have a read of Submerged, The history of diving in Ireland by Mick Moriarty. Some brilliant stories of the early years of diving in Ireland from Spear fishing in the 60's to modern day.
Great read.

[Finless]

Originally Posted by hilrosepaul

Couldn't think of anywhere else to put this....................

I've been given a load of old DIVER magazines. By old, I mean 1979 onwards.

Flicking through them (I'm up to about 1982/3), I can't help but be amazed by the diving then. 40-60m on a CMAS two star ticket? On Air? On Tables? In wetsuits?

WOW!!!

Hats off in a big way to the guys and girls who were diving then

Almost as amazing are the number and size of the beards in the pictures

Yep, the good old days before everyone got scared and now won't do anything without a bit of plastic that says they have passed .......................... or take anyone because the HSE/'sue you lawyers' will have their guts for garters.

It's not goint to help reduce the planet's population or improve the gene pool if a few people don't take risks now and then?

F*ck*ng modern times. Wouldn't p*ss on them if they were on fire ............. just as well with my prostate troubles ........................ mumble, grumble!

[Dr T]

its amazing how things have come on so much so quickly.

i remember learning on the good ole ABLJ in 1994. The club had 1 bcd which was worshiped !!

ash

[Allan Carr]

Attached are a few photos taken at St. Abbs back in 1966. Note the state of the art diving equipment and the lack of any buoyancy compensation. The youngster with the fish is me at the tender age of 18!