hola, de nuevo miembro

[georgeaustin]

hello everyone - happy to have found a vintage double hose community.
I am George Austin from Los Angeles, CA.

I have been NAUI certified by Carter Breusing at Laguna Sea Sports (Laguna Beach, CA)since 1972 - I was 14 years old and I almost washed out. The class was mostly young tough guy types who could really swim well and were quite coordinated - unlike me. I made it through though and have seriously enjoyed sport and commercial diving for most of the years from then until now.
I grew up in Corona del Mar, CA in the 60's and the thing to do then for young, adventurous types (besides bikini clad girls) was all oceancentric. Thunderball, Mike Nelson and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. My friends and I would pull on the Rubatex, don the USD Falco mask, giant USD shark fighting knife and Rocket fins or Vikings, rig a spear gun and drift the summer current in snorkle gear from Corona del Mar to Emerald Bay - about 1.6 miles. Real "Skin Divers" we thought we were.
I suppose being certified in 72 taught me self sufficiency - at least compared to modern day dive training - it was a plastic pack, a harness, a Mae West and a web belt with a few pounds of lead. Things were less sales oriented as well back then.
The following years I think I fell in with the herd a little bit. I never lost my ability to be properly weighted, control bouyancy with breathing, properly kick from the hips etc, etc. - but I was using a weight integrated BC, I had a bunch of 600.00 regulators that were all plastic, I had some unnecessary crap hanging off me, I had even forgotten how to thread a weight belt buckle! Something had to change. I hate Velcro! I have always hated velcro
I invested in a BP/W and harness and took a trip to find my roots - to La Paz where I could dive in 82F water with no damn wetsuit and try to enjoy diving again. - and did I ever. It was a solo trip and I made good friends with the Mexican DM's who happened to be all into BP/W and the restoration of vintage single hose regs and a mindset of minimalist type diving for the fun and freedom of it. Seeing it and doing it was just what I needed. Except for one thing - those damn bubbles in my face - the noise irritated the hell out of me - did I just become aware it this?
On about dive 10 in La Paz I decided I would get an old two hose rig and solve that problem. Little did I know that it's not that easy so here I am.
I have been reading all the threads, studied the beginner page, compared single stage versus two stage set ups. Decided what I needed equipment wise to go from traditional to travel compliant. Thanks to this site, I think I'm getting a little squared away. I purchased a VDH plate and harness and a Royal Aqua Master two hose rig. I already have a few J valve 72's - one that is VIP'd and hydro stickered and two that need to be. I need a couple recommended training books - you know the ones, and I will send the RAM regulator to Bryan for inspection, service and recommendations. I build industrial equipment for the Oil and Gas Industry and vintage racing motorcycles so I am mechanically inclined a little bit but regulators are not my field. When all that is done and returned to me, I plan on taking it to my mom's pool and figuring it out a little bit before an open water excursion. A mentor would be good too. My intent is to do more solo dive trips to Baja, Cozumel, Honduras, Belize, Tobago (July trip coming up) and of course the local stuff at Catalina, San Clemente Is. and the beach dives in Laguna.
So, thanks for all the help - this is a very informative site. Great to see other guys diving VTH rigs - BTW - on that last Baja trip, there was a gal diving a modern Mistral with the Titan 1st stage - it's just not the same IMO. Thanks, again - see you out there . .
George

[BigMike]

Welcome to the board. Bryan does excellent work and you will be pleased. Getting in some pool time once you have your RAM back is a good idea. It will make you much more comfortable and allow you to get your weighting/trim in line. Mike

[swimjim]

Welcome aboard George! It sounds to me like your already pretty well squared away. Your transition should be an easy one!

Jim

[georgeaustin]

Thanks, guys - one thing that stuck with me in that trip to La Paz - near the end of the trip, I was in town having a beer with the Mexicana DM that I was buddy'd up with on the trip. She was a natural type. Good trim, kick style air sipper, never saw her with air in her jacket for 33 dives - - I told her she had a very good instructor to teach her diving old school style - she said "well, you never want to look uncool underwater"

Seriously - that's it in a nutshell and nothing looks cooler than diving a VDH rig - properly. Swim down, swim around and swim up! - someone here says that.

[21]

Hola Hombre,
Muchas personoas aque habla Espanol. Yo Habla pero no escribe!

I knew Carter very well. I am sad to report that he, along with Al, are now diving on that "big reef in the Sky." I have not had contact with Sally for some time so do not know her status.

You were certified in the center of diving at that time; suggest you (and others) may want to visit www.portagequarry.com; Legends of diving "Orange county, did you know?" for a short synopsis of OC diving involvement.

There is a very active diver to this board, "SCUBA lawyer" who has a wealth of experience dating back many years, is a certified Advanced diver and a long term Pro5000 diver who has resided in Laguna all his life. Might want to make contact with him.

Cheers,
SDM

[georgeaustin]

Thanks, Doc
Great read over at the portagequarry/OC/ history link.
I worked a while for Roger Hess - sad to see him gone. His son Kenny jumped off the side of his dad's boat one day off Catalina with a single tank on his back - a little thing smaller than a 72 - was gone about 30 minutes fishing loose a stuck anchor. When he stumbled back on board all goofy and bleary eyed - he said - " damn, cold down there, dark too but I got the thing loose - pull her up! Let's go!"

I said, " hey, you ok? You look all weird - even more weird than you usually look"

I looked at his depth gauge - 221ft - as he lurched into the galley for a snack.

All if us just looked at each other shaking our heads.

[8dust]

welcome to ya, George.

[Herman]

Welcome to the board George.
You may want to consider upgrading the RAM to a Phoenix while Bryan has it. That will give you some HP and LP ports to make the scuba police happy and you will have a regulator that will hold it's own against most any reg on the market today. If you choose, you can always plug off any of the ports and dive as old school as you like. I usually dive a Phoenix with just a SPG that has a capillary depth gauge on it and a back plate with out a wing. The BP alternates between a modified Zeagle ET and a Kam Eze that I have modified to use with AL-80s....steel 72 overweight me without a wetsuit.
http://www.vintagedoublehose.com/index. ... ort=normal

As for the modern Mistral, that was a hug mistake by AL. Instead of building a good DH reg, they cobbled together as many off the shelf parts as they could instead of doing it right and ended up with a poor excuse for a reg....

[ScubaLawyer]

Hola Hombre,
Muchas personoas aque habla Espanol.

There is a very active diver to this board, "SCUBA lawyer" who has a wealth of experience dating back many years, is a certified Advanced diver and a long term Pro5000 diver who has resided in Laguna all his life. Might want to make contact with him.

Cheers,
SDM

Greetings and welcome George! Dr. Sam and I go back over 30 years and I was diving for more than a decade before that. I knew Carter as well. He was one of a kind. I am still using my US Divers AquaMaster I bought new in the early 70's. Although it is now a Phoenix Royal AquaMaster thanks to Bryan. Anyway, i'm here in Laguna and always up for a vintage dive. I'm also available for lunch to talk vintage equipment, diving in general and the good old days. I get up to LA every so often. Happy to try and answer any questions I can.


[email protected]

[SurfLung]

Welcome to VDH George. I enjoyed reading your stories.

[21]

[quote="ScubaLawyer"][quote="21"]

]

Greetings and welcome George! Dr. Sam and I go back over 30 years and I was diving for more than a decade before that.

[email protected][/quote]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark,
Closer to 40 or more years...
We met via Coralee when you were 16 and were employed part time at the travel agency.
Orange coast College closed down the SCUBA program 29 years ago and you had been my lab assistant for at least 5 years.
Oh! the days of our Dives.
SDM

[ScubaLawyer]

]

Greetings and welcome George! Dr. Sam and I go back over 30 years and I was diving for more than a decade before that.

[email protected]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark,
Closer to 40 or more years...
We met via Coralee when you were 16 and were employed part time at the travel agency.
Orange coast College closed down the SCUBA program 29 years ago and you had been my lab assistant for at least 5 years.
Oh! the days of our Dives.
SDM

My gawd Sam, you are correct! How time passes far too quickly. The memories are coming back. I remember both you and the late Dr. Charlie Brown MD frequently stopping by the travel agency to shoot the breeze and see what new exotic dive trips we were leading. Live-aboard dive trips were in their infancy at the time. Charlie was writing a diving medicine column for Skin Diver Magazine. I recall one time Charlie stopped in, brought lunch, and we sat and talked for hours about the potential problems associated with the buildup of CNS oxygen toxicity during lengthy live-aboard multi-dive, multi-day dive trips. The only dive "computer" around was the old ScupaPro "Bends-O-Matic." I remember that like it was yesterday. The following decade I thought I was hot stuff with my NAUI Instructor Card No. 8941. You went and whipped out your NAUI Instructor Card No. 27 and I was humbled. Those were great times! Thanks for jarring my memory. Mark.

[georgeaustin]

Herman, Mark - Thanks - Go big or go home - I was considering a 3 way block running off the hookah port + a banjo for an spg (scuba police compliant) but after more research, it is apparent that the Phoenix/HPR is just easier and I'll have a PHPRRAM that will be complete

That RAM I bought is sitting at home in a box in the living room and I am stuck in Kansas commissioning a new Biomass energy plant for a Spanish multinational. Working to support a dive addiction - I don't have a work problem - I can stop whenever I want to.

Mark - In about 1974 I had a little Chevy LUV pick up truck that I would hire out to move furniture and stuff around for people in Newport Beach, Laguna, CDM - etc. One call out was to a travel agency on PCH in CDM.

I showed up to the office that Saturday and the owner had tons of dive photos spread out all over the office, dive gear on desks and chairs - - as I remember it, we got to talking, I told him I had been certified down at LSS a couple years ago and I was saving up for a Scubapro regulator and my own dive tank. I think I remember him telling me that he was a photo editor for Skin Diver mag and he had just returned from Truk and from one of the first photo surveys of some of the deeper wrecks. wow. Well, I always loved the artifacts and stories of the War in the Pacific. I think he and his crew were doing deco dives which may have been not a regular thing at the time for us sport /recreational divers and that his deco stops became a little "sharky" a few times. wow. He had been back the better of a week and was still quite excited.

Anyway - just wondering if that's the travel agency you're referring to.

Dive related: It was just a few weeks earlier that dad got us all out of the house at 6AM because the Daily Pilot had a big story about the Calypso in Newport Harbor fueling and provisioning for a trip to the Sea of Cortez. Interested parties could assemble on the bluff above Pirates Cove/Big Corona at 7AM to bid Calypso bon voyage as she transited past the breakwater - having the Calypso and Captain Falco in port was a big, big deal to us.

[georgeaustin]

The name Seebold comes to mind regarding the travel agency - maybe Ken Seebold ?
I dunno - been a few years

[georgeaustin]

http://www.bluelagoondiveresort.com/blds-history-a.html

Ken Seybold - Bay Travel - Al Giddings and Dr. Sylvia Earle.

The forgotten memories were driving me crazy. Above link is about the first expeditions to Truk by sport divers.

Great read.