Vintage Double Hose

I just finished reading Sea Salt II More Salt by Stan Waterman. It is a very enjoyable book of memories and essays by one of the earliest underwater photographers and filmmakers. Another worthwhile read is I Thought I Saw Atlantis: Reminiscences Of A Pioneer Skin And Scuba Diver by Al Tillman. It is an enjoyable and often amusing look at the early days of diving. Mr. Waterman' book is new (and even has an earlier volume) and Mr. Tillman's book can be found used on Amazon.

Thanks for showcasing these titles, Lakediver.

Al(bert) Tillman (1928-2004) has earned a Wikipedia entry at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Tillman
There's an obituary at
http://web.archive.org/web/200703120557 ... llman.html
I own a used first-edition copy of his "Underwater Education: A Training Text for Institutions of Higher Learning", published by Scubapro in 1962. A sense of humour does shine through this textbook: and I'm delighted to hear that his autobiography "I Thought I Saw Atlantis: Reminiscences Of A Pioneer Skin And Scuba Diver" is a good read with a light-hearted side.

I had the pleasure of meeting both Al Tillman and Stan Waterman at the same time. It was September 11, 1998 and I was attending the Santa Barbara Underwater Film Festival. At our hotel the next morning I was sitting on the couch in the common room when Al Tillman and Zale Parry sat down in the chairs opposite me. Hans and Lotte Haas wandered over and sat on the couch next to me. Stan Waterman came over and struck up a conversation with all of us. It was very surreal. Anyway, I got them all to sign my program. Al and Zale also signed my copy of “Scuba America” at another get-together. Here are a few of those signatures. Mark.

Since we are telling stories.... I attended a class on U/W Photography composition with Stan Waterman while attending NASDS Instructors College and a few years back had a Royal with a homemade hookah port adaptor that was used for his drysuit while diving in the Arctic according to the source I got it from. Marty Snyderman did a lecture on U/W photography that I attended when I was at San Diego Divers Supply.......Unfortunately I still have zero skills on either side of the camera

In 1982, in a conversation at a DEMA or SEASPACE related party, Stan Waterman told me that he was not a "certified" diver. That's not surprising given the era when he began diving. I don't recall how the subject even came up, but it seems like he just threw in at random to be provocative, and I never really knew if he was serious or kidding me. I think he was a little disappointed that I wasn't shocked at his revelation.

It was very common for divers to be un-certified back in the day that it should not have raised any eyebrows. My training consisted of a navy diver taking me out with a Voit 50 Fathom and a steel 72 telling me to never hold my breath and never come up faster than my smallest bubbles. A brief lesson in mask and ear clearing and I was set.
I did check out every book in the library and read up on it but I suppose that is how a lot of divers started out.
I dove that way for 20 years without a card and never had an issue. I finally broke down and got certified in 1987 when the scuba police caught on to me and would not let me onto a boat without a card. I traded an instructor buddy of mine a pony bottle for the card.
It still amuses me to hear newer divers worrying about the c-card levels and that they believe they are doing something illegal by going deeper than 60 feet on an open water card.
I recently offered to take a couple of divers spearfishing on an old collapsed barge to shoot some spadefish. They were worried that they could get in some kind of trouble with the scuba police as they were not certified wreck divers.
You know what I am talking about as it seems society has been so conditioned to have their behavior regulated at every turn we have become almost paralyzed. We need to throw off this yoke and just dive the way we want to, when we wnat to and how we want to!