Many, many, moons ago around the time when the Russians were discovering they had a taste for Cuban cigars and preparing to fling misseles at us from the Caribbean, I was a young tad pole and learned to swim about when I could walk. On warm summer days my mother would load us kids into the row boat and she would row us to the where our mail boxes were, about a block away. Whether I was on the bow or sitting on the stern I would peer over the side and watch the bottom go by. I always thrilled at the sight of fish and bottom structure and from a very early age knew I wanted to dive.
A trip to my Grand mothers house would bring home a treasure trove of National Geographic magazines. I read, or rather paged through the issues that had the divers salvaging Spanish Gallons in Florida, The one day the TV was on and I saw Sea Hunt for the first time. The hook got set a little deeper. Then The Under Sea World of JYC. My father was somewhat frugal. Having five kids he had little choice. We almost never went to the movies. He had a soft spot for Ian Flemings James Bond and I got to see Thunder Ball down at the local Rivoli Theater. Wow, just too cool. Especially for a kid like myself who ate, breathed and digested everything he could about diving. A little later, in my early teens I came across one of my Grand fathers books, Shallow Water Diving And Spear fishing. I still have a copy. It has everything in it from helmet diving, rebreathers, air supplied mask and of course, scuba diving. I read it cover to cover and studied the illistrations and diagrams many times over. So the foundation was layed. When I was 17 I had saved up some cash and cobbled together a basic kit. A local diver sold me my first tank, backpack and regulator on the promise that I would get certified. I did a year later and dove like a madman for about six years after. Then of course as most young men do, I got married and had to change things up a bit. I got away, begrudingly from diving. The desire was there. Thoughts of double hose clad divers rummaging around in shipwrecks visited me all those years. Fast forward to 2001 and a new, more sympathetic, less financially draining spouse. I started from scratch, got recertified and was diving just like I used too.
Something was missing though. Although the new gear was technically good, it just wasn’t the same. I was ebay one day and spotted the regulator that I had wanted back in the 70’s and I bought it. Of course no dive shop would touch it. One hadn’t been made since 1979. Yet this was the regulator that was THE CHOICE in my area way back when. So, I asked around and came up with a shop manual. I figured I can rebuild an inline four motorcycle engine, this ought to be a piece of cake. I had to make a tool or two in the shop, but I found this to be kind of fun. By luck, I ran across some parts kits on the bay and I bought a couple more regulators and rebuilt them too. About this time I had bought my first double hose regulator. I had always wanted to own one. When I originally got certified I tried one and liked it. Having little in the way of funds though, I did not buy one back in the old days. Now I had one in my hands. The ebay add said good condition. It had verdigris all over it. The hoses were shot. The mouth piece looked okay, but the mouth piece valves turned to dust when you touched them. What to do. Undaunted I turned to my search engine and found a place called Vintage Double Hose. I bought the manual on CD, studied it and then bought the parts for the rebuild. I found that although the single hosers I was working on were a different brand, the concept was pretty much the same. Simple. My first double hose dives were truely and experience. JYC and Lloyd Bridges were looking down upon me with as big a grin as I had I’m sure. No longer encumbered by a BC and a bunch or hoses and using less weight I was able to swim like a manfish as JYC put it. I was finally like those divers I had seen in the magazines and TV shows of my youth. And in a way, it brought back my youth. That’s why I Vintage Dive!