In October 1978 I was doing only my 14th scuba dive. This dive was being held at The Bluff jetty (or wharf) at Victor Harbor with fellow members of the Marine Aquarium Institute of Australia, SA Branch (MARIA SA). We were diving to collect aquarium specimens.
The sea was almost flat calm and the visibility on the day was said to be about 10m. We had 15 divers participating plus a few onlookers. The water temperature was recorded as being 16C.
The Diving Officer of the day conducted safety checks on each of the divers “in order to get them in (the water) safely”.
He encouraged the divers to wear buoyancy vests, something that hadn’t been the case much prior to that. I didn’t realise myself that there were apparently some spare vests available on most club dives. I was possibly wearing a vest for the very first time on this dive, having recently acquired a Seatec horse collar vest. It appears that I didn’t yet have an added scuba feed which I soon started to use. My tank, with J-valve and reserve lever, had only a single hose attached to it.
It appears that the diver that had sold it to me was still using a Fenzy at the time. It also looks like I was just wearing gardening gloves for the dive.
These photos by an unknown photographer give an idea of the gear that we were using back then.
I managed to spend some 80 minutes in the water, diving to a depth of 15’ (4.5m) it seems.
The collected aquarium specimens were sorted into dive tubs and buckets after the dive in readiness for the long drive home.
Very interesting read 🙂 nice seeing the old gear , and knowingbyoubhad a Diving Officer.
Thanks for sharing.