Hello From an Oldtimer

[Willieboy]

Hello guys and gals. My name is Bill and I am old, old, old. I wasn't always old. In fact, I was very young when I was conceived in New Jersey, a little older when I was born in Chicago and old and crusty now that I'm living in South Texas. I don't blame Texas for my crustiness. If we play our cards right, it happens to us all.

I was certified certifiable, oh wait, that was later. I was certified to dive on November 11, 1970. I remember it was snowing and there was ice on the surface of the water that day in November when my wife and I made our open water dive.

As a diver, my love was exploring ship wrecks and most of my truly exciting dives were on wrecks in lakes Michigan and Superior. It was interesting to research how and when these ships met their doom.

I did some modest, cave diving in Northern Florida, at commercialized sites and made one trip to the Bahamas to dive.

I'm seventy-one years old now, with myriad health problems and I plan to try to get back into this great sport. In October, my wife and I are cruising to the Western Caribbean and plan to snorkel at Roatan, Costa Maya and Cozumel. God wiling, I can whip myself into some sense of order and condition so I can blow some bubbles once more. I plan to have a hell of a time.

Bill

 

[cdavis]

You can do it!! Good luck and we like old guys. Is is one myself.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Bubble blowing at 71 should be no problem. I'm free diving at 77. Not very well, but still at it.

 

[Willieboy]

Bubble blowing at 71 should be no problem. I'm free diving at 77. Not very well, but still at it.

Man, that's great. What do you find to be your greatest challenge? I have COPD, so I'm most concerned about my lungs holding up. That said, I just returned from a local dive shop and bought some fins and booties. They said that, as a customer, I could come in and use their pool anytime I wanted. It's maximum depth is 16 feet so I should be able to get in some decent practice and work my legs, and lungs, swimming laps. I AM STOKED!

 

[BatRay]

Welcome to Deeperblue! Glad you could join us

 

[copdoc]

Hi Bill, I like to hear about the old days of diving, and the old diving. At 63 I may be the baby. LOL

I just retired and hope to go more often (snorkeling more than scuba).

I passed a 78 yo gentleman on his dive physical last year but he jumped through all the hoops and was a very experienced diver and engineer. He built his first set of tanks from fire extinguishers. He could write a book and we would all buy it.

 

[Willieboy]

Copdoc, when I was a little kid, I was absolutely entranced by the TV show Sea Hunt. That is the show that started it all for me. At my age, and with my health issues I fear getting back into SCUBA may be beyond me, but I'm hopeful I can still do snorkeling. Getting old is really a PITA. My mind still knows how to dive but I worry about the rest of myself.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Copdoc, you don't want to get me started on tales from my early days of diving. But the executive summary- I grew up in Florida with a fishing guide father. I was probably around 11 or 12 when I started putting around under the docks with a Hawaiian sling, but from age 13 to 15 I was doing some fairly serious spearfishing. At age 15 (1954) I bought my first scuba tank and regulator and was mostly a bubble blower until age 57. During my 20 years in the USMC I got to go to Navy underwater swimmer school and got to dive in places including North Carolina, Texas, Hawaii, Wake, Guam, the Phillipines and of course California where I live now. I now am exclusively a free diver, and only touch a pony bottle if necessary to retrieve an anchor hung in the rocks or a fish wrapped in the kelp too deep to safely retrieve.

I'm afraid we didn't take many photos, but here is one when I was probably 14 or 15 and another when I was probably 16 or 17. I'm the guy on the right in the latter photo, holding a Cressi spring gun. My girlfriend is holding my Champion arbalete.

 

[copdoc]

Bill and Bill

Loved the seahunt show. I have had some great snorkel trips. I trained studied and used Scuba a few years ago but now may just stick to snorkel. Many years ago 4 min a 60 feet was easy. Now 10 feet for 30 sec or so is more the norm. It would be great to have access to a pool that is 16 feet deep.

Nice pics. Film was more expensive in the old days and we did not seem to care as much about it until recently. I guess we saved what few pics we had for cars, guns and girls. Not in that order. I was not in Corp but spend quite a bit of time a CPMAB and Lejeune training. Wonder if we were there at the same time???

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I was at Cherry Point from 71 to 75.

 

[copdoc]

I was at Cherry Point from 71 to 75.

A few years before me but you never know.

 

[copdoc]

Here are some pics in Seal/UDT museum of "vintage collectable" scuba gear for you guys. Sorry they are out of focus and hunt 101 seems to be acting up.

 

[Willieboy]

That's quite a collection.

 

[cdavis]

i had several of those pieces of gear, good memories. Still have a set of Churchhills.