Portage was AWESOME this year! We had a great time, but we did miss our friend Fred Morrison very much this year. The turnout was really good. I did not get a final head count but I would bet that there was at least 30 double hose divers in attendance. A lot of the regulars were there like Allan, Bryan, and Karl. This year however there were several new folks that came like William from Indy and a good friend of Allan’s from W. Va.
All sorts of awesome gear was displayed and “used!” On Saturday Greg, Jim Bach, Karl, and I all dived Divairs on the same dive. I think it was Greg that said 4 Divairs in the water at one time has not probably been done since 1970. I must agree unless you count a few fatalities. This old stuff is dangerous after all. Ron was running around with his hydroglove drysuit in the 90 degree heat almost passing out waiting on Greg to get ready. The water was not much relief to him since it was a balmy 80 degrees to 22 feet or so. Many of us ended up doing our dives in swimsuits since the water was so warm. On several dives Ron and I dived Broxtons with one hose assemblies. The one hose is a little short and stiff but the coolness factor is definitely there. Karl of course stole the show with all sorts of goodies! I know he had a nice Bunns Sensivair and a few other items that I will let some of the other folks talk about. I will just say that we had a blast! The Fees had the largest contingent and proud Dad was converting his boys to the vintage side quite nicely. Allan and Dave Haas did every dive together and took tons of pics. I hope that we get to see all of them. Bryan was a hit with the HELLO KITTY FX as usual. Terry Stevens entertained us all with a fantastic story of how his WONDERFUL wife bought him 2 Voit regs at an auction house for 20 bucks! You should have seen the drool coming from out our mouths. Rick Green came armed with nuts for all as usual. We would starve without him I swear! Gary Reese had to travel a little lighter this year since he was doing a gig at the stage on Saturday. I think he only brought 10 regs and 2 wetsuits this year and he was still the best dressed in the water. The Cow Jerry Lang was racing all over the quarry making deals for gray diaphragms and anything else he could, but fled the quarry at 1AM Saturday to avoid the constabulary. Dacor Jerry came this year and brought a sweet DACOR prototype 2 hose reg. I did not get pics but I hope somebody posts some here. Portage Jerry was working his butt off as usual and did not even get in the water, poor guy. Alec and his wife Diana came down and got in the water quite a bit this year, but Alec still gave his Sea Hunt presentation for the crowd on Saturday. Henry and Herman came in the green toaster and dived like animals. Roger Vanfranko dived, sold gear, dived, sold more gear, and dived some more. I think Roger made everyone there, especially Capt Logan, very happy with some neat dive gear. I think he still has a sweet green Broxton for sale…….I ran out of coin or I would have bought it. I know I am forgetting a bunch of other divers in the group, but the weekend was blurr that raced buy way too fast.
As usual Jeff and the quarry staff made our lives wonderful for 3 days. The air station was top notch with guys and girls manning the fill station that know what a j valve is and how to fill it. The legends were outstanding and some really rare Dacor stuff was there. Robert Olson, Valerie Van Heest, Victor Worst, and of course Robert Croft were awesome. We are so lucky that Jeff makes these folks available to us. Monica was running all over taking care of people and saving lost wet suits for certain people (Bryan). Jeff was on the microphone selling Chicken dinners so hard Saturday that only 8 dinners were left on Sunday. Of course the 2 fat kids Bryan and I got in line at 9AM to make sure we got ours. That chicken is always better the second day mmmmmmmm! Jeff and the Quarry do such a great job for us.