A Crazy Wonderful Weekend
- To start with, the weather started out terrible and the forecast was more of the same. Frankly, I thought we'd get a terrible turnout. We even stopped along the way to eat a nice breakfast... Thinking it would be pouring rain all day anyway. So, we arrived at the Wazee parking lot a little late and were surprised to find it was FULL. Below you can see Ron Bentz in the yellow striped wetsuit visiting with the Stiers.
- A HUGE THANK YOU is owed to Ron Bentz. He got there a day early and set up his huge awning. A generator was quietly humming with electricity to heat up the "Triple Batch" of Sloppy Joes he brought along. He was even filling tanks. Ron's set up made a great place to step out of the drizzle. Thanks also to the divers who brought the delicious salads, chips, cookies and desert bars we ate with our Sloppy Joes.
- We had a mix of familiar faces and others who came to see what vintage diving is all about. Below is a young family of 3 on the left and then Dave Kraft, Tom McClusky, Drew's friend, Drew, Ron, and Drew's Dad Bill.
- Snark IIIs are getting popular. Below are Rich and I suiting up for our Snark III Theme Dive. Me with my restored V2 Snark III and Rich with his converted fireman's Snark-A-Master. Tom showed us his Snark III with hoses positioned laterally. And Ron dove his Snark , too.
- Vintage versus Vintage/Modern... You saw it all at Wazee. Here is Ron sporting some beautiful triple tanks, Voit 50 Fathom double hose regulator, and silver wetsuit... Contrasted with SwimJim in a modern Tech Diver dry suit with bail-out bottle... And fitted with a DIVAIR reg, Hope-Page mouthpiece, and steel tank with VDH plate.
- The second day dawned absolutely beautiful. Bright sunny day. We did some diving at a different park location and lost rack of the time. So, we ended up arriving about 10 minutes late for the group photo. I wanted some photos of my regular dive buddies and so we managed to snap this one (below) of Nanette, Tom, me, Rich and SwimJim. It sure was nice diving and visiting with these buddies.
- I got another good "Buddy Shot" (below) of Ron, Drew, Bill, and their friend. I have dived with these guys several times now.
- And In addition to everything else, Ron took a pile of photos and videos... Above and below the surface. He got photos of himself in each of several vintage themes: Sea Hunt, JAWS (movie), UDS-1, Traditional vintage yellow tank, yellow stripes, get up, and more. He got photos at all of the underwater attractions... The shark, lion, pirate, sunken boat, etc. He sent them all to me to edit and post but I have to apologize it is just too much. I think it should go in a drop box or something.
- Wrap Up... As hoped, we all had a great time diving and visiting about our vintage diving gear.