Hello, all.
I'm Dave and I'd like to join in the festivities of vintage diving. Like many others, Mike Nelson and James Bond were the two guys who got me interested in diving. I recall as a kid having a plastic set of orange toy twin tanks with a blue double hose regulator. But while the fire may have been lit the water wasn't boiling until the summer of 1975 when I saw JAWS. So it was Matt Hooper who finally inspired me to get certified with Don Brod at the Texas Skin Diving School in Austin, TX in April of 1976. I've been lurking for a day or two and have noticed that my 40 years diving and 60+ years living aught to fit me in pretty close with the bulk of the regulars here.
I'm interested in minimalist diving. A couple tanks, double hose reg, weight belt, a SPG, maybe a safe second, but that's about it. I'm only a few hours from the Fla. Keys and do most of my diving there with commercial dive operations and I'm concerned with the grief I'll get when I show up with this minimal kit. So my desire would be to connect with some of you who are fairly local to me to learn the ropes.
I've been reading the suggested articles for beginners and my wallet is still firmly in my pants pocket, but at some point I'm going to be in the market for some vintage equipment. I've been looking at reefs and wrecks for years, and with exotic locale diving out of my budget I need to find something to make diving interesting again. I hope to make vintage / minimalist diving that something.
Love to hear from some of you local guys with regard to getting together, and I'm always interested in hearing what the more experienced have to say.
Dave