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Pittsburg, Kansas | When I started diving in 1968 BC's (buoyancy compensators) had not been invented.
If you were wearing a wetsuit especially, you weighted too light for the surface, swam like crazy down till you were neutrally buoyant, then when you went deeper had to swim crazy hard to get back up to neutral, then splay out to slow acent to the surface. 3 minute safety stops had not been invented.
The first attempts at BC's were May West style safety floatation vests like the military navy used. A person could take the regulator mouthpiece out of the mouth under water, put a breath of air into the small inflation tube, and adjust buoyancy for a certain depth. Problem was had to be very careful on ascent to relieve the expanding air out of the bladder through through the very small inflation tube. If not got a runaway ascent which was dangerous.
So the first BC's were ruggedized safety vests with much larger inflation/deflation tubes to be able to dump air rapidly. Still manual mouth inflation. Around 1982 power inflation came of age (air from the tank into the BC via a button). Then later the BC became integrated with the tank backpack as one unit instead of being a strapped on bladder affair.
Damn I'm getting old.
Edited by John Burns 1/14/2025 19:06
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Antique Anchor #2 scubadiving
