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Post by cnotthoff on Feb 3, 2018 11:21:28 GMT -8
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Post by SeaRat on Feb 4, 2018 18:41:00 GMT -8
Okay, after the Super Bowl, I will have some things to say about these clips. What do you think about the paddleboards and the Duck Feet fin races? Great fun in the ol' days of freediving. John Okay, it's after the game (great game too), and I have a couple of photos to share. We were free diving off the Oregon coast in Southern Oregon near Bandon, I believe (it's been a while). We used paddle boards, which were really popular at that time as a means of getting to good dive sites. You can see them in the competitions in the above video. I borrowed a friends, and we went spearfishing. While we were off the coast, I landed my paddle board on a large rock, and did some climbing to get up for a photograph. I'm pretty sure I did not have an underwater camera at this time, so I must have taken my Argus C-3 with me, in a waterproof bag, and then brought it up with me high on this rock. You can see that this was a great place to spearfish, as it was off the coast and the waves were not bad that day.  I wouldn't recommend this type of climbing now, especially at my age, but even then it was somewhat hazardous. The "rock" is weathered badly, and tends to break off. So vertical climbing without ropes is out. I was not vertical climbing, but found a route that I could climb without too much hazard that day. Probably, I was the first up there in quite some time, as no one has access to these areas except by surf or paddle boards, or inflatables.  Here, you can see the results of the day's spearfishing. I had several black sea bass, which are a rock fish which are very good eating. I now see them in aquariums at Chinese restaurants in Portland. You can see a rip in my wet suit at the neck, which I had repaired with glue. We did not have nylon backing on your suits at that time, and had to use either talcum powder or corn starch to get into the suits (which were custom-made wet suits, to our actual dimensions). This is a custom White Stag wet suit, made in Portland, Oregon to my measurement. I did a lot of spearfishing in those days, some of it free diving, some on scuba. I remember being in Puget Sound free diving with our Oregon State University Sea Beavers dive club, and almost blacking out from shallow water blackout in about forty feet of water. I had dived to the bottom, and was coming up sans any fish when I sensed that I was in trouble, so I took off my weight belt, and held it in my hand. I didn't black out, but came close. Had I blacked out, my weights would have dropped to the bottom, and I would have had a ride to the top from the buoyancy of my wet suit. The Oregon Council of Diving Clubs (OCDC) held the competitions shown in the video, and awarded prizes too. You can see some of the trophies in the video. I have a OCDC newsletter somewhere in my files, and if I run across it, I'll post it here...oops, I found it. So here goes:    'Hope you enjoy seeing these. John |
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