- REBREATHERS - SPORT DIVERS ... - Stingray Divers

It was the last weekend of March, the dive deck at Florida’s
Weeki Wachee Springs looked like a scene from a Sea Hunt
rerun. Divers clad in beavertail wetsuits with doublehose
regulators attached to diminutive steel tanks, adjusted black oval
masks and donned “duck feet” style fins.
The event was the second annual “Dive Into History Day,”
which brought together some 70 vintage scuba gear collectors
from around the country. For the older participants, it was an
opportunity to revisit their diving past. But in addition to the
grizzled veterans, there were a surprising number of younger
divers – folks who were still in diapers when Lloyd Bridges
went off the air.
For them and a growing number of divers across the country,
collecting, restoring and using vintage scuba gear provides a
chance to reconnect with diving’s roots, and to experience the
underwater world in a way that is new to them, but comfortably
familiar to those who have gone before.
Diving Into History
By Adam Matherson
Photos by Walt Stearns
www.underwaterjournal.com June/July 2007