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I have reached the ripe old age of 75. As I look back at all the many things I have been involved in during these years, I would have to say that the ocean and its associated activities probably had the most influence on me and became the route to many other things in my life. Until you have experienced the thrill of going beneath the water surface on the ocean, you haven't really seen the beauty of the earth. God has created a whole different world under the surface, and when SCUBA came into being, that was revealed to those of us who have taken the time to learn how to use this equipment and plunge into the depths and just be amazed at what is there.
Even after I left California in 1962 and went to Houston, Texas to become part of the new venture into man-in-space that NASA was doing (and that I will describe in another section of my web site), my diving activities continued. I was the only certified Underwater Instructor in Houston at the time associated with NASA. As a result, I continued to teach classes to NASA employees and probably the biggest thrill was being able to work in the water tank with the early astronauts as they groped about learning how to do their tasks in weightlessness. I was fortunate to have been able to give them all instruction in the use of SCUBA right there in Houston, and then diving on the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
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| Original Underwater Instructor Patch issued by Los Angeless County Parks and Recreation Department |
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Diving and swimming in the oceans of the world began for me when I was just a lad in Panama in Central America. My step-grandfather built two family homes right on the beach just outside Panama City, one for he and my grandmother, and one for my family, and my bedroom overlooked the breaking waves. In those days we had no glass windows that could close off the sounds or the rain or the ocean and we certainly did not have air conditioning, so I listened to the roar of the ocean every high tide as the huge breakers spilled their load on the sand and rocks almost within reach of my bed. What music that became to my ears, and as I grew older and spent more and more of my time either in the water or at the water's edge in the huge tide pools left during low tides, I became more fascinated with all the ocean had to offer.
My dad bought me my first set of fins right after WW II when they became available to civilians. Masks took a little longer coming, but we used goggles as long as we remained in shallow water. The ocean off Panama City was filled with all kinds of dangers, but what kid of less than 10 years of age fears anything? I raced the sharks for the opposite sides of reefs and always won the race, almost never giving up the fish I had just speared.
By the time I was 10, I had hundreds of hours skin diving in the rich waters of Panama. SCUBA was unheard of at this time, but it wasn't long in appearing.
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| New Instructor patch for the Los Angeles County Underwater Instructor Program. Class #56UICC has just been kicked off in LA to produce a new group of Instructors. |
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| The Channel Islands off the Southern California coast |
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Southern California is a paradise for the skin and SCUBA diver. Not only do we have miles and miles of coastline that is accessable, but we have islands just off shore where the water is very clear and the sea life abundant. Along the cost from the Palos Verdes Peninsula just to the West of Long Beach all the way to Point Conception, the coast is teaming with kelp beds that are fantastic for their providing a home for all kinds of animal life of the oceans. The bottoms are rocky with shelves that provide homes for lobster and crab. And except for times of rough water that create a surge, the visibility is also great.
The five Channel Islands just off the coast of Ventura where I live, have been formed into a Federal Sanctuary called the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. These same islands have also become the property of the Federal Government and are the resident location for the Channel Islands National Park. Parts of the waters of the islands have been made into Marine Protected Areas to evaluate the use of such measures to help revive a vanishing fish and mollusk life. Commercial fishing and sport fishing are not allowed in these areas, but SCUBA divers are allowed to go into them and enjoy the beauty of the water.
Cold water upwellings bring rich nutrients to the surface, and along with that, fish of all kinds come to feed on the diet offered in these waters. Currents usually run pretty high going down the coastline and through the islands, but divers can stay close to shore to avoid any problems.
These fantastic diving attractions are what has been the drawing card for divers of all kinds to explore the riches of the waters. Diving boats abound to take the divers to the islands, and many divers have private boats of their own to explore the waters.
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In 1954, Los Angeles County was alarmed at the number of diving deaths that were occuring within the County. SCUBA had not yet become widely used, but was rapidly gaining in popularity as the equipment became available to the general public. There were all kinds of unsafe pieces of equipment available through a variety of sources, and the Department of Parks and Recreation for Los Angeles County forsaw the need for education of the public in how to safely use this equipment.
The first Underwater Instructor Program in the world, possibly, thus got its birth in Los Angeles County in 1954. Coincidently, Dick Holt was assigned duty in the Los Angeles Air Defense Sector in 1957 in a missile battery located right on the oceanfront in Playa del Rey, California. It didn't take him long to find people involved in diving, and through a dive shop in Redondo Beach, Dive 'N Surf, began a regular program of spending every available minute when he wasn't busy with military duties, to seek these friends out and make his way with them into the ocean, either right in the Los Angeles area up and down the coast line, or at one of the islands just offshore, such as Catalina, San Clemente, Anacapa or Santa Cruz.
These were the pioneers in SCUBA diving. Others were doing the same thing in Europe, but in the U.S., California divers were trying out all kinds of equipment in the water to see what worked, and what didn't. Aerospace companies that were manufacturing breathing equipment for use in aircraft got behind some of the effort, and they produced regulators to attach to steel tanks, most of the time fire extinguisher tanks many of which were old, beat up, and even rusty inside. One regulator acquired the name, "widow maker" because it had caused so many diving deaths in its unpredictable and dangerous operation.
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I was released from active duty with the U.S. Army in Los Angeles in October 1959, and one of the first things I did was enroll in an Underwater Instructor class given by the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Dept. As would be expected, the class consisted of a group of very experienced divers who were really the pioneers of diving not only in California but all over the U.S. and the world. I was fortunate to have been chosen the outstanding graduate of my class, 10UICC.
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A history of the start-up of diving programs in California can be found in this web site maintained by Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation:
http://www.lacountyscuba.com
Dick Holt is listed in the "History" tab in UICC 10, under UICC HIstory, UICC Rosters, Outstanding Graduates
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| One of the first users of the single hose regulator, the best invention in diving at this point. |
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| Aboard my own 30' Cris Craft lap strake twin screw diving boat where I could travel all the off-shore islands of California and dive to my heart's content, which I did!! |
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Within a few months, I had begun working at the Naval Missile Center, Point Mugu, CA where I immediately began teaching SCUBA diving classes not only at the missile center and the adjacent Naval Construction Battalion center at Port Hueneme, CA, but throughout the Ventura County area. As a result of his having been chosen the outstanding graduate of his instructor class, I also became a member of the Underwater Board of Directors for Los Angeles County.
This activity in teaching underwater classes was to have an almost immediate impact on me and my assignment at the Naval Missile Center as you will see shortly. when I was asked to be one of the first in the world to work with dolphins as the Navy began its program to see if the dolphin could be adapted to assist the Navy in its water programs.
At about this same time, leaders in the science of SCUBA became interested in beginning a national program to certify SCUBA instructors, and as a result, I was among the group that laid out the plan for this national program. I was asked to write the Diving Physics portion of the first textbook published for this soon-to-be national and then international program. I was assigned instructor number A-25 for the National Association of Underwater Instructors, and went on to teach diving for more than 25 years. This program now has tens of thousands of instructors all over the world teaching beginning and advanced students the safe way to handle themselves in the underwater environment.
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| This is Dick Holt's jacket patch as an Instructor with the National Association of Underwater Instructor's patch with the 20 year wreath |
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| A typical single tank (72 cu ft) and two hose regulator in the 1960 era. Many tanks were old, rusty and badly scarred making them unsafe for use. |
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The U.S. Navy, for whom I was diving, made up double tank units giving the diver much more time underwater, but also increasing the possibility to have some health problems such as "the bends". The Navy also issued us triple 40's which were too large, and cumbersome to use.
While I was teaching so many Navy people to dive, Jacques Cousteau in France, connected financially and engineering-wise with U.S. Diver's Corp in Los Angeles, found out about the large number of students we were processing at Port Hueneme called me one day and personally gave me 30 sets of equipment, tanks, regulators, masks and snorkels. What a gift.
But then, Sportsways Corp. also in Los Angeles, felt they ought to get in on this and they gave me 30 more sets. Now we could handle the large classes of Navy personnel we were instructing. We processed over 100 students per month from the Naval Construction Center and its battalions. It was all for advertising and getting their product out in front of the new influx of divers.
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| The Early days in California waters |
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| The early days when you could catch bugs this big with just skin diving, not SCUBA - This is Harry Vetter, a very old friend, one the earliest of divers in California. We dove many hundreds of times together. He's still alive and well in Oregon. |
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| Another diving buddy, Jack Waite, showing off his catch of fairly big bugs. They were plentiful in the early days. The largest I ever caught reached from my face to my ankles (no kidding!) and was a real chore to get back to the boat. And of course in these early days we didn't have the cameras that we do now. There were no underwater housings, and even the above-water cases weren't too good. |
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Harry Vetter was one of the first of the master divers in Southern California. I was fortunate to have met him right away in the mid-50's and we became close friends. The group of us dove off Palos Verdes, the peninsula jutting out into the Pacific just south of what we now call LAX. The taking of lobster was great. Abalone were also there in great numbers. We as divers never took too much, always within our limits, but what we didn't know in those days was that eventually we were going to whittle down the numbers of bugs by taking the large ones. No one knew! Conservation didn't exist in those days. Now we know!
Harry was one of the first of the diving Instructors, and talked me into going through a course in Los Angeles County the year following his course and just after I got out of my military service. He and I are still close friends. He lives in Medford, Oregon and is now in his 80's.
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| Harry Vetter with a typical day's catch of bugs off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. This was the catch for a group of us, all caught by hand without SCUBA. |
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| It was not unusual for us to shoot huge black sea bass in this weight range. This one was in the 350 pound range. Great eating. But again, we found that eventually over the years we fished out these big animals. |
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| Two old diving buddies and LA County and NAUI Instructors - Dick Holt on the left now in his mid 70's and Harry Vetter on the right in his early 80's. |
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| Dick and Harry having lunch at The Black Angus in Ventura, separated by Dick's wife, Cheryl. Good fellowship between two old friends. |
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| Click on thumbnails for a better view of the photos below |
Photos from the early days of two hose regulators. These were followed by a single hose regulator which was much safer and easier to use.
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| Aqua Lung double hose regulators. As more companies became interested, better and better equipment started to appear on the market. These double hose were OK but took extra care in their use by the diver. |
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| A much improved Aqua Lung regulator which even has a pressure guage with it to tell you the depth you are diving. Other pressure indicator devices were also coming along to keep you posted on how much air you had left in your tank. |
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| A young lady diver all equipped with her mask and tank and double hose regulator. We found that girls really got into SCUBA because it was relatively easy to do, did not require super-human strength, and opened up a whole new world under the water. |
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| These were called Rocket Swim Fins and I used them for years. Still have my set somewhere in the garage. |
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| A very nice backpack for your tank developed by Sportsways made it easy to change tanks or remove tanks from your back either on the boat or in the water. Note also the single hose regulator hanging down in front. What a fantastic change that made in our diving. |
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| In the early days of diving, most of the students were excellent swimmers. This changed as the years went by and more people wanted into the wate without the necessary preparation time to become a swimmer or even to understand the ocean. We required all our students to wear safety eqipment no matter their swim skills, and these flotation vests were invaluable in saving lives. I can't begin to remember how many times I had to pop the CO2 cylinder on a vest to help the diver stay on the surface. |
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| Finally, after many trials with all kinds of equipment, this is where we are today. This is the fully equipped compensator vest that houses the tank in the rear, the safety flotation vest and additional breathing tubes to assist other divers if necessary. Quite a package but rather bulky from the old days of just strapping a tank on your back and diving in. |
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