Retro diving

A few days ago I've found a photo from a diving summer camp. It was 12 (I think) years ago but I still can remember the equipment we used, and these aren't pleasant memories. It was crap, especially when you compare it to the things that people use nowadays.



My exposure suit was too small and it had some kind of a crotch strap so you can imagine how I felt... I haven't seen such a device since then.

We didn't have BCDs of any kind, even the horsecollar type ones, I didn't even know that there exists something like the BCD. The flashlight I had wasn't very good too: at 5m water pressure was high enought to turn it on or off, depending on its previous state. I was leaking to, however the water didn't seem to change its performance:).

The majority of the regulators we used had mechanical reserve valves instead of pressure gauges. There were also the twin-hose ones (Kajman type).

Almost all the diving we did was in a murky lake with visibility reaching 0.5m, sometimes (when I was the first person I the water that day), 0.7m. Our instructors didn't see what was happening uderwater so they used rope to control us and pull us out in the case of emergency. At the end of, however, the camp we could dive in another lake, with clear water, and up to 10m(!!!) of visibility:)

This was my firts encounter with SCUBA diving, so despite the crappy equipment, I was extremely happy as diving has always been my dream.

Then I stopped diving for 10 years, and when I started it again all was different:)