Ok, brace yourselves, the "Way Back Machine" is going way back, well sort of way back to the early 1960's. Found these on Ebay?!
I love this shot brings back memories. For one it is a photo of a Rebikoff Pegasus with full camera and instrument compliment. Dimitri Rebikoff was a French inventor of things UW for decades. He was also a pilot. He decided to combine flying with travel underwater and conceived the Pegasus. It was about an eight foot long torpedo like wetsub that you lay on top of. There was a rudder bar for your fins and a joy stick for controlling the aerilons with your hand. The pressure housed instrument pod had artificial horizon, altitude uh depth, compass and other stuff out of aircraft. Looks like he had this one rigged with a cine camera with two UW arch lamps.
You would fly this thing, do power dives, and boost ascents and could fly pretty level for photogrammetric and video surveys. I used to fly its cheaper cousin, the Remora. The main difference was instead of a $25,000 payload (in mid 1970's dollars!) of silver zinc batteries in the case of the Pegasus, the Remora towed a Whaler with a 220 v, 40 A diesel generator by a several hundred foot power umbilical. We used it for all sorts of surveys back in the day. Fun stuff. Oh, and there is mention of Columbus' "Pinta." There was another time we kicked around off Cap Haitian, Haiti looking for the sister ship, "Santa Maria" entombed in the barrier reef using diver operated drilling equipment.
I had never even heard of this publication before. Nice that somethings are before my time! Regarding, To Kill A Shark (in) The Mediterranean, I think you first have to find one? They do have tiburons but I think they are more elusive. Here's an interesting factoid from the past. In the Caribbean macho divers back in the day strove to get some black coral often at substantial depth, at least for the larger trees. This was before the practice was heavily banned for non-residents most everywhere. In the Med, macho divers used to collect Cat Shark Egg Sacks at depth? True enough, I once swapped some black coral for one of these funky translucent eggs with a guy from Germany when I was a young spud. Neat cover shot, all that fancy high tech stuff! Is that guy holding a classic RolleiMarin housing, Hans Hass' creation or is it a door opener?
Ugh, weeds! Wait, what am I complaining about I'm trying to breath on a double hosed regulator! Deep Dive, wonder what a "deep dive" was considered to be at that time? I recall seeing an amazing account over in Small Hope Bay, Andros last summer of a guy that did 462 ft. in 1962! His partner stayed down there unfortunately. This was on AIR and in the small tanks available at that time, probably "Rhinohydes" or converted CO2 bottles or something. I think in general though a "deep dive" back then was substantially shallower.
A final oldie goldie. I've yet to make it over to Greece but recall something about SCUBA diving being forbidden off the entire country without permit or special arrangements. I think this decision had to do with too many historical cultural resources being poached. Free divers can do a lot, no doubt particularly in Greece where the practice goes back mellinia. Still, if you want to dredge some exploratory holes to pillage a trireme wreck in 300 ft. of water you'll be pushing it on just a breath? So, shame on the dude making off with the amphora for the options he has removed from future divers. Most of the damage that will happen to a wreck occurs in the first hundred years as is collapsed, spread around, attacked by corrosion and eventually covered up. After that it remains in sort of a low oxygen or anaerobic stasis. That is until you pop the top on the entombed wreck, let all that oxygenated water in and things can be royally trashed in a decade or so. That is for all time and all future generations, not a good way to treat a non-renewable cultural resource. Beach Temptress Contest? Oh, got a shot of that too, interesting fashions back then.
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