Posted by seahunt on December 31, 2003 at 09:17:53:
I bet I know a stupider diver than you know! Come on. You can beat me at that one can't you. Well, give it a try. Let me tell you about a buddy I had years back. If you can beat him for stupidity, I'll add one more thing that I had forgotten, but someone reminded me about it recently. Then try to beat that.
This guy was about 17 when I knew him, about the same age as me. He loved diving and he worked at a shop to get deals on gear. He was way enthusiastic and I dove with him a number of times, but it was often same day, same ocean. Still, that was long ago and I often had a buddy back then. One day I was diving with him and he had this big 3 band arbolette with a hair trigger. He looked at me and shot a sheepshead that was right beside me. Though I told him not to do that agin, he did, at least one more time. ... It's uncomfortable.
In 1974, the ScubaPro BC came on the scene. It was basically the first BC to hit the market that up until then was only horse collar floatation devices. We were at Pyramid Cove for our fourth dive of the day at San Clemente Island. At 80 feet, it was a bit deep for a fourth dive. I wasn't seeing much of anything and I bumped into him when I was pretty much done with the dive. I signaled him to go up and grabbed his leg. Up we went. All I could see was bubbles. I figure we made the surface in about 20 seconds. I freaked, looked at the boat for a compass and then went to 20 feet to swim back. It was about this time that the term "BC Elevator" was coined.
This does get bettr.
We once dove Leo Carillo Beach on a frigid Thanksgiving day. It was a screwy dive, but we got under the water eventaually. We came to about a 30 pound halibut in the sand. He had a paralyzer on a pole, but was afraid to try it. Well, maybe I was the dummy that day, cuz I was gonna try to stab it with my abalone iron. Luckily for me, it then swam away. Well, There was more. See, I got to the shop that was our social hub a few weeks later and all these guys jumped me to ask if he had really seen the halibut. I confirmed it, but found out why they doubted him. They told me about this yellowtail he had bought at the landing, stuck his spear through and then took a picture of. Forewarned is forearmed. So when I finally saw the picture, I said "you mean you shot this at Catalina and still hadn't taken it off your spear by the time you got to the docks"!
He always came up with a mask full of snot and blood. It was charming.
Hmmm. I guess telling this whole story isn't going to show me as too bright either at that age.
That 3 band speargun he had. Well, it wasn't big enough for him, so he sold it to me. Realize it was pretty big. I nailed a 6 foot blue shark with it. Still, he needed a bigger gun. So he got one of those huge black Sea Hunters. It can only be loaded underwater and it makes you do a backflip loading the bands. Well, he was known to have shot small calico bass with it. Yes, that is less than 12 inches. Oh, that gun still wasn't big enough, but wait a minute on that.
In amoungst this all, as I said, I bought his gun. Well we were at San Miguel Island and I shot the biggest sheepshead I had ever seen. As this was in the 70's, that's a pretty big fish. A beautiful red, white and black monster that I wouldn't consider harming these days. So there I was and I was having trouble getting it off the slip tip. He was near by and so came over to help. I figured that was good and he did know the tip better than me because he was able to quickly pull it out. Unfortunately, he had only grabbed the fish by the eyes and it kicked once to get free. It was gone.
A bigger gun you say. Anyone remember the SMG? That was the Sub Marine Gun that had two spears and used plastic rifle cartridges. It was guaranteed to be accurate for 75 feet underwater. (They didn't mention on land.) Well, one day he put finger over the barrel with no spear and fired it... and there was no finger left. It must have made an interesting mess.
Then there was when he wanted me to walk home from Ensenada because I suggested he might be lost. That was a fun weekend of diving in a hurricane.
Well, there was more, but suffice to say he capped it all. I don't know the whole story, but he was finally found on the bottom and after three days in a chamber, they told him that he was done diving.
Now if you can top that or if you can't, what was the other thing he did that topped all this stuff? It was interesting. Can you guess?
Enjoy the diving, seahunt