The Good Old Days

A few weeks ago, I got together with a bunch of friends to make a memorial dive in honor of our old buddy, Jerry Comeau.  A few weeks before the dive, though, Christine Levoshko sent me a bunch of scans she had just made from a few of Jerry’s old photos.  Most were black and white shots from the 50’s and 60’s of Jerry and friends gearing up at Folly, Back Beach, Pebble, and a couple of other sites I couldn't see enough of to id.  But it was enough to get my imagination running.

I've often wondered what it would have been like to have been with Jacques Cousteau, Philippe Talliez and Frederic Dumas when they made that very first SCUBA dive in 1943 in the French Riviera -- to have seen what they saw. It's hard to imagine, though, because I've never been to the French Riviera.  I have no idea what it looks, smells, or sounds like, how the air feels in the morning or how crowded the streets get in the afternoon.  And I haven't a clue as to how dense or varied the marine life is. For me to really picture that first dive, there are just too many blanks to fill in.

But looking at Jerry's old pictures, of places I know and love, it was much easier to make the mental journey back.  And doing it raised more questions than it answered. Underwater, how similar was it then to today?  What were they seeing compared to what we're seeing?  Was that big northern red already tucked into the crevice on the west wall of Folly (I know it was already there in the early 70's)? Did Back Beach already suck as a dive except at night when the squid were in?  And that overhanging boulder off Salt Island where I always find the nudibranch Eubranchus pallidus in the springtime -- were they gathering there then, too?  Wouldn't you love to have seen these sites back then -- and be able to compare them to what they are now?  

I know I would.  The similarities, as well as the differences, would be amazing.