The November 7th meeting takes a different twist. John Anderson will be our presenter. John's program will be in two parts. The first part of the program will consist of a short history of John’s 50 years of scuba diving and how the diving industry & its equipment have changed with some examples and photos. He will show some short movie clips of his original underwater non-professional-type movie film and its transition to his present day digital video with its camera and housing.
The second part of his program will be a digital movie that was shot by John and his son Ken, around the Island of Sipadan in Malaysia in 2004. John created the movie by editing the mini DV footage on his PC.
John started free diving for abalone and got into spear fishing in 1946 in Southern California. Diving in the cold Pacific waters in the winter with temperatures of 55 degrees creates a real problem in keeping warm. The only thing that was available to the public then was long underwear. To dive in those cold water temperatures, John stated you must really love the sport and had to force yourself to believe that you are in exactly the place you want to be and doing exactly what you wanted to do. He further stated it was a mind-over-matter control issue in those colder temperatures.
John joined the US Navy in 1951 and was attached to an Amphibious Personnel Attack Ship, was sent to school in Amphibious Warfare training, and became an Assault Boat Coxswain. He operated with the UDT on many operations and traveled to Korea during the United Nations Police Action. In 1952 John was introduced to scuba and was hooked with the whole experience. The ship that he was attached to traveled to many different ports of call: the Philippine Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, the island of Okinawa and the islands of Iwo Jima and Hachijo Jima. While stationed in Korea in 1954, his ship was sent to Vietnam to evacuate refugees. During his operational stay there and in the other warmer water ports he used every opportunity to dive.
During his last nine months of active duty, John was assigned to a classified small submergible vessel project for its development and testing. After his discharge in 1955 he returned to the Los Angeles area and started his college education while he continued scuba diving. During that time, he started recording his dives in a record logbook that now contains about 3000 dives. His interest in diving during that time was spear fishing and the collecting of marine animals to sell for aquariums. John's main love in his life, after his wife Lee, was to just be underwater.
His first attempts in underwater photography were with "35mm and movies" in 1960 and were anything but a success. John found it easier to construct a movie camera housing than a 35mm camera housing because of the number of camera controls and the fact that he had no flash to contend with. Scuba diving in the 1950s was not a very large sport and there were no dedicated dive shops. John found a part time dive shop, the "Circus Pet Shop," in the Los Angeles area that made dry rubber suits. They were made of a non-porous rubber that was prone to puncture or tear. They still needed the long underwear & socks for warmth.
In 1955, the diving industry was hardly regulated and had no mandated certification. The only restriction was the wanna-be diver's ability to pay $150 for a 72 cubic foot steel air tank with a J-valve and a twin hose DA regulator. Two metal bands with a cotton web strap held the tank to your back. In 1958, John received a Commercial Dive License for the Los Angeles Harbor. In 1960, John received the first Commercial Diving Permit issued in the State of California, allowing him to collect sea urchins. That was approved by the then Governor Ronald Reagan. John used the permit every weekend until his moving to Houston, Texas in 1975.
In his early years of diving, John was privileged to meet Jacques Cousteau who helped John repair a J-Valve at the new very small US Divers Facility. John also met Colonel John D. Craig, one of the pioneers of color underwater photography, and Jon Hall, popular movie star of the 40s in many South Sea movies and partner of Samson Hall Underwater Housing Company. Jon Hall became John's mentor and manufacturer of John's own underwater housing for a movie camera with an anemographic lens. At this same time, John sold some of the tropical fish that he collected in (Gulf of California) to "Marine Land of the Pacific." Marine Land of the Pacific was the first marine park in the US at that time. He joined a salt-water aquarium club and won a few show awards with his collections, and then a Sweepstake Award at the Los Angeles Home Show for his refrigerated salt-water tank display. About this time he became popular with different dive clubs and other organizations that were formed or were forming and was paid to give lectures on the collecting of marine fish for aquariums. A few of these organizations were the Los Angeles County Diving Instructors, PADI, and Mel Fisher's Dive Club. Mel Fisher had a dive shop and a dive club in the Redondo Beach area, before moving to Florida and finding the treasure of the Atocha.
From 1962 until being transferred to Houston by Shell Development in 1975, John, his wife Lee, and his three children Donna, Kenneth and Karen, went yearly to the Gulf of California for boating and diving. Each year, the Anderson's family vacations were spent at the same glorious location collecting marine animals that paid for their vacation. During those thirteen years while diving in Baja California, John continued to experiment in the manufacture of underwater housings for movies and 35mm cameras.
When the Anderson family was transferred to Houston in 1975, John started diving in other parts of Mexico and off of the Texas coast with his own boat, and he continued producing more movies and stills. He joined HUPS during our early years and it was HUPS that he credits in meeting his need to explore the ocean without actually being there. John feels the fellowship of other divers and underwater photographers along with the meetings with the endless information of how to improve one's underwater photography skill is priceless. A few of the places that John and his wife, Lee, dived together in the last 20 years were: Cozumel, Hawaiian Islands, Florida, Honduras and the Cayman Islands. John lost his wife Lee in 2002. John has also dived recently with his son Kenneth in Bonaire, Belize, Bahamas, Malaysia, Indonesia, as well as the Texas Gulf Coast.
Don't miss this exciting lecture and seeing some of John's early footage. Don't be late as we will start promptly at 7:00 pm. As always the meeting will be held at the Bayland Community Center on Bissonnett. A map can be found on the back page of this newsletter. See you there!
Chuck
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