Hi Please don't flame me for this, but it is still boaty here rahter than in the lounge i think,
I did the SCUBA thing in the 50’s. and in those far off days there were no books or courses. My first tank was in fact an air bottle from a scrapped wartime Lancaster bomber. Max pressure 1500 lbs if I remember it right. We wore our normal clothes under a neoprene shortie wet suit.. short sleeves and no legs. About 3mm thick which did very little to help. However in those far off days we were made of tough stuff. Later I also had in my engineering works my own compressor, electric powered, so refills were easy. There were no books on the subject so we just went by trial and error… go down until it hurt, then do something about it. So yes, it was fun and we got lots of crabs and lobsters.
This brings me to a little story. One day we were off Puffin Island.. off Anglesey as Kawasaki knows well, and I was diving with a rather inexperienced friend when I came face to face with Daddy Lobster. Grand daddy in fact. He gave me a real hard time as he was out in the open under a lot of kelp. And I was out of air at about 60 ft. However, I got hold of him and turned to put him into the sack my buddy was holding. By now I was gasping to drag the last of the air out of the tank. My buddy took one look at what I was holding, forgetting the magnification under water, and promptly turned tail and swam off at a great rate of knots.
We had a safety old type RIB circling above so up I went, breathing easier as I went, the pressure reducing. but still gasping somewhat.
As I surfaced right by the boat I just tossed the lob into it. The safety man very nearly went over the other side in panic.
Here’s a pic of him later. He shot a claw during the fight. Pity, as that would have added to the feast.

He, the lobster not the safety man made some great meals though.
The trouble now is that there are so many rules and regulations to comply with these days, and at 76 I may be a bit passed it. I feel that I hav done it all long ago. I did a bit in the North Sea and in Liverpool docks amongst a lot of other places.
I see lots of divers here on the Isle of Man at Port Erin where I live, with all their high tech dry suits and all hung about with equipment and have an inward chuckle thinking that I was diving all round here way before they were born.
Ah well.
Nil desperandum carborundum boni.

cheers

Drew