But it's all true, and a lot of the time it's kinda funny. It's the kind of thing you just can't make up, ya know? Some of it is kinda grisly, and some of it is so far out, if I hadn't lived through it I wouldn't believe it myself. I've written some of them down, and would like to publish them as a book some day. Some of the things that happened were pretty outrageous. Yes, those were some wild, weird, and wonderful days back when square parachutes were new and Canopy Relative Work was just getting started. But it caught on, and now it's become fairly universal.Īnd that, friends and neighbors, is how a well-known underwater shark movie engendered what is now established tradition among skydivers the World over. Sometimes much to the dismay of dropzone owners who wanted to maintain a "healthier" image for their business operations. In their own dropzone bar, on other dropzones, or at local establishments, they would do the Blue Sky chant. The Antioch Skydivers were a rowdy fun bunch. The movie Blue Water White Death got mentioned, and in some alcohol induced twist of logic, the phrase, "Blue Sky, Black Death" was born: first as a dig at the new flight training program but later adapted to skydiving in general. Well, somehow one of their signs wound up on the Antioch dropzone, and got painted over to advertise the ASPC's new "Blue Sky" flight training program.Īnyway, you might imagine.a bunch of beer drinking skydivers were sitting around after hours, talking about the new flight training program. Twenty bucks bought you a flight with an instructor to see if you'd like it or not. At the time, the Piper Dealership in nearby Concord had an introductory flight called the Blue Sky program. Perry Stevens wanted to start flight training at the Antioch Sport Parachuting Center in California, using his own C-150. (I'll think of the titles later.)Īnyway, that got started about the time Blue Water White Death was in the movie theaters. There's a dropzone tradition among skydivers: someone will yell out "Blue Sky?" And everyone in earshot will reply with thunderous "BLAAAACK DEAAAAATH!" That tradition has been immortalized in a couple skydiving movies in the past few years. Interesting (maybe?) anecdote about Blue Water White Death: Rene "inny bottom" tanks, USD regulators.yeah, that's vintage SCUBA gear. Walt Disney's 1954 movie version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Whichever version of the film you see, you get a young Cheryl Stoppelmoor (before she changed her name to Cheryl Ladd) and some hideously bad acting from Chuck Woolery and Rosie Greer. So the producers of Treasure Of The Jamaica Reef recut their film, added a lot of extra footage, including some pretty gruesome shark attacks, and retitled Evil In The Deep. After it had been out for a couple years, Jaws came out and became a huge hit. Originally, there was a film called Treasure Of The Jamaica Reef, which was mentioned earlier in this thread. Everyone speaks English, there's a few notable actors, including Jeremy Bret, Nicky Henson and Pamela Salem, and there's those black and orange Technisub wetsuits again! DĮvil In The Deep: This one's a weird one. Secret Of Seagull Island: A British/Italian co-production, this was originally shown on British TV as a five part miniseries, but then got edited down to 90 minutes and released on video and shown on American TV. The Diamond Connection: Why should the Italians have all the fun?! This one is Swiss made, early 80's, and has one really good scuba scene in the middle. The version I have has Italian audio, but yet, I have no trouble figuring out the plot. This one I think must have been at least partially inspired by Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Like Shark's Cave, this one stars Latino heartthrob Andres Garcia in a Bermuda Triangle type mystery flick with several scuba scenes. L'Ultimo SOS aka Encounters From The Deep: Another great late 70's Italian film, again featuring that great looking Technisub gear.
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