Yesterday I went by the Whaling Museum in Carmel. It's about the size of a garage. "Pat" the curator explained that this was the diving suit used by abalone divers at the turn of the century. It was pumped full of air, then weighted down with a weight belt and lead shoes so they could walk along the bottom of the cove and pry abalone from the rocks. Sometimes when it was stormy, currents swept the divers around and cracked their masks, in which case they would apply an abalone foot to the crack to seal it until they could be pulled to the surface.
More ABC Wednesday photos here.
9 comments:
I love the look of that old weird diving gear (although, I never could have worn it).
yup, pretty weird, but interesting
On behalf of the ABC Wednesday team, THANK YOU!
Wow! That's interesting!!
Fascinating sidelight about the abalone foot sealing the mask. Great post.
Love Carmel, and love your weird diving suit. Really cool photo.
Another of those occupations I wouldn't want to try.
I can't imagine the feeling of diving in such a gear! I think they were very brave those days! :-)
«Louis» will leave that suit for someone braver than him to wear!
Ever heard of a bovine chicken?
Yikes! I can't even bear the thought of diving in today's gear. My claustrophobia would really kick in with this one.
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