Capt. Charles Lindquist
Charles Lindquist, passed away this morning (Dec. 28) after a year long battle with liver and kidney problems. He is the last of the Lindquist divers. His grandfather and his father were
both commercial divers. His name is mentioned many times in Torrance Parker's book (20,000 Jobs Under The Sea) and he is considered one of the Pioneers of the California oil field divers. He passed away at his home in Florida. We worked together and played together for many years. Gods Speed and God bless you my friend.

I have been buying and selling helmets on e-bay almost since they started. I am a recently retired diver and have a collection of some very rare helmets. At one time you could contact a buyer directly and let them know that the helmet was a fake. Not anymore. I have no problem with people that sell fake hats as long as they list them as such. I got some pretty nasty e-mails from sellers after I informed the buyer of what he was getting. I don't like to see anyone get ripped off.
There is a seller in Florida that has consistently sold fake helmets as original. He even stamps dates and numbers on them and he makes anywhere from 2 to 3 grand on each one. I have had a number of collectors that have contacted me about this asshole. I know of ten helmets he has sold in the last year as authentic MarkVs and I have contacted e-bay every time one sold and informed them that the helmet was a fake. He is one of e-bays top sellers and has hundreds of good feedback from other items he has sold and e-bay considers him a good seller that they have made a lot of money off of. I am not the only one who has filed fraud complaints against him and e-bay does nothing about it. He cannot be contacted directly because e-bay doesn't list any way to get in touch with him. I have no idea how he pulled that off. Any original MarkV even in very poor condition is going to sell for a minimum of 5 grand but these buyers don't do any research and they get shafted. I have bought and sold many high dollar items on e-bay. There is a very easy way to keep from getting burned when you buy off of e-bay. Use an escrow service. If the seller won't accept an escrow service then don't buy it, something is wrong. Even if you are the high bidder and the seller won't accept an escrow service then you are not committed to buy.

I hope this link works. Very strange.

From what I have heard,l Vortex in Oakland is no longer in the diving business.

When I first started in this business (1969) there was only one place in the U.S. that required a 3 man dive crew. That was Northern Calif. Local 34. This was a Union regulation, not OSHA or the Coast Guard. This regulation hurt a lot of the Bay Area Divers because Southern Calif. Contractors were coming up and doing Ship work for the Navy with just a 2 man crew. It took another 10 or so years before The ADC or OSHA made any changes and the 3 man dive crew has not changed much since. I would like to see a mandatory 5 man crew but I have my doubts that it will ever happen on The West Coast. I know for a fact that there are still contractors on The West Coast both Union and non union that will send out a 2 man dive crew whenever they can get away with it, this also includes ADC contractors. I can't speak for the East Coast but I have heard that they have the same problem. It was very difficult to get clients to accept a 3 man crew and it is going to be twice as hard to get them to accept a 5 man crew. The contractors don't want it because then they have to increase there already high rates (West Coast Divers are the highest paid in the industry) and the West Coast safety and casualty record pretty much speaks for itself.
The clients don't like paying for a 3 man crew now and they will like it even less for a 5 man crew. Divers are an evil necessity and the contractors don't want to increase crew size because of the extra cost and they are afraid it will cost them work. The clients will do everything possible to keep from having to hire a diving contractor. There was 2 recent deaths of SCUBA divers doing commercial work for a water utility company in Calif. This utility company was well aware of OSHA and ADCI regulations about SCUBA for commercial work because I attended a meeting 3 weeks prior to these deaths and these regulations were explained to them. There excuse was "we been doing it this way for 30 years and didn't see any reason to change." It took 2 deaths to make them change. This is exactly the same thing that happened in Washington State a few years back. Unfortunately it took 4 deaths to change things at The Rosa Canal. Another problem that I see is who is going to enforce this change. OSHA, The ADCI or The Coast Guard do not have the qualified manpower to do it. It took 25 years to get clients to accept a 3 man dive crew and I think it will take another 25 before they will accept a 5 man crew. This is just a personal observation based on more then 40 years in the business, I hope I live long enough to see this change happen.

John,
What is going on with this thing now? Sounds like an excellent idea and would like more info.

John,
I don't deny that was my letter but I didn't think you would post the whole thing. No problem though I am glad you did. Who in the hell comes up with this crap. The ADC is always saying that they are for the divers but I don't know of any divers that were contacted about this B.S. new regulation. In fact I don't know any contractors that were contacted either. Like I said before, if a diver is in trouble I am going to get him out of the water one way or another, I don't need a six or seven hundred dollar harness to do that. If the ADCI is for the divers then let the goddamn divers decide if they want a harness that will pick up 1 ton of shit. Just a little overkill in my personal opinion. Most of the divers I know, including myself have got some type of harness built into their weight belt system or their bailout setup, but I doubt if any of them including mine could pick up a ton of shit for 5 minutes. I am going to sign my name to this because I don't really care who reads it.
Best regards,
John Durham