“A 100’ or 175’ dive for a penetrating wreck dive was common. Night dives were half the dive counts, too.”
When we were young and bold!
Somewhat. I went with a bunch of old guys too and I think having a good dive buddy who is level headed helps greatly. I only dove with guys that were panic proof and the checkouts would show if they were, like taking a guy in shark infested waters on a shallow night dive and see if he loses his nerve. There were some guys I would not dive with. We did have fairly stringent check out requirements and anyone with bad habits was passed around as someone to not go near diving. I still do ‘bold’ things, but definitely less physically punishing, sort of.