Sea Hunt Memories
By Tom Hemphill
Are there any old divers out there who recall watching Sea Hunt on our little TVs –
1958-1961 - with Lloyd Bridges playing diver Mike Nelson? I don’t think that I ever
missed an episode.
Our Dad was an aquatic biologist at Hanford in Eastern Washington State and an avid
tropical fish breeder. We grew up watching fish in the many aquariums around the
house and in the basement. I recall watching the pool maintenance & cleaning guys at
the big pool as they were cleaning the bottom using a diving helmet. I had an
overwhelming desire then to go underwater and explore the environment.
Then in 1959, my friends & neighbors Larry Moss and Jack Rucker had read an article
in a magazine about some divers paying for their vacations at a lake resort by salvaging
lost articles for people around the marina. I was tagging along with these older guys
when they decided to take up diving. I met a former Navy diver at the Market where
Mom worked, and he sold me a scuba tank, harness and regulator for $50 bucks. I
already had a mask and fins. We were on our way to become underwater treasure
hunters.
Larry and Jack got some gear and let me tag along. We went to Quarry Pond just east
of Pasco and went diving. No training, however, I had read The Silent World by
Jacques Cousteau and learned about “rapture of the deep.” Not that we would ever get
deep enough for that to become an issue. I had learned some things from the last few
minutes of each Sea Hunt episode that featured tips and lessons from Zale Parry, the
co-star in the series with Lloyd Bridges.
For the next three summers, I went diving in Quarry Pond a few times and Corral Lake
by the Potholes Reservoir. I even tried the Columbia River once.
After a year (62 – 63) of college at CBC in Pasco, I moved to Portland. In 1966, while
working in the Vancouver, WA shipyards and making way too much money, Jack Rucker
and a friend that we met on the job and I went to a dive shop in Portland and bought all
new diving gear and went diving in some local lakes and Puget Sound where we could
see a lot of fish and other critters underwater. In 1966 I made a dive for the shipyards
when they needed something done and no commercial divers were available. That
started another side career.
I became active with a local dive club and soon was assisting with training new divers. I
got the bug for teaching diving and in 1971 I attended an instructor training program in
Seattle and launched my lifelong diving career.
30 years after making that first dive in Quarry Pond, I was in the process of opening a
new diving center in Friday Harbor, WA in the San Juan Islands. A gentleman from
Orcas Island came into the store and introduced himself. I knew who he was, but he did
not know me.
My new friend was Al Tillman, the diving instructor and technical advisor who trained
Lloyd Bridges and his co-star Zale Parry for the Sea Hunt TV series. Al and I became
good friends and each week when he came to Friday Harbor to play handball at our
local health club, we would meet and talk about lots of stuff, but mostly how we could
establish a diving museum.
Al and Zale were focused on recording the history of diving with a primary focus on the
people who were diving pioneers. I had the opportunity to meet Zale, and I told her that
she was my first instructor in diving in 1959 with her tips and hints at the end of each
Sea Hunt episode.
Al passed away in 2006, but I continued to focus on the mission to preserve diving
history. Al’s son, Thomas Tillman, and have I become good friends and we stay in
touch. Thomas worked with me and others in 2010 to create the Northwest Diving
History Association with the mission to record, preserve and share the history of the
people who have contributed to the development of diving education, equipment,
techniques and technology throughout the Pacific Northwest. www.divinghistory.org
In 2010 we held a 50 th Birthday Celebration for NAUI, the National Association of
Underwater Instructors, that was formed in 1960 by Al Tillman, Zale Parry and other
individuals who understand that quality training to enhance diving safety was essential.
At that event in 2010, Zale Parry and I became better acquainted and soon good
friends. Zale and my wife Linda visited often, and they had a lot in common. Zale Parry
passed away recently at age 93. We are so very blessed to have known Al and Zale as
friends. They are true diving pioneers.
So, did you ever watch Sea Hunt? I tell people that I began diving to be an underwater
treasure hunter. So, I did that. Next is to be an underwater treasure finder. Actually my
life in diving and the people that I’ve met has been the treasure.
