The road to gonzaga bay - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 46

That last morning we piled all our gear and the precious Cortez an-
gels into the little Corvair and headed back out on the road from hell,
to Puertecitos, San Felipe, and home. This time we had no trouble,
even though the tires were taking a frightful beating from the rocks
and the heavily loaded car was hitting bottom on a regular basis.
Back in Los Angeles Dave sold all the angels in record time and got
orders for more. At this point he realized that if he was to continue
making regular trips to San Luis Gonzaga he had to invest in a better
vehicle. The Corvair was one of the lowest-riding cars on the market
and certainly poorly suited to the kind of rough road we had just trav-
eled. So Dave, obviously serious about making more trips to Gonzaga
Bay, bought a brand-new 1962 Chevy half-ton pickup truck.
In addition to a better vehicle, we also knew that some kind of div-
ing air would be needed. It didn't make sense to haul a bunch of full
scuba tanks down—even if we had them, which we didn't—and then
haul the empty tanks back. Since the little angelfish we were after were
in shallow water, I suggested that we rig up a low-pressure air com-
pressor that could supply me with continuous air to the second stage
of my regulator—an arrangement known as a hookah after the Turk-
ish hoselike apparatus used for smoking tobacco and hashish.
We bought an inexpensive diaphragm air compressor designed for
spray painting—powered by a gasoline engine—and fifty feet of nylon-
reinforced garden hose to connect to the second stage of my two-hose
regulator, which was tied to a plywood board I would strap to my back.
The engine and compressor were mounted on plywood lashed to a large
truck inner tube. The plan was for me to tow the floating hose and air
compressor along as I cruised the bottom looking for fish. It worked
great out of the water, and we planned our next trip down to San Luis
Gonzaga.
The new truck was a vast improvement over the Corvair, though it
did get stuck a couple of times in the soft, sandy arroyos on the way
south. The floating air supply worked just as we hoped it would; all
we had to do was keep it supplied with gas, and I could dive as long
as I wanted without worrying about using up precious scuba tank air.
This trip was even more successful than the first: we came back with
thirty-five Cortez angels, which again sold like hotcakes.