Blog

History of diving museum

3/23/2022

Today we visited a museum, brewery/distillery, and have lunch.

The Islamorada Brewery and Distillery was our first stop to get a lunch and something to drink. First, let us practice how to say Islamorada. I-La-Morada. I know, what happened to the S? No matter what you find on the web the locals do not pronounce the 'S'. I cringe anytime I hear someone pronounce Mobile Alabama wrong too.

Shawna tried the beer but was not super impressed. The food was really good. We did a tasting in the distillery side and did purchase one bottle.

Time to go to a museum. The History of Diving Museum was fun and very informative.

Exhibits from the earliest time we have documented of diving to the current equipment is on display.

There was a short film on diving history and in that room were a couple of displays.

They have an interesting way to enter the museum from the gift shop.

A lot of the early history displays are reproductions.

Wow, these do not seem very safe.

Firemen have similar issues as divers. The need to be able to breath in a hazardous environment.

On to more diving displays

There was even a “personal” diving helmet. This was actually sold to the public and used. I am not sure about this but maybe it worked.

More diving helmets. The museum has the largest collection of diving helmets and other displays.

A section was dedicated to recovery from shipwrecks. They even had a silver bar that if you are able could be picked up. I looked it up and the bar is currently worth over $20,000.

They had real recovered coins and other items.

A real treasure chest was on display. It was amazing to see the complexity of the locking system. Three keys were needed to open the chest. One on each of the front locks and one to release the lid lock. They tried to fake out any thief by making a false lock opening on the front while the real key slot was under a cover in the top of the chest.