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Show ... , . , . 1 u MARK PETERSON Training As A Deep Sea Diver A young man from Center-ville Center-ville is continuing a love affair af-fair with the sea that began when he, his father and older brother spent long lazy days snorkling in exotic tropical waters. MARK Peterson, son of Niles and Luanne Peterson, is nearing completion of his training as a commercial deep sea diver at the Divers' Institute of Technology in Seattle. Wash, As a child he spent three years on the Island of Saipan with his family, where his father worked as an advisor to the Government of Micronesia. Weekends were usually spent swimming in various lagoons and Mark soon discovered his strong attachment to the undersea world. AT THE ripe old age of 16 he received his scuba advanced ad-vanced open water and night diver certifications and then it was just a matter of time until he turned 18 and could continue his training. Long before his graduation from Viewmont High, he contacted all the diving schools in the country. Upon finding that the Seattle Seat-tle school was the only fully accredited school in the na- ! tion, he set about saving every penny he could earn to ; help with his tuition and expenses. ex-penses. ONE OF the younger divers to undergo training at DIT, where the average age is 25, Mark has distinguished himself him-self by being elected to the position of class diving supervisor. The school itself is made up of several barges moored at pier 45 in Seattle and most of the preliminary training is done from these barges. The bottom is cluttered with sunken boats, cars and scrap metal for practice in cutting and welding. STUDENTS also do underwater under-water maintenance work on ships that are tied up at nearby piers. This includes underwater hull surveys which are videotaped and photographed. Upon graduation Mark will be trained in all facets of commercial diving. This includes equipment ranging from the Navy Standard Mark V diving gear used for the past 40 years, up to and including the most modern super light weight gear. UNDERWATER habitation saturation diving where the divers live in a decompression decompres-sion chamber for extended periods and dive to levels of around 1000 feet is also mastered. mas-tered. He has made dives of over 300 feet in Lake Washington using a Helium-oxygen Helium-oxygen mixture that gives the voice a "Donald Duck" quality and necessitates great care in underwatersurface communication. While in Seattle it has not been all work and no play since Mark has spent several weekends as a crewman on a 27' sailboat in the Puget . Sound and the San Juan Islands. NILES, Luanne and daughter Leslie are going to Seattle for Mark's graduation and will accompany him home. After a brief visit with family and friends he will leave for New Orleans and work in the Gulf of Mexico, but he is taking his passport with him and hopes to see a good part of the world in the not too distant future. |