1:02:00
like you would drink water
from a hose in your back yard.
1:02:03
Ricou says they did hose-breathing
in the shows at Weeki Wachee Springs.
1:02:07
That was how the mermaids breathed.
Anyway, Ricou could do it very naturally.
1:02:11
He could insert the hose
in the mouth of the creature,
1:02:14
then insert it a couple more inches
to get it to his own mouth.
1:02:18
Ricou had several safety men with him
at the bottom of Wakulla Spring,
1:02:22
guys he'd brought in himself. Some
had worked with him in water shows,
1:02:25
others had done
some cave-diving with him.
1:02:28
As he was getting ready to do a scene,
Ricou would just be underwater,
1:02:31
ready to go, breathing from
an air hose, with a safety man nearby.
1:02:35
When he was ready to do a scene,
he'd give the cameraman a hand signal,
1:02:38
but he'd just stay in place,
waiting for the cameraman to signal him
1:02:42
that the camera was rolling.
Ricou'd hand the hose to his safety man,
1:02:46
swim into the scene
and do what he had to do -
1:02:48
let's say it was a swim-through - so
he'd swim right past the cameraman.
1:02:52
On the other side, there'd be another
safety man with another air hose.
1:02:55
Between the fact he could
hold his breath for a long time,
1:02:58
and all the air hoses
and safety men down there,
1:03:00
he was able to stay underwater
in the spring for long periods of time,
1:03:03
even though he was the only person
down there with no scuba gear.
1:03:07
If he got in trouble, if he ran
out of air with no one nearby,
1:03:10
what he'd do was just stop
what he was doing and go limp.
1:03:13
That was his way of signalling his safety
men to swim over and give him a hose.
1:03:17
Ricou tells a story about being out in the
spring and needing to go to the bathroom.
1:03:22
Somebody offered to take him ashore
in a boat, but he said he'd swim ashore.
1:03:26
He swam underwater,
1:03:28
because he said it was sometimes
easier than swimming on the surface,
1:03:31
and he got to a ladder that was
on the dock next to shore.
1:03:33
He climbs up the ladder,
still dressed as the gill-man,
1:03:37
and all of a sudden, in front of him,
was some lady and her little girl.
1:03:40
And the little girl started
screaming. Rico said
1:03:42
"She screamed and ran.
The mother went after her,
1:03:45
and I went after both of 'em,
trying to say 'Hey, it's OK."'
1:03:48
"But me saying 'lt's OK' didn't do a thing.
They took off and that's the last I saw."
1:03:53
"But I never went out of my way
to try and scare anybody."
1:03:56
"From then on, I made sure I kept
the head off whenever I came ashore."
1:03:59
Ben Chapman, on the other hand,
liked to occasionally scare people.