Issue 12 Diving Downsides from the Archives of the Tanked Up Magazine

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19 April 2024

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	ISSUE 12 ARCHIVE - DIVING DOWNSIDES Jules Eden I love it. You love it. That bloke down the pub with all the kit who never gets wet loves it. So there has to be... a downside. SOFT CORAL Soft. I'll say that in a Scouse accent. Sooooft. How can you be a coral and be soft? Coral is hard. It scratches, breaks and maims. It leaves skin wilting infections. It grazes children's knees. It burns. I have seen men that make Audley Harrison look weak, cry with pain after a fire coral encounter. So how can you be soft? You shouldn't be. It must be a mistake by some marine biologist who discovered you, 'cos you're NOT coral at all, are you? You are a larger floppier anemone. A wafty, ferny sort of subsea plant. But not a coral – they are hard. So if you are going to carry on trying to con us divers that you are part of that big calcium deposit, rock-making polypy family then you need to get harder. Get some ninja lessons now. Or take Viagra.
SUUNTO STINGER It's not a dive computer. Admit it. It's a badge. It's a badge that says, "I am a diver." You don't really only wear it when you are diving, do you? You wear it all the time. You subtly turn on it's green glow, pressing the top right button in clubs and pubs where ladies are present. You know what they will say, "That's a nice watch." "Oh no, it's my dive computer", you reply. If they feign interest, you regale them with tales of shark encounters and how tough you are. If their pupils dilate and they come a little closer, you show them how deep you have been on your last dive. And if that works, your Suunto Stinger is the only thing you keep on in bed with them. Suunto knows this, you know. Hence its nice chromey bezel and sexy rubber straps. The extension bit for drysuit cuffs is really for your conquest's wrist and the bedpost. D6, D9, forget it. No chick likes a compass – too geeky. It's the Stinger every time. Can't wait for the new model, though. A furry bezel with blingin' diamonds too. In-built cam to shoot your best encounters, and a red button to call M15 when you need them. All herald the Suunto Lounge Lizard.
TECH DIVERS It's amazing how those that go so deep, who mix their gases, who penetrate so far, who go to where no rational man or woman would go, who bravely show us the last secret sacred spots on Earth... look so bloody unfit. And have beards. I went through all the manuals for techies. IANTD, TDI, DIR – the lot. Lots of stuff on deco stops and gas switching at depth. Plenty on how to get yourself out of a silted wreck at two hundred metres, but nothing, nada, zip on putting on five stone and forgetting to buy a razor. I wanted to do the course, could just about afford it, but what put me off was that I had to buy a drysuit four sizes bigger than my normal one for the 'passing out parade.' Don't these divers need medicals? Bet they do, though I hear there's a doc in Malta who will pass anyone fit to dive deep. He even passed a goat that had a twenty euro note in its mouth when he was pissed after lunch. I heard that there's another player in the tech arena coming soon. No not BSAC or NAUI, it's Weight Watchers. That's them f**d then. Ain't no one going to do their course. Now if only Krispy Kreme bought out TDI... RIBs We all know what these are. Some of us have one in a garage. Some of us have one in a lock-up somewhere dodgy on an estate in Droitwich. But we all know what a RIB is, no confusion there. SO WHY DO THE NORWEGIANS CALL THEM A ZODIAC? St, I was confused. "Hurdy-gurdy ve all get in ze Zodiac to look for Orcas." "Sorry mate, that's a RIB." "No, iz a Zodiac." What's the point of the EU if we can't get an agreed term for a bouncy plastic boat? Thatcher was right all along. It's a waste of time. I personally am not bailing out any damn Eurozone country unless they say RIB. But don't get me started on the Yanks. AVON. Sodding AVON. That's a st county near Somerset, not a fine throbbing craft that takes me out to get seasick. HARD CORAL** If you were that hard, you wouldn't get bleached. Like a girlie's hair.
DIVE SHOWS Were they really 'bigger and better this year'? Were there really any more exhibitors this year than last? Had 'more pre-booked e-tickets than ever before' been sold? I say bring back the Halcyon Days when half the hall wasn't zoned off. What happened to the cool demo Humber RIB which seems to have been replaced by wobbly wall with some bloke behind it picking his nose and collecting cardboard? For exhibitors, it used to be claustrophobic, with next door's stand right on top of you. Now you need binoculars to see who your neighbours are. Come on show organisers, drop your prices and let the little guys in or we'll end up back at Olympia with trestle tables. P-VALVES What's the point? On a five hour deco stop the only entertainment I have is sloshing my little tootsies around in my own urine. It's good for athlete's foot and many more fungal disorders. My feet have never been so healthy since I let my bladder decide when to release or not. Forget P-valves, we all know it's an S-Valve we need. No way am I going to use a Dive Diaper. It's embarrassing, and besides I've got a geriatric lifetime with these at an old folks home when the kids get fed up with me. Get yo' R'n'D asses into gear O3 and design a way I can feed the fish after a heavy night at the Mumtaj in Weymouth the night before my deco diving. THE NEC NEC = a Subway ExCel = PieMinster, WokWok and Costa Says it all doesn't it? FREE DIVE MAGAZINES Free? A dive magazine? There's got to be a catch somewhere. Dive Girl was around for a while. There are some free ones on the internet. But NOT a high quality glossy-fronted, heavy matt-paged mag – for free. I hear the catch is they knock on your door a year later and ask for £3.99. And are there any articles on free-diving in these free diving magazines? NO. It's a bloody tautology, and I hate those at the best of times. So bang in some pictures of that bird from the Cayman Islands, Tanya Streeter, with her Big Fins on, charge me a few quid up front and I will know the world is normal again. Does anything about diving annoy you? Send us your "Diving Downsides".
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