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Mermaid

ISSUE 13 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.

MERMAIDS
OK, you're going to invent a mythical hot chick for the underwater world. You give her long blonde hair, a thin waist and some awesome buoyancy aids. Great if you happen to be a bit of a hair or breast fetishist. But what if you're more of an arse man. You would have swooned at that bird at the Royal Wedding carrying the end of her sister's dress. But mermaids... it's all scaly. Yes scales, not arse. A shocking mistake by the myth creators. They can get phoenixes, krakens and daleks right. But it ain't hard to knock up a sub-sea babe, is it? So next time you Ancient Greeks, it's the hair, tops, bum all normal, and just give her a webbed foot or two. Like him out of Dallas who fathered the singer Duffy.
The Underwater Channel
Sea Star Formerly Known as Starfish CURRIES
This food can kill the diver. Research from the University of Weymouth has proven that the enteric gas production post consummation is enhanced by cold and neoprene. And depth. They reported a case where after dal and tikka lamb fifteen cubic metres of flatus was produced in a diver when at 50 metres. This expanded to six times the volume on an ascent towards the surface. The diver was unable to manage their buoyancy correctly in their dry suit resulting in a rapid uncontrolled ascent. Venting the suit was ineffective as the gas was trapped in thermal underpants. They surfaced with severe neurological decompression illness and a cerebral artery gas embolism. Red frothy sputum also showed a lung barotrauma. The drysuit and pants were removed on the RIB. Death occurred due to the resultant explosion when the outboard motor was turned on. Stick to pasta.
ORCAS
You lot almost got your PR right. We started calling you after your proper Norse name, not killer whale any more. Made the fluffy toys, saw you as a sensitive dolphin and not a vicious killer. We wept during Free Willy and forgave you the seal stuff on the beach in Argentina.

Then what do you do? Eh? You let yourselves get filmed chasing down a grey whale mum and her kid. Beat the kid up, eat its tongue. Only the tongue mind, and then b****r off to Does anything about diving annoy you? Send in your 'Diving Downsides' via thewebsite: www.tankedupmagazine.co.uk assault some other harmless mammals. Stupid. You should have used Max Clifford, not Attenborough.

You went back to square one again and gave every bloody Jap fisherman an excuse to harpoon you. Orca-no-more. "Did you see the killer whales eat the baby whales tongue?" "Oh yes, they are really mean". That's all I hear down my local. So sort it out now. Nudge a few drowning snorkelers back to the surface, cutely wave a dorsal fin at a cruise boat and perhaps wear a hat at a jaunty angle. And never kill stuff in front of a BBC camera crew again.

SPEARFISHERMEN
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. UNDERWATER WEDDINGS

It was all one big con you know. The REAL wedding took place a week after Westminster Abbey. That was just the 'dry run'. Wills and Kate tied the knot proper in a municipal pool in Coventry. As an avid diver, our future King has always expressed a will to get married underwater. Once the Aqua-tot session had finished and before the East Midland Disabled Aquasize session, they were snuck in the Tradesmen's for their nuptials. You should have seen her sister's arse in a bikini, I was told by Len, who cleans unmentionables out of the pool. And what better way of avoiding the paparazzi. I used to think these weddings were well lame. Some bearded geek and his foul bride would look better with masks and bubbles surrounding their butt-ugly faces. But no more. The Cambridge's have shown me the way to express love and commitment. There's a better pool in Halesowen though. Pink tiles. Classy.

SAFETY STOPS
I hate these. 3 at 5. Not because they are boring. They're not. Watching my air go down to zero is always exciting. Knowing each breath could be my last. It's the 5 metre thing that gets me. Who invented 5 metres? Don't they know how hard it is to stay at 5 metres?

Why isn't it 3 to 7 metres? 'Cos that's what it is for most divers. Show me a diver who can maintain 5 metres for that long, bang on, and I will show you either a liar or a braggard. Or a tosser.

As soon as I get the 5 right, I relax, watch for the minute to come off the 3 on my Suunto. It goes down to 2, cool, then in a flash, I'm at 7 metres and the b*****d computer has started me all over again.

Come on PADI! A safety stop should be defined as "stay at around 5 metres, though deeper or shallower is perfectly fine with our instructors and if you can do it for about 3 minutes or until you run out of air or need a ciggy, that's cool with us".

Safe.
Aquamarine Silver
UNDERWATER CAMERA HOUSINGS
Bought the camera and housing together. Camera bust a few years later by which time there are far better ones to get and the old one is not available. But does Canon make anything that will still fit the housing now? Does it hell. So I have two hundred quids worth of plastic box sitting in a drawer. "Sell it on ebay" I can hear you say. I wouldn't lower myself. (And besides I don't know how to really.)

So c'mon Japanese manufacturers... one housing for all your cameras. Making the back buttons and shutter ones the same ain't that hard. All your cars look the same, so do it with cameras.

STARFISH
Wasn't your fault you became eponymous with sphincters. Probably just our jealousy that you can grow back again. Unlike John Wayne Bobbit who needed a surgeon.

Does anything about diving annoy you? Send us your "Diving Downsides".
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