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ISSUE 9 ARCHIVE - DIVING DOWNSIDES

Jules Eden

Travelling Diver
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.

FISH THAT MOVE
I was doing my orienteering part of the Advanced Open Water. You know the score... compasses, thirty fin kicks in a northerly direction and get back to point A. Took a marker off the biggest grouper you've ever seen above a sponge. And guess what? It wasn't there on the way back. Missed the boat by a hundred metres. B*****d fish had buggered off. Something that big and stupid ought to just float there all day. Not move.

ELECTRIC EELS
The last time I threw a fan heater into my ex's bath there were results. So how come these eely critters don't automatically explode when they zap something. It's the devils work. Did you hear the story of the p****d off DM that used one as a deep sea Tazer on his students? No, nor did I, but it must be theoretically possible.

NIGHT DIVING
It's never at night. It's always earlier. Dusk diving... that should be the name. True night diving is only performed by insomniac Germans who are killing time before towelling the pool loungers at 4am.

I came back from a club once in Sharm late-doors and knocked up the dive shop. Can I night dive now please? I asked. 'Certainly', they said. It was 9 in the morning and I'd gone temporarily blind through some dodgy Viagra. That threw me.

KIDNEYS
You're taking the p***. The oft quoted 'funniest joke by a urologist'. I still don't get it either. But what is it about a dive and these organs? I emptied my bladder five minutes ago on the broken boat loo and within nanoseconds of a dive, I have GOT to go again. At least it's not my wetsuit. Cheap rental. They can sew in the new crotch-piece next season. Some call it evil. Some call it watery stuff. My doc calls it 'osmosis', the thing that wrinkles your fingers in a bath to make them look like your scrotum. So if that's the case, does that mean your nadsac is constantly bathed in...? No probably not. So, kidneys eh? If they were that good, you wouldn't be able to buy them so cheap in India.

CLAUSTROPHOBIA
'I can't dive... I get so claustrophobic'. How many times have I had to punch someone out for that and then give them a lesson in Greek and etymology. Closed confined spaces mate... not 70% of the world's surface. Yes, it's that blinkin' open. Not closed, so not claustrophobic. What you are trying to say is... 'I can't dive because I don't like wearing a mask. It reminds me of my time in the gimp box... like in Pulp Fiction.'
BACON
The best bacon is made by Waitrose. Or whoever actually killed the pig and sliced it. The greatest need for bacon is that for the dry-suited diver exiting a freezing hell-hole of a dive and now staggering towards his car.

So bacon buttie purveyors on our finest inland dive sites' concreted shores... what is this meat you put before me? It's half water and I should know as I have just got out of the bloody stuff.

So... maple cured back bacon if you please. Not Costco military catering packs. Oink.

SAUSAGE SANDWICH
See above. Pork and apple or Cumberland please. Not eyes, thymus and hooves that the dogs won't eat.

PRAGUE DIVE SHOP
What's the bloody point? A dive shop in a land-locked country. And in the actual city as well. Not by some poxy lake. Staffed by a tattooed, nosepierced punk, they sell BCDs to German sex tourists. And Danish ones too. In fact, there are three of these so called 'dive shops' in Prague. There's gotta be a BIG demand for neoprene in that city. Mind you, it's so darn cold they make underpants out of the stuff.

Anyone for an ice dive? Better go in July then.

LIQUID BREATHING
Remember that stuff Ed Harris breathed in The Abyss. Yes, the oxygen liquidy stuff that allows you to go so deep you can find a shopping trolley at the bottom of Marina's Trench. It's called 'oxygenated perfluorocarbon'. Guess what? It's in the new Dan Brown book too. So how come I can't get it at my local dive shop? Tell me why?

If they can use it in a twenty year old film and a Washington sub-basement, I can't see why an old scrote who fills my tank for a tenner can't get it. So come on PADI, a five star resort should be exactly that. All breathing gases... and liquids.

CRABS
Went diving in Portland the other day. Bought a big old cooked crab for us tea there. Stuck it in the fridge and you know what? It's gone off in two days. Christ, when I die by boiling I expect to stay fresh and good for eating for at least a week after. Not twenty-four hours... I blame global warming somehow.
OonasDivers

GLOBAL WARMING
If it's going to get that hot, how come we've had three shit summers? Cold, windy and frankly rank.

Weymouth's been blown out more times than dates with a fickle teenage harpie. Come on Michael Fish, you must do better, especially after not calling that big old storm all those years ago. Yeah, the one where René out of 'Allo 'Allo got that slate through his head. I'm doing my bit though. Bought three flatulent cows for the back garden and feed them lentils. So next summer at my place is gonna be well hot I tell you.

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

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