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In the first flush of gaining knowledge of simple diving techniques, novices do some silly things.
But the extraordinary piece of stupidity about which I am about to tell you came from one of my Leaks who works as a dive leader and instructor at a tropical paradise where the diving is deep and sharky.
It was there he met the novice who had wanted to be a veteran deep diver almost as soon as he had mastered poolwork.
This novice was no youngster. Perhaps it galled him to be lumped together with beginner-divers half his age and confined to the same kind of shallow diving.
Anyway, he talked big, saying that he had been a professional diver when young and now thought it would be fun to see how the instructing had changed.
My Tropical Leak was convinced by such talk, but told him that he would still have to produce a signed-up logbook to prove his qualifications, particularly for the centre's speciality, a deep dive on "Shark Reef Wall".
"No problem," said the novice, producing a battered logbook with 99 deep dives, all duly witnessed and most carrying a club stamp as well. "Shark Reef sounds great for my 100th."
The dive did not go well. The sharks were there in profusion. A ledge at just over 50m on the wall made a good observation point, but my Leak was forced to rescue the novice who, clearly narked, suddenly shot down the wall. He was heading into those regions where the blue shades swiftly into purple and black, ripping off his mask and spitting out his mouthpiece on the way.
It says a lot for my Leak that he managed to get the novice back up to the boat and into a chamber in time to save his life - but not to avoid a severe bend.
During the investigation, it emerged that the logbook was a fake, all the signatures to the dives forged. The book had been splashed with wine and salt water and well-thumbed to give it a properly tired look.
What's more, all the verifying stamps were the same, though the dive sites were made to look worldwide. That foolish novice confessed to everything, including stealing the rubber stamp from his club secretary, who had clearly never exercised proper care of it.
I cannot fine the fraudulent diver for the divEr Lifeboat Fund. He will never dive again and will never walk without a stick in hand. That is punishment enough.
But I warn all divers to take more care about logbooks, to keep their own up to date and safe, and to examine any book carefully before saying a diver is fit to dive the deeps.
This is the second case of logbook fraud exposed by my Leaks this year. Let's put the frauds out of diving before they kill themselves or, more importantly, someone else.
Very important piece of advice in a letter to a US diving magazine:
"If air in your hood causes the hood to move and change your mask position, you can help to prevent it by making a couple of small holes in the top of your hood. Heat a large nail until it is red-hot, then use that to melt a couple of holes in the top of your hood where the air would collect. The hot nail will seal the edges of the hole and prevent fraying."
Do remember to remove the nail before you go diving, won't you?
Good news! Lindsay Fricker is alive and well. She wrote to DIVER to say that the reason she had dropped out of sight in the diving world was that she had been in hospital having a baby.
You will recall how worried Beachcomber was about Lindsay, fearing that she had lost her memory or that something untoward had happened to her. Beachcomber set his network of Leaks to find her and it seems they did, which is why she made contact.
Beachcomber was so relieved to find Lindsay that he quite forgot to ask her if it was a boy or a girl.
Not all the mysteries involved with her disappearance have yet been cleared up, but they soon will be. Douglas Matthews of Imperial College, whose dive club has been waiting for Lindsay to return equipment she borrowed, was surprised to find five BCs and five regulators left at the club's training pool as divErwent to press.
One regulator, Douglas told us, had been replaced by an inferior model, but he was pleased enough to suggest a voluntary contribution to Beachcomber's lifeboat fund.
divEr has also passed on the good news of Lindsay's presence among us to Andrew Hammersley, a teacher at Sutton Valence School. He says he has 19 pupils, qualified as PADI divers last July but still anxiously awaiting their certificates from Lindsay.
Isn't it a relief to know that she can now sort everything out?
I thought I had announced the end of the battle over what we should call the things we put on our feet when venturing underwater. Flippers, said some oldies. Nonsense said those of a more military upbringing - they should never be called anything but fins by real divers.
As the war of words, mostly by email, waged hotter and hotter, I called a halt. But there are divers around who never know when to stop. So here for the very last shot in the flipping fins battle is the contribution of one David Ellis.
He holds that fins should not be called flippers, nor fins but SORSEs, which translates to Strap On Rubber Swimming Equipment.
Don't like that? Try RATTLES (Rubber Attach-ments To The Legs for Ease Of Swimming), or even SOLEs (Strap On Leg Extensions).
So pass me my Sorses, Rattles or Soles, and let's hear no more about it.
The London Diving Chamber Lectures at the Royal Geographical Society attract speakers of the calibre of Monty Halls and Loyd Grossman, yet tickets are free.
That didn't stop one misguided holder of two passes trying to sell them on for £60 on the divernet forum.
Ticket-touting for sold-out diving lectures - how far our sport has come!
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