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Many ancient saws are just as true in water as they are on land.
I refer, of course, to such old faithfuls as "many a true word is spoken in jest", "a kiss without a moustache is like an egg without salt", "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", "marriage without a bridegroom is divorce from reality", "a stitch in time", "a bird in the hand is worth two in a bar" and all those other wise old sayings which we regularly bandy about in our onboard diveboat chat.
So on this occasion I thought I would tell you a true tale of diving derring-do and see if you can help with the correct proverb to apply to it.
This warmwater report comes from one of my Leaks in the Out Islands of the Bahamas. It concerns sharks and TV film crews, which can be told apart only, my Leak acidly remarks, because the sharks don't wear shorts in shallow water.
You may have read about the incident in Diver (June). It concerned Erich Ritter, a well-known shark expert, bitten by a bull shark while making a documentary for the TV channel Discovery.
Mr Ritter, who told Diver two years ago (April 2000) that he would never be bitten and that he could ensure his immunity by lowering his heart rate, lost part of his left calf and a lot of blood and was treated for shock in hospital.
However, my Leak tells me that what you did not read was that Mr Ritter was demonstrating how harmless bull sharks were to a sceptical audience gathered on the beach specially for the TV programme, while he fed fish scraps to the bulls as he stood in waist-deep water.
Why was the audience sceptical? Because its members had been invited along because most had been attacked by bull sharks in the past, and bore the scars or even missing limbs to prove it. The aim of the programme was to convince them that they had simply been unfortunate.
"The spectators moved further from the water's edge as the sharks moved closer, and when the bull grabbed Ritter and dragged him off, there was quite a rush up the beach in the opposite direction - insofar as some of them were able to rush," says my Leak.
So what wise old saw do you think is the best for this frightening tale? "The biter bit"? Not really. "Once bitten twice shy" is much the best for the audience reaction. Can any of my devoted real-diver readers do better for the circumstance of the actual attack?
I must confess to some personal interest in this tale of woe and true sayings. Having come face to face with a very large bull shark while snorkelling around some rocks off Harbour Island, another Bahamas Out Island, I recalled: "Discretion is the better part of valour" and fled back to shore. Thus proving the updated proverb that "he who sights and fins away, lives to sight another day".
Perhaps we have the makings of a competition. Let me have your ideas of updated proverbs for dive-boat talk and diving use and I'll pay a crisp crunchie to the Diver Lifeboat Fund for each one I print. To me swiftly.
Remember: "He who hesitates is lost."
What a mailstorm my tale of podgers and Podgerman has conjured up! I had little idea how many readers would have been shocked at the idea of a diver collecting supper by piercing a plaice with a podger, that neat little hand-spear carried by many real divers in the leg sheath once occupied by a magnificent anti-shark knife.
Do divers not snack from the sea any more?
One veteran spluttered almost hysterically at the idea of using a quick twist of the podger (reversed and held by the pointy end) to extract a tasty lobster from the overhang of a bit of rocky reef.
"Podger be damned," he shouted wrathfully down the phone to Eaton Towers. "What's the matter with your hand, man? Finest lobster or crab taker in the world, your hand!"
Many others wondered, as did Beachcomber, about the origin of the name for this handy weapon. Even Podgerman himself, creator of many fine instruments, did not know.
So we are indebted to young Steve Hurrell of Brighton, who tells me that "a podger is a steel tool used by scaffolders to tighten and untighten scaffold clamps. It is about 12 inches long and has a flat hook at one end and a raised point at the other." Which, we must agree, is a close description of a real podger.
One strange request came among all the rest of the input into the Podger Saga - why is there no entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest catch made with a standard podger? Answer to that have I none. What is the largest catch ever made with a podger? Over to you.
If there is anything other than diving which divers know more about than most people, it is motoring. And of course parking. To carry the gear to shore site or boat, the diver must have a car or van.
Once there, parking is another essential. So I was most concerned on behalf of all divers when my Land's End Leak drew my attention to a nasty development in the diving world down in deepest, darkest Cornwall.
Near Land's End is Lamorna Cove, much prized by divers as a prime launch site for exciting local diving. Much prized also as having good parking, for which the diver naturally expects to pay.
The area and the harbour are privately owned and launching and parking fees are paid to the owner, either in his office or the nearby cafe next to the gift shop.
This arrangement has worked well over the years but, says the Land's End Leak, Lamorna has so grown in popularity with landbound visitors as well as divers that control of the parking has been put in the hands of a private security firm.
It was not long before, security firms being what they are, a visiting diver returned to his car to find it clamped. The charge to unclamp it was £50. This struck the diver as monstrously unfair, for not only had he paid for his parking but had displayed the receipt sticker as instructed.
He was even more shocked because he had visited the Cove often before and knew the form.
The reason for the clamping - he "had displayed the sticker upside-down"! Unless he paid the clamping fee, his car would not be released.
Battle was joined and raged over hours, but in the end the diver had to pay up.
My fear is that this kind of warden madness may spread to other prime dive sites. So I would draw all divers' attention to the need to display parking receipts the right way up.
If security firms can find a way to part you with your hard-earned cash, no matter how specious, they will - so give them no excuse.
Lamorna is such a nice place for divers - let's hope it stays that way.
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