"Luckily for us permanent residents, divers come underwater only briefly. They can stay only as long as the contents of their little bubble-cans allow. We must guess, however, that the high ambitions of their technology will soon allow them to stay down here longer and longer. This being so, we must look at their personality types so that we can assess them on our calamity impact scale."

One of the first diver types to catch your attention will probably be the Sea-Squirt. Basically he is a harmless klutz whose energies and hapless enthusiasm far outweigh his brain-cell count. Loud noise and calamity are his constant companions. He is the guy who treads on the pillar valves of all the other divers' tanks as he stumbles aboard the inflatable. He unerringly targets the full fill of nitrox 36 first, and vents half the tank before he can fumble the valve shut again. His combination contents gauge console has more dials than a Klingon warship, and twice its firepower. With this lethal device he can level a RIBful of divers in one stumbling pirouette and still be ignorant of the reason for the carnage around him. Yet he is tolerated, and even encouraged by his buddies to feel part of the team. Divers' natural affection for the underdog compels them to embrace explosively unpredictable idiots like the Sea-Squirt.
	The BULLDOZER-TURTLE is the friendly giant of the diver's world. He is not so much a Popeye: more a benign Bluto. To his buddies he is usually just Big Dave. There is a Big Dave in every dive club. Without him a fleet of heavy plant machinery would have to accompany every club convoy. He can lift a 50-horse Merc into a Land Rover with one hand. He can lift the RIB and trailer while Little Jock changes the wheel - with the crew still aboard. When a diver spots a nice little porthole jammed under a 2-tonne boulder, who else is going to readjust the landscape for him but Big Dave?
The TWIT-NIBBLER is to its diving branch what the cleaner wrasse is to other fishes. Its main role is to nip at parasitic members until they regurgitate their subs. He or she is so unrelenting in his or her mission that identification is easy, even underwater, by the filing-wallet labelled "Membership List" clutched under one arm.
	Flying darters often accompany shoaling divers. Like the penguin's wings, their arms have lost most of their use, and are generally held behind or clasped beneath them, while their extra-long foot-flukes propel them through the water. Curiosity is their driving instinct, so these flitting voyeurs get their highs from watching rather than doing. Sadly, their tiny attention spans allow them only brief surveillance at any point of interest, leaving them with no lasting information. Without this intellectual burden, they are left free to perfect the art of inane grinning and repetitive saluting typical of their kind.
The DEMOLITION CRAB is the victim of an unhappy childhood. His parents were spartan in their choice of toys, and "educational value" was to rob him of the fun and novelty every child craves in his playthings. So, like the decorator crab, he embellishes his torso with ornamental baubles in an absurd compensation for his early emotional hardships. The Demolition Crab sports more fins and wings than a '59 Cadillac, and enough chrome barracuda lures for his own private feeding frenzy. His gadgets, straps and trailing consoles help bring back the wide-open spaces to coral reefs everywhere. He rarely loses his buddies, so easy is he to follow down his own cloudy trails of destruction.
	A diver with a chronic disability is the Mayday Drifter. Although unaffected in everyday life, he is the victim of a selective word blindness. Only in the diving world does this special dyslexia become apparent: he cannot comprehend the words "tide" and "current". He surfs the raging currents of major estuaries and shipping lanes; he scoffs at riptides and gale warnings. If he surfaces in sight of land, this man feels lost. To the Coastguard and the Search and Rescue forces he is an old friend you invite to retirements and bravery awards. Most helicopters carry a monogrammed rescue harness just for him.
The MOSS BROS are the underwater naturalists of dive clubs. They are as at home in a mossy rock pool or muddy creek as on a spectacular wreck. Seaweed is the garnish of their paradise. While others shun the tenacious tangles of the kelp forest, they embrace its bondage. While other divers choke and drown alongside their cover boat, trying to recover their unmouthed regulators, the Moss Bros will hold them firmly from the boat while they tenderly remove a hitch-hiking feather star from their BC. While others admire a porthole, the Moss Bros will identify the barnacle on the deadlight dog as Eliminius modestus, an immigrant species brought over by foreign shipping during the Second World War and which really should be kept on as a conversation piece.
	The FLASHGUN SNIPER has ruined many an innocent invertebrate's day by cindering its tiny corneas with a million-candlepower light blast without warning. They risk frustration and hardship for their passion, and some have flooded their Nikonos so often that their cameras support inter-tidal communities. Their cameras and fancy equipment leave them scant time to consider the moralities of marine life, so copulate at your peril while they are about. Be alert for them! They may just pick you up and drop you in the middle of a colourful but deadly stinging anemone, for the sake of the "rule of thirds". If you are a sea urchin, for the sake of their art they might beat your head in with a rock, then decorate it with your major organs just to attract the pretty fishes.
For one group of divers, non-ferrous metal holds a holy significance; just staring at it can transport them far down the briny corridors of maritime history. Brass Wrasses arrive on site with a six-pack of metal polish, and hope to find something, anything, to shine up. The Dragnet Diver is less selective, and anything remotely artefactual is fair game for his Tardis of a goody-bag. At the end of his dive, woe betide any luckless invertebrate in the path of his trawl net.
	THE PLANKTON-HERDER holds high rank in diving society; it is his noble office, also referred to as Training Officer, to oversee the myriad legions of hapless, floating novice divers. Blown like plankton by the winds and the tides, these innocent larvae could fall victim to so many unheeding forces that without his vigilance many would not reach maturity. He is a matchmaker who many experienced divers avoid at buddy-up time. He arrives, a mother duck with his waddling charges, anxious to pair his fledglings with a caring foster-diver. He quickly learns to avoid the metal collectors and the Mayday Drifters, and usually ends up with the Moss Bros. This questionable solution to his problem often sees many a novice giving up in the despairing belief that all there is to diving is bladder wrack and Eliminius modestus.
In rank the Plankton-Herder is exceeded only by the SHOAL SHEPERD, the vessel of all the woes and responsibilities of the Branch. It is said that sharks can sense anxiety underwater. If this is so, the average great white could pick up a Diving Officer from a range of several miles on the worry-band. The DO must have the discipline of military office, tempered with the patience of a disaster counsellor. He must have the luck of Flash Gordon, the innovative flair of Batman, and the approachability of Mr Blobby. Without him, total anarchy would rule the diving fraternity, as opposed to the loosely bridled anarchy he helps to maintain. His heaviest burden is his ball and chain of example. While ordinary mortal divers need only thinly disguise their lifelong affair with disaster, the DO must be an unwavering moral model for the legions of loose cannons who litter the decks of the average dive club. One wrong step and his character is sullied for life. We must save for him our biggest salute, for in the example of his selfless responsibility lies the hope of Sea People in every ocean.

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