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TALKING DIVING IS USUALLY AS MUCH FUN AS DOING IT, and a lot warmer, but newcomers to the silent world often find themselves excluded. Not, as you might imagine, because they haven't got anything worth saying, not yet having had the near-death experiences of their peers, but because they haven't worked out the communication codes used by real divers.
Take, for example, the commonly heard: "I was taking a novice in, and we'd had a bit of a swim round when I realised he was out of air so we came up."
This really means: "I turned up late for the dive, so the buddy pairs had already been sorted out and the only one left was a novice. And I hate diving with novices. On the dive I got totally lost, and just had to keep swimming in the hope that I might find the anchor line. In fact, I was concentrating so hard on not being able to find the line that I forgot to keep an eye on my air, and didn't check his at all. When I finally did ask, he was already empty, so we had to go for the surface if we wanted to live."
Some divers claim that they "enjoy diving with novices". What they mean is that nobody in the club will dive with them twice.
Incidentally, all divers who learn to dive in a club start out as novices, regardless of what the current training scheme calls them, and they remain novices until they make their first stupid mistake. As soon as they try to dive without a weightbelt or jump into the water without zipping up their drysuit, they move to the status of "one of the lads". If their mistake is potentially life-threatening, they may even be elevated directly to "hairy-arsed diver", an accolade which otherwise takes years of dedication.
Divers who learn abroad, however, do not need to go through this formative stage and can go immediately to the dizzy heights of Platinum Visa Card Specialist if they show the necessary dedication.
Something every diver learns is to "plan the dive". A good dive plan provides you with something from which to deviate, and allows you to discuss endlessly what you ought to have done in any given situation. This is absolutely fine and healthy, provided the discussion doesn't involve the coroner and a legal team.
"We've planned a deep square profile on the wreck, put in a shotline near her bow, and hung a tank at six just in case" sounds like excellent dive planning. What it means is: "I'll be able to carry so many tools that the only way I'm going when I hit the water is straight down, and the only way I'll be able to move on the bottom is to crawl along the wreck.
"At the end of the dive, however, I'll be able to fasten my tool-belt and any brass I've liberated to the shot so I can ascend. Also, I won't need to worry about my air consumption and I'll be able to go deeper into deco because the spare tank will be there."
You often hear a dive like this described as "challenging". This can mean any number of things, ranging from "I just don't fancy diving after supping so many pints last night", to "I'm only going that deep if the Coastguard has been alerted and a rescue helicopter is standing by", or even "the last time I dived that site I ended up six miles off the coast and heading for France".
Many divers like to brag about depth, and liberally scatter their conversation with the words "deep dive". This usually means: "I think I've dived deeper than you have," but can also mean: "I went deeper than I meant to." Sometimes it means: "I went deeper than I should have done and I'm only talking about it to prove what an experienced and wonderful diver I am."
"Bounce dives" tend to happen rather than being planned, usually because you dropped an expensive piece of kit over the side, but another fine example is the profile of someone using a drysuit for the first time. It could also mean that you went far deeper on the wall than you intended, or that you missed the wreck and came up because diving on flat sand is really boring.
A "debrief" should be held after every dive. The most common is an informal discussion of shared experiences. It usually starts the moment your heads break the surface and goes along these lines:
"Did you see that incredible nudibranch I pointed out? It was on the base of the kelp frond attached to the rock by the anchorline."
"Did you see how the anchorline got tangled around my neck and it took me half an hour to fight my way free?"
The second type of debrief is similar, but occurs when one of you has seen something truly extraordinary but the other hasn't. It is probably the shortest debrief imaginable.
"Did you see that shark?"
"No."
The final type of debrief is led by your vastly more experienced buddy after you've made a cock-up the two of you were lucky to survive, and is usually referred to informally as a "bollocking".
"Air consumption" always gets a mention in any bar-room conversation, usually when somebody says "I am/she is good with my/her air". This may simply mean: "I dive with the biggest twin-set you've ever seen, so the only way I'm ever going to run out of gas is if the hole in the ozone layer opens so wide that the atmosphere takes the opportunity to go away for a holiday."
It can also mean that you're built like a whippet with anorexia problems, weigh six stone in full kit and work as an aerobics instructor. Or it could mean that we're talking about Big Al, who is the only diver in the world who can surface with more air than he took down.
Diving preferences are often expressed quite euphemistically.
"I prefer wreck-diving" means: "I do most of my diving in UK waters where there is so little to look at that even flattened plates of rusting metal on the seabed seem really interesting."
"I like long, shallow dives" translates as: "I do most of my diving overseas, where there are fish to look at and the water is warm enough not to cause physical discomfort."
"I'm very interested in photography (or archaeology, or naval history)" means: "I've done enough diving to have stopped finding it an end in itself and I need to do something else to provide some sort of point to it."
And "I really enjoy UK quarry diving" either means: "I've only ever done two dives before and the first hot flush of eagerness hasn't yet worn off," or that your medication is not controlling your symptoms.
Some of the terms used to describe diving techniques can be confusing. "Stride entry" is clear enough, but exactly when does a "stride entry" become a "giant stride entry"? In practice, this is when your back foot slips and you end up on the deck of the boat, in a position which normally requires years of training for Olympic gymnasts.
A "hang tank" is an additional cylinder and regulator hung at the correct depth for decompression and is used to provide additional safety, but can also mean what you get when you roll backwards off the RIB without looking for the anchorline.
"I tend to navigate by pilotage" means: "I never learned to use a compass, so I could come up anywhere," and "I always rely on my compass" just stands for: "I could come up anywhere."
"I'll be using a safety line" means: "I'm not sure I can find my way back to the shot any other way."
"I'll deploy my delayed SMB when I'm getting ready to surface" means: "I'm going to stay down as long as I want and swim wherever I want and I expect the boat to come and pick me up."
"We've planned a no-stop dive" means that you and your buddy feel you ought to dive having come all this way and spent all this money, but you'd rather be in the bar.
It might also mean that the local water isn't agreeing with you and you'll need to use the facilities again in about 30 minutes, or that you were too tight to pay for a proper fill and are diving with the same tank you took in this morning.
A "safety stop" is a short pause in your ascent immediately prior to surfacing, and doing one probably means you're diving with some nancy overseas operation that wouldn't be able to cope with proper dives if they had to do them. Or it could mean you never actually started a dive towards the end of slack at a site where the run picks up to, say, 6 knots.
A "buddy" is the single essential for any dive. Unfortunately, it's probably the most inappropriate term imaginable. "Buddy" suggests somebody who enjoys your company, shares your dreams and aspirations and will help you achieve whatever goals you've set yourself.
In reality, buddies are people who turn up to dive on the same day as you and are capable of paying for the dive in advance. They probably won't speak the same language as you, they are not interested in whatever you are, and they wouldn't recognise a safe diving practice if one bit them on the bum.
Their definition of a "buddy check" is a quick look-see to estimate the value of your kit, and therefore judge the amount of effort they should put into recovering it if you have a problem.
You won't exchange more than two words with them before the dive, and if you see them under water at all it will be at a distance and finning the other way. The only words you'll exchange after the dive will be written down on the business cards of rival law firms.
Which brings us to what should be the most confusing term of all, "safe-diving practices". Books have been written on this one. Whole schools of diving education have been founded to preach their own version of the truth.
All you need to remember is that all anybody ever means when they say they "dive safely" or "follow strict safe-diving policies" is that they like the way they do things, and they're not about to change them for anybody.
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