 |
|
The liveliest letters from the DIVER mailbag...
|
|
DON'T TREAT ME LIKE A KID
I have been a qualified diver for only about six months but have been looking to stock up on the essential equipment such as a BC, regulator and so on.
The problem is that I am only 14, and in my local dive-shop the shopkeepers don't seem to take me seriously and don't offer me any help or advice on making a wise and sensible purchase.
There are two possible reasons for this. The first is my age, and the second is that they are too lazy to help me. To resolve the problem I asked one of my dive instructors to come down to the shop with me and help me make a sensible purchase.
If the reason the shop wouldn't help me is my age, then it seems to me that diving is a grown man's sport/hobby. What do you think?
Tom Lowe, Warley, West Midlands
Comment: Perhaps we'll get Junior Mystery Diver to look into your claims, Tom. Meanwhile, if you want sensible advice on kit before you hit the shops, check Diver Tests here and if possible on www.divernet.com. A prize lamp and strobe for your letter should help towards your kit collection...
Why DIR is no fun
I read with interest John Liddiard's feature Doing It Simple (February). I had read an article earlier about DIR (Doing It Right) and I am now convinced that I do not want to dive with "the elite".
The equipment divers use is safer now than it's ever been, and thousands of us take great pleasure in experimenting and chatting about kit configuration. If you removed this aspect of the sport, it would be one less thing to talk about down the pub:
Bill: "I've just bought a wing-style BC without bungees and it has left-hand control."
Adrian: "Just like mine."
Paul: "Yes, I have one too." Get my drift - we need our toys!
If individuals think they are superior just because they have the kit and have read some books, that breeds arrogance. There is nothing wrong with having a tight team with strong leadership and good bonding, especially for more demanding activities such as deep diving, but inflexible attitudes could be hazardous.
Perhaps those who subscribe to these methods are better (or more competent) divers. However, I get the feeling that this small bunch might inadvertently be encouraging lesser-skilled people to join a clique, and leading them to try things beyond their abilities - with disastrous results.
I would feel happier if my next dive buddy had honesty and integrity rather than a DIS badge (DIR wouldn't dive with me anyway). After all, diving is meant to be fun!
Adrian Turner, Hay-on-Wye
Two sides to Colossus
Slim MacDonnell (Who Protects the Colossus Now?, Off-Gassing, January) criticised the Archaeological Diving Unit for not using the records of his work on the designated wreck site of HMS Colossus that he submitted some years ago.
Mr MacDonnell seems unaware that the part of the wreck that he investigated is not the same as that currently being investigated by the ADU. The two are quite a distance apart.
All the submitted records from the previous designated site will be considered by the ADU when investigating the new designated site.
As to the value of the ADU, I'm sure any diver who saw the recent Time Team TV programme can see the importance of its present role.
Stuart Bryan, Advisory Committee for Historic Wreck Sites
Venturing beyond common sense
I keep hearing horror stories about how dangerous some places are to dive, and usually Dorothea Quarry in Wales is mentioned. The vast majority of those who dive there go specifically because it's deep, and some, unfortunately, go well beyond the boundaries of common sense.
I have no problem with people wanting to dive deep but I do have a problem with people who do so with little or no experience of depth and with equipment often not up to the job.
Some divers are doing 70, 80 or even 90m on air, then blaming the location for the inevitable incident waiting to happen. Some are using single cylinders with no back-up to do it!
I have every sympathy for anyone affected by an incident, but careless incidents will decrease only if we start making risky diving socially unacceptable, like drink-driving. Is your equipment up to it? Have you progressively built up your experience? Have you planned the dive and made sure you know what you're doing? If you're honest with yourself, you'll be a better diver.
James Sim, Haydock, Merseyside
Diving with a disability
I took up diving last spring, a lifelong ambition of mine, and was not disappointed - life down there is simply breathtaking. After doing my PADI Open Water qualification I had a trip to the Red Sea in June, swam with dolphins and rays, then went to Malta and Gozo in August for excellent, more challenging diving, but not quite as much to see.
I had arranged to do my advanced qualification in September, but unfortunately broke my back and injured my spine in a motorcycle accident before I had been able to discover the joys of coldwater diving in Stoney Cove!
Now paraplegic, I wonder about the practicalities of diving again. Perhaps you could run a feature on diving and diving holidays for people like me - and perhaps introduce a "disabled-friendly" icon in your dive centre/holiday guide.
Most spinal-injured people tend to end up in their chairs as a result of accidents, often when something has gone wrong in their chosen "extreme sport". I reckon scuba would be liberating for such frustrated adrenaline junkies!
Chris Suddes, Sheffield
Get smart, pay with plastic
I was interested in the comments made by Mystery Diver when rating various insurance companies out of 10 for how helpful they would be in compensating individuals for loss of a diving holiday through airline bankruptcy or other means (December 2001).
Mystery Diver gave MBNA Visa 0/10 for its apparent lack of interest in a client's predicament. Yet four years ago I lost a considerable amount of money when a training organisation went bankrupt and it turned out that my insurance did not cover what I thought it did.
After much head-banging and a near nervous breakdown, a friend asked if I had paid with Visa. I had, so I called (NatWest) Visa and explained my problem. It sent me a claim form, which I duly filled in and returned.
After less than a week I phoned Visa to see if anyone had looked into my claim. To my amazement, I was told that if I checked my account the money would be there. It was.
When it comes to keeping receipts, I am the king collector, and I also sent photo-copies of correspondence with lawyers etc with the claim form. I am sure this helped. Suffice to say, I now pay for every flight and holiday with plastic.
A D Cleworth, Gatwick
Are you a World Class Diver?
In industry, the accolade World Class Manufacturer is achieved by ensuring continuous improvement in all areas of a business. A WCM can be an organisation of any size which uses the equipment it has to best advantage, and trains its people in the ways of the WCM. Among the mainstay tools of continuous improvement are the "5 Ss":
- Sort: Determine what is not needed in the workplace and eliminate
- Set Locations & Limits: Ensure that everything has a "home" and a specified quantity
- Shine & Sweep: Eliminate all dirt and waste
- Stick to the Rules: Correct procedures and training become a habit
Some of this might sound a little strange, but this system can be applied to diving.
- Sort: Do you have excess kit at home, packed in your dive bag? Do you carry stuff you don't need, or use, around with you? If you don't use it, don't pack it. Don't dive with unnecessary bits and bobs. Put excess kit into long-term storage or, if never to be used again, get rid.
- Set Locations & Limits: When your excess kit is removed, do the remaining essentials have a "home", so that you can always find them when you need them? Also ensure that you have a full set of spares. One spare mask is probably adequate but you will want more than one O-ring, so setting limits on the number carried as standard is important. This should also be applied to kit configuration, setting the position of regulators and minimum air supply for any dive.
- Shine & Sweep: Kit and the place where it's kept should always be clean and dry. Remember the lectures about rinsing off salt water, drying, lubrication etc?
- Set the Standards: Standardisation of kit is generally automatic - it's common sense to buy and use kit that is compatible and interchangeable. Similarly all training provided by qualified instructors should be to the same agency standards. Instructors should use notes and standard slates as visual controls to ensure that nothing is missed and that quality and safety standards are met.
- Stick to the Rules: Procedures and rules are set by clubs and branches, and by ourselves, such as maximum-depth limits. It must become habit to follow these (to maintain and improve skills and knowledge) and this will happen only with the application of discipline (generally self-discipline) to partake in further training and practice.
Once you embark on the road to World Class status you must stick with it. If you applied the 5 S criteria and the principles of continuous improvement to yourself, would you qualify as a World Class Diver? I hope so.
Duncan Spittle, DO, Dudley Dolphin BSAC
Turtles, bears and shaggy-dog stories
Three points on Doug Hollands' letter Shell-shocker (Off-Gassing, February), about the missing husband carried off by a vengeful turtle.
One: the free-diver was never seen again, so how do we know it happened?
Two: look at a turtle, there is no gap between its carapace and body, as there is with a tortoise.
Three: human fingertips, even clamped in a bear-trap, can easily be torn off - in the event of a bear approaching, for example.
Don't like the idea? Compare it with having your head ripped off. A pinch of salt, I think.
Dr Paul Macintyre, Lundin Links, Fife
Alone to Curaçao
My diving friends think of me as a very "safe" diver and we discuss diving and configuring of rigs a lot. They know I dive solo, but cannot understand how someone like me who is always telling others how things should be done can consider diving without a buddy.
The point is that diving with them I can't relax. It becomes a bit of a control session: how much air do they have, is their buoyancy right, are they OK? I feel like a mother hen. I can't say this to them, as it would give offence. So those few times I solo-dive are important to me.
I don't do deep or "dangerous" dives, only easy environments where the risk of something going wrong is slight, but I plan the dives more carefully and carry out proper checks. If I don't have someone on the beach waiting for me, I call someone just before I enter the water and let them know when I am supposed to resurface.
I was interested in going to Curaao before I read the interesting article about the Habitat Dive Resort (I Accuse, November 2001), and now am almost certain that I will go there. Before I read it my only question was: "Who can come with me?" Problem solved - it feels good to know I am not the only one who feels this way.
Sten Karlsson, Sweden
UK wrecking is like smoking 40 a day
I am responding to Nick Poling's letter in January, Brassed Off, about technical divers taking portholes from the Egypt and Carpathia, and how it's worrying that UK divers might adopt the same attitude towards wrecks.
I'm 21, an instructor and have been diving since my early teens off the Land's End peninsula in Cornwall, which is well-known to have its share of wrecks. In places three or more can be found within swimming distance of each other, so most of my dives are wreck dives.
I'm not ashamed that in the past I have taken items from wrecks and lovingly restored them to their former glory. Only over the past couple of years has there been a big interest in actively respecting wrecks. OK, many divers might turn their noses up at my activities, and they have a right to their opinion.
Nick Poling wrote that "standard divers" (non-technical divers, I assume) have made a big effort over the past year or so to "respect our wrecks".
I agree that some wrecks should be fully respected by divers, but wrecks regularly dived by standard divers all over the UK have been flattened by explosives or cables where they posed a threat to shipping.
Until the '80s, these ships were salvaged heavily, using explosives, grapples and whatever else it took. And since the '70s whatever shiny bits were left by the salvors have been taken by sports divers.
I'm afraid the condition of many of these wrecks can't be made much worse - the damage has been done. It's like smoking 40-plus cigarettes a day before realising it's bad for your health when you're 65 - the damage is irreparable, so why stop now?
I respect people's opinions and rights; I respect the sea and what lies beneath it. I also mourn for those who went down with the ships I dive, forgotten by all but a few. Like 99% of divers in this country I know the difference between right and wrong, and don't need to be reminded.
Ben Slater, Penzance
Not open-circuit
I would suggest that the reference in your LIDS previews to John Bennett being "the first person to dive beyond 1000ft on open-circuit" should have read "to dive beyond 1000ft on self-contained underwater apparatus", ie scuba.
There have been several dives of 1000ft and over, albeit primarily commercial from surface-supplied bells, but they were still "open- circuit", though recently most have been on "closed-circuit" reclaim systems or similar.
Pedantic perhaps, but in this sport misunderstandings do have the potential of causing injury or worse.
Andy Roberts, Norwich
The nastiness of narcosis
I read with distress the account of Janet Reed, who died on a training dive at Stoney Cove (News, January). My point concerns the problems she might have had on descending to 14m, and something I experienced on my first 30m dive in the Red Sea in 1996.
I had been told that narcosis was like feeling euphoric or drunk, but I was suddenly aware of a fuzziness in my brain, like breathing nitrous oxide at the dentist when having a tooth out.
I felt a sense of panic, and thought I was breathing "bad air" and so would become unconscious. At one point I took my regulator out and signalled to my buddy that all was not well. He signalled that we should ascend a few metres, which cured the problem within 10 seconds.
Several times since I have had this feeling at depth, but now know to halt my descent for a few seconds or ascend slightly to regain control.
Had Janet known how narcosis might strike and that the feeling is not pleasant, she might have reacted other than by removing her regulator and trying to climb the wall to the surface.
Without wishing to alarm new divers, I think it would help if all instructors made them aware of the possibility of the sudden unpleasant onset of narcosis and of how to deal with it, with help from a buddy if required.
Bruce P Low, Brighton
That's my dad, that is
I found your Wreck Tour of the Farne Islands' wreck the Chris Christensen (October 2001) interesting and enjoyable until I reached point 17 about the emergency steering wheel and the comment by John Liddiard: "It is now well decayed, but in a more intact state is featured in one of my favourite underwater photographs, one of those photos I look at time and again and think: 'I wish I'd taken that'."
He goes on to describe the photo and name the photographer, Mike Brett. I found myself thinking: you've named the photographer, why not name the diver dressed in the oilskins with mask off and regulator out, depending only on his buddy's expertise for a quick breath between shots, at 30m, to produce the shot. I'm sure many people have wondered who the guy was.
He is my diving instructor and, perhaps more importantly, my dad - Selby Brown, owner until a couple of years ago of the Lodge hotel, restaurant and air station in Seahouses. His buddy and mate John Leicester is an ex-commercial diver. John sat behind Dad for the shots, depending on just a nudge of Dad's elbow to produce a regulator for his next breath.
In honour of my Dad, without whom diving would probably still be frowned on if not banned from Seahouses harbour, I feel it only right for him to be named as "that guy" on the front of the Dive North-east book.
Dad remains a regular diver and, along with his many friends and buddies, can still be found around the dive sites of Seahouses and Beadnell. If you happen to bump into him, feel free to ask his advice. He is probably still one of the area's leading sources of diving knowledge and expertise.
Dave Brown, Edinburgh
|
|
