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The liveliest letters from the DIVER mailbag...
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I read with dismay the vitriolic attack in your letters column on the humble snorkel (The Snorkel - Why?, August). While sympathising wholeheartedly with your correspondent - I committed mine to my dive bag after the first three dives, and 300 dives later have never once had the urge to retrieve it - I must speak up in its defence.
When the young Helmut Snorkel invented his eponymous device in 1853, few could have predicted the enormous social and economic impact this was to have. In the years since, it has rivalled both the wheel and the D-ring in versatility and practicality.
In the field of leisure, many have proved invaluable as improvised tent pegs, or strapped to the rear wheels of bicycles to make that infuriating clicking sound against the spokes.
There might have been greater recognition for the snorkel had bar-top blow football, using a pickled egg and ashtrays for goals, not been played only during "lock-ins" and therefore been unavailable to Sky Sports. Less interesting sports have received huge sums of money!
And who can have failed to be moved at a rendition of Land of Hope and Glory on a snorkel, with a sliver of pork scratching inserted in the mouthpiece?
As an object of sexual arousal, the snorkel can have no equals. While few in the West have been privileged to view the East's most treasured book, The Kama Snorkel, the most secret contents of many a handbag would reveal battery-powered versions of the device!
Of course, the snorkel's history has its darker phases. It went down an evolutionary blind alley in the '50s and '60s, when the mouthpiece was moulded from old tractor tyres. Incautious insertion in the mouth could result in removal of a complete set of canines and incisors. The taste of vulcanised rubber would recall halcyon memories of a holiday weeks after it ended.
Its most aberrant design feature, however, was the addition of a ping-pong ball contained in a flimsy cage at the top of the unit. The theory was that the ball, on immersion in and being lighter than water, would form a tight seal against the inlet of the snorkel and keep water out.
Nice idea. What the designer overlooked was that, as the snorkel was worn parallel with the body, when the snorkeller dived down for close inspection of a discarded lemonade bottle the snorkel also moved into the inverted position, and the ping-pong ball, adhering to the laws of physics, moved away from, not towards, the inlet hole.
The snorkeller would, of course, be relaxed and confident, having heard and understood the theory of the ping-pong ball from the newsagent who sold it to him. After a few seconds of breath-holding, his autonomic nervous system would flex his diaphragm, expand his lungs, and promptly ingest the entire liquid contents of Babbacombe Bay.
And so, as the manufacturers strive towards their nirvana of a snorkel with the luminosity of a Jedi light sabre, despite its imperfections, let us treat it with the respect it deserves.
Rob Jones, Didsbury, Manchester
Last year, on my second open-water dive at an inland site, I ran out of air ascending the shotline. No problem, I gave an out-of-air signal, grabbed my buddy's octopus, and completed the ascent.
But my jacket was not inflated, and even though the surface was flat-calm my mouth and nose were under water. It's hard to inflate a jacket with alternate mouthfuls of water and air when you can't remember which button to press when you blow into the mouthpiece. Fortunately, my buddy had the presence of mind to inflate my BC and all was OK. So now I always check how to inflate the BC - and wear a snorkel.
This year at St Abbs I found that I'd failed to pack my snorkel, so I went to the well-stocked Post Office and bought one. An hour later I surfaced a little low on air after a free flow on the octopus, and confidently popped the snorkel in my mouth to ride out the North Sea swell and safely inflate my BC while the RIB came over.
The snorkel is the simplest piece of equipment you've got, and it can save your life.
Trevor Fury, Bedford
I am 14 and read Diver. Every month I notice a letter whining about unimportant issues such as "why we shouldn't wear snorkels". These letters and articles greatly annoy me. Didn't you become divers to enjoy the beauty and thrill of the seas?
Instead of growing aware of the joys of the sport, you turn into boring old farts who complain about the smallest problems.
Shouldn't we be writing about issues like the cod depletion in the North Sea, or oceanic phenomena such as the annual Sardine Run? I realise there are certain problems to be addressed but the continuous flow of writing about petty whinges is boring me and (I imagine) the rest of Diver's readers to distraction.
If the entire diving population is as complaining as the writers of these letters, God help us! I give divemasters, instructors and skippers a gigantic pat on the back for having to put up with us whinging, boring divers.
It's your choice whether you wear your snorkel or not. We don't want to know about it. Just don't come crying to us when you've swallowed bucketfuls of Stoney Cove's water on your 200m surface-swim back to dry land.
Emma Toman, Barton under Needwood
Comment: Careful, Emma - we fear that there may be more "whinging" to come! If you can't whinge in Off-Gassing, where can you whinge?
Should we be taught to dive with friends we know, trust and have planned a dive with, or to dive more independently? I don't have a regular buddy, so rely on being paired up for dives. One recent buddy on a deep dive demonstrated the differences.
Talking to the divemaster afterwards, I aired my concerns and he agreed. My buddy had not known what to do as a buddy, to the point of being dangerous. Through his lack of experience or confidence, once under water he decided to buddy the instructor, not me. Not once did he acknowledge my signals or offer his own.
The instructor and I indicated that he should drop back to keep as a buddy pair, but he continued to disregard me, and never once turned round to check that I was there.
With a lot of warmwater diving involving large groups of people, it's easy to feel over-confident when the visibility is high and plenty of divers are close to hand. That's when good practice goes and accidents are more likely.
This was demonstrated on another dive when an experienced member of a buddy pair thought he was short on air and, rather than find his own buddy, grabbed my buddy's octopus, leaving two people without buddies.
We need to be taught that a buddy pair of two strangers on a holiday dive is different to one based on friendship and experience.
PADI teaches planning and buddy choice, then we go on holiday and follow the instructor with new buddies we don't know. It's not buddy diving that's wrong, but the way it is taught.
We should be taught more self-reliance within buddy diving and how to adapt to new buddies. After all, those of us without buddies on holiday can be as good as solo diving en masse.
Keith Lunt, Manchester
I lost both my legs in 1997 and had a lot of time available. I had dived some 18 years earlier and enjoyed it, so I phoned several dive clubs around the UK. I soon began to lose interest after negative responses such as: "We're sorry, we don't have disabled instructors" or "We have no insurance for disabled divers". But a friend introduced me to Aquatetra, the Welsh National Disabled Dive Centre. I booked a try dive and met other disabled divers, some blind, paralysed and other limbless people too.
All went well and an Open Water course was completed without problems in a lake in Snowdonia. Thinking it would be nice to have a regular buddy, I talked a friend into taking up the sport. We progressed to Advanced, on an Aquatetra course in the Red Sea.
This was luxury compared to windswept Wales. I had a pair of limbs made which gave the impression under water that I was an able-bodied diver, and allowed me to manoeuvre as well as any diver. The legs also allowed me to wear a drysuit and fins, so improving my control on and under the water.
After a week of witnessing the incredible marine life I took the next step, a Rescue Diver course back in Wales, to increase my knowledge and make diving safer for my buddies and myself. I had to adapt my techniques for removing casualties from the water, and moving through the shallows, as I could not walk out with rescued casualties.
I attained a good score and, hungry for another challenge, took the Dive Masters course in Wales and at Sharm El Sheikh.
After a lot of diving, swimming and assisting with other students, plus fitness-training and studying, much of this very taxing physically and mentally, I passed in January 2001.
It gave me a great feeling of achievement. The next move is to Instructor, though I'm now taking a break to dive for pleasure.
I was concerned that other divers would not like to dive with me. Maybe they would consider me a liability to their safety or enjoyment if they had to worry about my capabilities. My fears were unfounded. I now find that all divers, of whatever association, are willing to dive with me without reservation.
I have dived around the UK and in Egypt, Spain, Cyprus, the Canaries and the USA and have found centre staff and visiting divers of all nationalities extremely helpful. I have never found anyone unwilling to help carry equipment and am always asked if there is anything I need help with.
I can only surmise that divers are indeed a special breed of amphibious creature. Fellow divers will help and give you the same respect and consideration they give any diver.
I hope that disabled people read this article, or that Diver readers who know disabled people apprehensive about diving will show them this letter. My thanks to those who helped me, or have helped other disabled people to dive.
Peter Gorman, Honiton
In the July issue of Diver, Mr Jonathan Hall Smith commented on his negative experience while diving with a company called Blue Diving (Cuban Controversy, Off-Gassing). I would like to clarify PADI's position with regard to PADI diving activities in Cuba.
The US Government has strong restrictions regarding business with Cuba and its citizens. Because PADI has its headquarters in the USA, US Government regulations stipulate that PADI's programmes may not be offered in Cuba. Both SSI and NAUI, as US-based corporations, are subject to the same regulations.
Any PADI Member found to be working in Cuba faces Quality Assurance action for violation of PADI membership requirements. PADI has contacted Mr Hall-Smith and Mr Enzo Cendron separately in an effort to address both the concerns about the level of service provided and the fact that these activities took place in Cuba.
If anyone has any questions or wishes to discuss this, don't hesitate to contact me directly.
Eric Albinsson, PADI International
As supposedly one in five people suffer from some form of depressive illness in their lifetime, depression theoretically affects a lot of divers. After reading Drs Williams and Roth's surprising suggestion that diving could be good for depressives (Off-Gassing, August), and despite the Diving Doc's very sensible response, I thought I'd add my experience.
My wife Sharon was diagnosed with mild clinical depression in 1984. The very senior specialist treating her advised that a planned diving holiday to Eilat would "do her good"; her medication would cause no problems.
Safety standards were far higher than we had experienced when training the previous year in the USA, and a series of work-up dives was standard practice. Sharon's initial four dives were problem-free, but the fifth to 31m in the Japanese Gardens was not.
It was a simple air dive in ideal conditions, but a few minutes after reaching the seabed Sharon indicated that she was having problems with her reg and was ascending.
I signalled her to stay put and rest, held her BC strap and offered her my reg; initially she seemed calm but things changed very quickly.
She suddenly pushed me away and, as I went to grab her, knocked my mask off with one blow and my reg with a second. I struggled to hold onto her while finding my reg. Sharon was trying to break for the surface and had, I think, by then spat her reg out.
By now Tsali, the instructor, was on the scene and commenced an emergency ascent. Sharon had swallowed quite a bit of water and by the time we got to the surface was hysterical and breathing with difficulty.
After pumping her out, oxygen and 24 hours' observation she was released from hospital without injury, though it was nearly a year before she got over the depression. She has dived only twice since.
Sharon had always been a calm, sensible diver and had never had anxiety or panic attacks before. Such attacks are a common feature of depression but this was the only such occurrence during her 18 months' illness. It is impossible to say how far her medication and the depth contributed to the incident.
The drugs she was taking are still routinely prescribed; others commonly prescribed have various side-effects such as drowsiness, euphoria and perceptual narrowing and vary between individuals.
Concentration and judgment are adversely affected by depression anyway.
It's impossible to predict the exact conditions and profile of a dive, so I don't see how a medic can categorically advise a depressed patient whether or not they should dive, even somewhere with reasonably predictable conditions like Eilat.
My advice to those unfortunate divers suffering from depression is not to be too quick to accept advice from your doctor, however welcome or well-intentioned, unless he/she has specialist knowledge on the subject. To be on the safe side I'd see a BSAC medical referee.
Returning from Eilat I felt that my US training had been inadequate and joined the BSAC. On the medical assessment form one of the first things that hit me was that diving while on medication for depression was precluded. In my view, that's with good reason.
And thanks again, Tsali.
Paul Lavender, Chigwell, Essex
Back in April I was diagnosed as "clinically depressed" by a counsellor to whom I had been referred by my GP. When I had first visited my GP he was keen for me to be prescribed a course of anti-depressants, but I was extremely reluctant to adopt this approach. I perceived that such drugs could be addictive and would not deal with the underlying problems and cause of my depression (loss of three close dear relatives) and would merely "paper over the cracks". This is why my GP arranged counselling.
It never occurred to me that these drugs could potentially stop me from diving. The idea of not being able to dive while depressed would certainly have increased my already unhappy state.
Before depression I would look forward to a dive eagerly, but this feeling had been lost (a symptom of this illness). When I was actually planning, kitting-up and diving, however, the whole focus of the task in hand was a delight.
Such was the concentration and preparation that all dark thoughts were temporarily banished. This often continued post-dive and was a welcome break from an otherwise unhappy time.
Had I been in any doubt as to my own ability as a diver, I would not have continued to dive. This would not have been an easy choice, and one of the problems associated with depression can be rash decisions, but I could always talk with people in my club who were aware of the situation.
Diving became my escape and was excellent therapy to relieve the symptoms temporarily. It would never have cured me, but was very helpful.
Using counselling to overcome depression is in my experience rarely the preferred method. Anti-depressants may work for some but I presume that pills are more cost-effective.
I would recommend that anyone (diver or non-diver) should persuade their GP to refer them for counselling first and not simply accept a course of anti-depressants. Talking can lead to a cure.
I still have dark days but on the whole am a lot happier with life. Memories of some very pleasant dives during this period of my life are far stronger than any of the negative thoughts and events.
"Ex-Depressed Diver"
Having just completed the PADI Advanced course, I decided to invest in a dive computer.
Everyone seems to have one, and with the added benefits of extra bottom time and increased levels of safety, I thought why not?
As a student in Cornwall, most of my time is spent in the pub and occasionally at college, but there is nothing I enjoy more than descending into the cold depths off the Cornish coast - I don't think I have ever felt as relaxed as I do while diving.
However, after reading The Dive Computer is So Primitive (Deep Breath, August) I worry that divers are becoming too hung-up on the mod cons. I don't want to be sitting at a safety stop while my buddy is chatting away on his new regulator-integrated mobile phone. I want to be rid of Bill Gates and annoying screensavers while gliding through waving kelp.
Back on the surface PCs do have their benefits, searching for dive holidays or writing to Diver, plus the copious amounts of porn on the Internet. On entering a dive shop my hand immediately twitches towards my wallet, as I break out in a sweat over the latest gadget. But I always manage to restrain myself and remember why I am going diving - to get away from everything else.
Matt Wilson, Sutton, Surrey
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