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HELL'S BELLES
BLOKES TEND TO DOMINATE THE UK DIVING SCENE. I've got so used to being in a minority on a dive trip that it doesn't even seem strange anymore.
If I'm on a tekkie dive, I can cheerfully forget to bring a screwdriver, secure in the knowledge that at least three guys on the boat will have brought enough tools to service a small fleet of space shuttles.
I once made the mistake of telling a diver how impressed I was by the size of his toolbox - in an ironic, post-feminist, tongue-in-cheek manner. I was then subjected to a detailed two-hour tour of his interchangeable tool attachments. Post-feminist irony has yet to reach Stafford.
The other experience to which I've been subjected on a male-dominated dive boat is the post-pub porn video. Trapped around the table in the ship's mess, you would have to make a concerted effort - and appear horrendously prudish - to avoid watching. Inevitably the tape will be in German and will feature a man in a nappy.
For reasons that I'd really rather not explore, technical divers appear to have something of a furtive fixation with nappies.
Watching porn is like watching MTV; no matter how rubbish it is, you feel compelled to watch in case something good comes up next. Sadly, just like the German nappy man, it's usually more of the same.
I never really saw the need for a porn video on the dive boat. If you're into watching pimply bottoms bobbing about, you need only hang out on deck and watch the blokes changing into their undersuits.
So I was delighted to embark on a diving expedition to the Red Sea, where women divers were as numerous as men. I was intrigued to see how this would alter the tone and ambience of the dive team. It'll be a glimpse into the future, I thought to myself: men and women, doing challenging dives together, on equal terms...
It didn't take long for the girls to seize the upper hand.
From day one, the usual long discussions about kit configuration were gone. The women just set their kit up in the way that they wanted to dive it and then launched into a comparison of who had broken the most fingernails and had a laugh about how all those stage cylinders made them look like an underwater version of Ginger from Chicken Run. The men retreated to the gas-mixing panel for a detailed debate about topping off their trimix fills.
The girls prepared for the dive while raucously discussing bikini-line waxes; the blokes nervously fiddled with their SMB reels. By the time we sat down for an evening meal, the women were regaling each other with gruesome details of childbirth experiences and hilarious accounts of their sexual adventures. The men didn't know where to put themselves.
I was forced to ask the dive girls not to get quite so graphic until after we had finished eating - the blokes were looking distinctly queasy. As we headed for the bar, it was becoming obvious that upfront female sexuality is a lot more scary than the video version.
The next day's diving was preceded by a discussion of how to manage the planned 98 minutes under water in drysuits. We were back on familiar territory - nappies! Liz insisted on parading about in her incontinence pads and plastic pants, and the girls began a spirited debate on how to avoid leakage.
A small crowd of fascinated onlookers gathered. The dive blokes shuffled their feet with embarrassment, trying to pretend that it wasn't happening, but unable to stop gawping.
Men and women divers might have their differences, but when it comes down to sheer entertainment value, it was clear that a man in a nappy can never compete with a woman in plastic pants.
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