 |
IT MAKES ME SO MAD!
LOUISE TREWAVAS
DON'T WE ALL HATE POLITICS? WHY CAN'T WE JUST GO DIVING? Put two divers in a room together and, after the initial euphoria of discovering a mutual interest in going under water, there are now a million things that they can disagree about.
From rivalries about how big your cylinder is, to snobbishness about who you trained with, to disagreements about whether you should use your drysuit or your BC (or both) for buoyancy, to speculation about whether your bum will look big in that neoprene outfit.
I would so love to tell you that I couldn't care less about any of it. Years of inspecting my rear end in the changing-room mirror prove otherwise.
Divers row because we have opinions, allegiances and self-interests (and insecurities). We are human! If the ability to agree with whatever anyone else says made you a good diver, then diving would be over-run by sheep.
The temptation for me to make a joke at the expense of certain training organisations at this point is almost overwhelming. Nothing annoys me more than people who want to tell me what I can and can't do; particularly when they pretend to do so in my best interests.
Portland Port Authority has decided that it's better that we don't go diving on the wreck of the Hood because we might hurt ourselves. Oh really? If PPA believes there is an increased risk, then it should publish the research, issue a safety warning about entering the wreck and consult us about the best way forward.
However, I suspect that PPA cares less about divers than it does about doing profitable business deals. We are getting in the way.
Perhaps we can't expect any better from PPA, which, naturally enough, is out to make money. But where, you may ask, are the diving organisations to stick up for divers? Sitting on their bottoms, of course! Or waffling on about having cosy chats with the harbourmaster behind closed doors.
But while this kind of stuff makes me mad as a hornet, there are other divers who will simply shrug and go diving somewhere else. Who needs the aggro? Passion or pragmatism - take your choice.
After all, sticking up for what you believe in can get you into all kinds of scrapes and make you seriously unpopular with the powers that be. Take John Bantin. He wrote a Deep Breath opinion piece about how sharks are being killed because people in China and Japan want to eat sharkfin soup and we trade with these countries, hence we are contributing to the slaughter, etc.
For some reason, this has offended the bloke who appears to own the Shark Trust, and John has been summarily dismissed as a trust patron. Whatever you think of Bantin's views - and we certainly have our differences - he has the right to express them. The Shark Trust ends up appearing more bothered about protecting egos than protecting sharks.
When you care about something, it can be hard to separate yourself from the issue and it's all too easy to obsess and lose all perspective. Take my behind (no, really - I have more than I need on hand).
If you want some clues as to what divers care about, just pay a visit to divernet.com and look at the forum. Sane conversations are peppered with terrifyingly detailed rows between people (OK, men) over cylinder-marking protocols and the optimal technique for farting in your drysuit without causing a buoyancy catastrophe.
If you have time on your hands and feel qualified to tell everybody else how to dive, it's right up your alley.
Divers - we're all a bit obsessed. I guess it's just a question of how anal you get about it.
|
