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SCUBA
SNACKS
Diving is hungry work. I learned this early on as a novice, stranded far out to sea on a scabby-looking inflatable in an ill-fitting semi-dry suit. You dive, you get wet, and in the UK that means you get cold. When you get back on the boat you would cheerfully snog Anne Widdecombe for a cup of hot soup.
Unfortunately, when you're a novice no one will have bothered to warn you about this, and complaining is not an option when your weirdy beardy diving officer regards any sign of dissent as akin to treason.
If the training agencies had any sense, the buddy check for UK RIB diving would change to Buoyancy - Air - Releases - Flask of hot chocolate. Or BARF. Which is not so hard to remember when you're kitting up in a swell next to a smoky diesel engine.
These days, I have to confess, I avoid RIBs like the plague. I knew my RIB-diving days were numbered when I hauled my twin-set, stages, goodie bag, spare fins, emergency first aid kit, picnic hamper, oxygen supply, family pack of toilet roll and manicure set aboard - and realised that there was no room for any other divers.
Hardboats are just so much more civilised. So imagine my horror when Tara said she had booked a RIB called Predator for our Weymouth dive weekend. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it involved the words "No" and "Way".
"But Louise, you'll really like it," she said: "It's got a cabin, a kettleÉ" She could see I was intrigued: "And a proper toilet." This had to be seen.
And so it was that I found myself on a RIB the size of a house. The kettle was already on before we left the slip at Castletown, and as we returned from the first dive, Ivor the skipper was ready with a cup of hot soup. Heaven.
At lunchtime we anchored in Lulworth Cove for a bit of shelter. The tea was flowing, the sandwiches were cheese and pickle, and then he pulled out a packet of Wagon Wheels.
Ah yes, you remember Wagon Wheels: so big you had to hold them in two hands. They were the kind of treat your mum would only let you buy from the snack machine at the pool after swimming. Junky food with shedloads of additives. Fabulous.
Was it nostalgia, or amnesia? Maybe my hands have got a lot bigger, but Wagon Wheels just aren't as huge as they used to be. Worse than that, they taste like a piece of cardboard coated with sugar-flavoured shaving foam. I still ate it, of course. Actually I ate two.
And that was when I realised the truth about dive weekends. You enter a parallel universe where everything appears normal, but different rules apply. In normal life I would rather chew on an old piece of rope than submit to a Pot Noodle. On a dive weekend I would sprint up the ladder and wrestle my buddy overboard to get my hands on one.
Then I noticed that Tara, who was looking dead slinky in her close-fitting drysuit, was fiddling with the sandwiches. She picked the bread off and ate only the cheese, which seemed rather to defeat the purpose of a sandwich.
"I'm on this protein-only diet," she confessed. "I can eat as much as I like - but only protein." As if to prove the point, she whipped out a large pile of ham and scoffed the lot.
You have to admire her discipline. The idea of sticking to any kind of a diet on a dive weekend is beyond me, though I have come across a few divers who follow a strict beer-only regime...
"Well, they do say you are what you eat," commented the skipper as he unpacked the rest of the lunch-time goodies. "Jam tart, Louise?"
He knows me too well.
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