Keep It Simple, Stupid

MKSAC Newsletter June 1996

Has anybody noticed how divers are attracted towards hi-tech gear? Of course diving, by its nature, depends on a certain amount of technology but are there no limits? Some divers seem drawn, as though by a magnet, to bigger, better (and more expensive) state-of-the-art equipment. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against progress. I wouldn’t dive without my drysuit and the octopus is one of the simplest and most effective safety devices around. I just think that some of our divers go a little bit over the top.

Take something simple, like a torch. When I went on my first night dive, nearly fifteen years ago at Stoney Cove, I bought a torch. At the time it was a good one, it cost me nearly twenty quid (this was when entry to Stoney was about one pound fifty). It illuminated the murk at the thirty six meter box without any problem and its (non re-chargeable) batteries lasted for about six months worth of night and wreck dives. When I last used the torch, I thought there was a fault with it. It seemed very dim. When I got home, I put new batteries in and checked it out, no problems. Then I realised. All the diving magazines were pushing the ‘new’ halogen bulbs with re-chargeable batteries. Although there was nothing wrong with my torch, everybody else’s had got brighter. This left me with two choices, give up night diving (at least when other divers were around) or buy a bigger, better torch. I seriously considered the first especially when all night divers at Stoney started carrying strobes but in the end I bought a new torch. While shopping for this, I couldn’t believe the manufacturers claims. Some boasted that there torches had ‘over forty minutes burn time’. My old torch managed about fourteen hours. Still, that’s progress.

Regulators are another area where ‘new is best’. I started diving with a Spiro Club which at the time was advertised as ‘new, lightweight plastic’. This was when a lot of second stages were still made of metal. What my DV does, which a lot of more modern ones don’t, is to deliver air on demand, i.e. when you ask for it. Looking around the average club dive site, modern regulators are so sensitive that they free flow at the slightest provocation (like breathing). The last time I had my DV serviced it cost an arm and a leg because ‘you can’t get the parts’. I suppose that soon I shall have to replace it and put up with the gentle hiss of escaping air that everyone else seems to suffer. Perhaps this is the explanation for the number of second stages that a modern diver seems to carry. My record seen at the Blue Lagoon is five (Main, octopus, auto air and two more on the pony). Maybe the website could offer a prize to anyone who can beat this?

Another problem with today’s diver is that they will insist on carrying things ‘just in case’. It used to be that an SMB, for instance, was only taken when it was needed. Now a lot of divers seem to take a delayed one in case they can’t find the shot line. On a recent Club dive I was astounded to hear one divers buddy check start with the usual ‘mask, fins, snorkel....’ and then went on to ‘hammer, chisel....’. I wouldn’t mind but this was a reef dive and the tools were being taken on the off chance of finding some brass (he didn’t). I was amazed to look at a new stab-jacket the other day to be told it had a pocket specially for a spare mask. About the only thing I haven’t seen a diver take spares of is a weight belt but I am sure it is coming soon.

Perhaps we should all go back to basics. The thought of going diving with one buddy, one tank, one DV and one wet suit sounds fun. On the other I don’t like diving in anything other than a dry suit. Perhaps an octopus would be a good idea as well. And a computer, air integrated of course, saves all those boring decompression and air requirements calculations. Oh well, perhaps I should give up diving. Must end now, the garden needs doing. Besides I hear Deep Dive have nearly run out of the combined emergency surface air supply and mask de-misting tool that every modern diver must have and at less than five quid I can’t afford to not get one.

Adrian