Anonymous contributions to the website are not normally published.  However the following is too good not to share...

Divers...

SCUBA, sub-aqua or diving, call it what you will, is neither a sport or a hobby. It is a religion so fanatical and demanding that those who partake of its mysteries have little time for lesser beings who merely stare longingly from jetty or beach. There is no halfway status in between. You either do or do not.

There are of course many who try to feel their way from earth to water, but known results are more alarming than encouraging. The most popular idea, bandied about by those whose financial interests depend on such a myth is that you should first try your hand at a dive school. Cursed by dive site operators and watched with apprehension by real divers, the students plod hopefully on their daily search for interesting dives as some of the “crystal clear waters” and “abundant aquatic life” turn out to be yet another brochure myth.

Their training is occasionally enhanced by bouts of danger and true excitement. Loss of the Instructor as he struggles with eight students, the unexpected discovery of the 37m pit at Stoney Cove or finding that the last user of the DV failed to remove a small fish which had strayed into the innards. They get the idea, possibly rightly, that those who dive and teach purely for pleasure are keen to see them leave.

More ambitious perhaps are those who try a roundabout route to achieve the same end. You can of course learn from a friend who is already an instructor and has some spare diving gear. This can be entertaining. It can also be disastrous to both friend and friendship. Even divorce is not unknown at the end of such a venture.

No, the only true way to enter to enter this strange world is to do it completely. If you cannot do this, it is better to confine your diving ambitions to an annual visit to the London Dive Show where you can watch the holiday videos with neither financial risk nor bodily discomfort.

Once having made the right decision you will never look back. Amateur divers come in all shapes and classes. Be he the man who dives twice a morning to 48 metres as a “warm up dive” or the man who dives one fortnight a year while on holiday in the Algarve, a diver is someone to be reckoned with.

There is one more problem to solve before the Novice can really get started. Whereas to the shorebound world all divers are the same, he (or she) will soon find that the divisions and cults are as rigid and unbending as any of those he has given up in his previous existence. Ask any current diver and he will swear on a stack of BSAC manuals that his kit is the best.

Cast an ear around any Sunday at the Bluey and you will hear hoots of derision about the ABLJ from those strutting their funky stuff in the latest wings. At the opposite end of the car park, an earnest group is casting similar aspersions on the latest buoyancy control techniques as they relax comfortably in their old “horse collars”.

Similar comments apply to the rest of the new recruit’s equipment. Splash out on a shot weight belt, half a dozen old timers will criticise you for wasting money. Buy the old fashioned sort and a similar number of pre-Coustoe types will ask why you purchased such an uncomfortable lump of lead. Whether wet suit, semi-dry, membrane or neoprene, there’s no pleasing everyone.

There are only two solutions; If you have the bank account of the O’Nassis family, keep changing gear to keep one step ahead of the criticism. This has the additional benefit of making you popular with the NEW new Ocean Divers as your “nearly new” second hand equipment finds a willing home with those following you up the ladder. The alternative if your pockets run more to lemonade than to champagne is to find equipment YOU are happy with and then defend it, and your faith, against all comers.

At first, it is hard work. The critics try to grind you down with a constant stream of mild comments (a verbal equivalent of the Chinese water torture) but stand your ground. Eventually, you will become a respected member of the Club, one who is held up as a shining example to this year’s crop of new recruits.

Now you can relax as YOU become the cult figure mentioned earlier. Now you can chortle in private after telling the newly fledged Ocean Diver that “no diver is complete without at least three independent gas supplies”.