Today I’m looking at 10 things that in themselves are pretty insignificant but for some reason really bug some scuba divers – like, for example, saying flippers or goggles. I’ll meet you down in the comments section about those two things.
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Right Snorkel
This one is stupid and I don’t know if it’s only me it annoys or whether it annoys other scuba divers but it’s whenever I’m watching a movie, a TV show or even an advert and someone goes to the beach, puts on a mask and the snorkel is on the right-hand side.
Now it might just be the instructor in me wanting to correct something but it really bugs me when people wear their snorkel on the right. For some models it doesn’t matter; they’re ambidextrous and you can wear them on the left or right.
But a lot of snorkels, especially the fancier ones with the valves, are specifically designed to go on the left side of your head so that the valve at the bottom is facing in the correct direction.
We wear them on the left as scuba divers because our regulators come in from the right, so if you have the snorkel there as well it gets very crowded.
An easy way to tell is that if there’s a logo just below the mouthpiece, it will be on the front. The brand isn’t going to point its logo towards your chin. I apologise if you’re now going to start noticing this on every film from now on
Oxygen Tanks
This is another one that annoys a lot of scuba divers. It’s rare that we bring pure oxygen down with us as scuba divers. Pure oxygen under pressure is just too much for our human bodies and it’s actually toxic in very shallow water, and much more toxic the further down we go.
In news reports you’ll often see them talking about how a diver ran out of oxygen which, technically, is true, but chances are they were just diving on air. When they say their oxygen tank ran empty, that really sets off a lot of divers.
That, and ’tank’, is not technically true. While we might call them tanks, they are technically cylinders. Tanks are either filled with fluids or roam around the battlefield blowing things up. Cylinders are filled with gases only.
Air cylinder doesn’t sound quite as sexy and is three syllables to say compared to the single syllable of tank, but beneath any news report that refers to an oxygen tank, I guarantee there’s going to be a comment underneath from a scuba diver.
Blowing Valves
Blowing off cylinder-valves after a dive really bugs me and a lot of other divers. It’s important to keep water out of your regulator, I get that, but, for some reason, it’s become a thing where divers disconnect their regulator after the dive and then just open up that cylinder valve all the way for a few seconds.
In my opinion, this is stupid for two reasons. The primary reason that divers do this is to keep water out of their regulator. Only they’re specifically directing a high amount of airflow from a wet outlet in a wet environment, because you’ve just been on a dive, directly at where you don’t want the water to be.
It’s also loud as heck, so all divers turn to look because it could be anything from a blown O-ring to a dropped cylinder, and people want to help. But, also, you’re blowing people’s eardrums.
You also get this when you’re analysing nitrox. Analysers require only the gentlest of airflow, as if you’re just wafting air over that sensor with your hand. When Steven cracks that cylinder-valve open with the analyser already in position, you’re just gonna blow that sensor.
So open up that cylinder-valve gently first, get that gentle airflow, and then put the sensor to the valve. Don’t put it there first and then try to gently creak that valve, because rental cylinders tend to be on or off.
But I can’t think of a single good reason why anyone would need to open a cylinder-valve all the way on a boat. If you want to dry your regulator, just use a towel.
Different Gear
Scuba diving, like so many other sports or hobbies, has its own equipment. Once you buy your own kit, you’re free to customise it. You can choose your regulators, the length of hoses, which way they route, and some divers will be very passionate about how the way they do it is the right way and any variation is wrong.
A jacket-style BC? Have you lost your mind? The important thing to remember is that if an equipment configuration works for you and your buddy, then it’s good. Can it be improved? Maybe, but you can’t say that it’s wrong unless it risks the safety of you and your buddy.
There are pros and cons to all equipment configurations and different equipment configurations shouldn’t be a hindrance for a good buddy-team. But if somebody is having fun in their dive gear or wants to dive in a jacket BC or something because they find it more comfortable, don’t spoil their day and tell them that they’re wrong. Just let them get on with it.
Split Fins
They work perfectly fine. Put your torches and your pitchforks down. Split fins are a perfectly good choice of fin and they require surprisingly little effort and energy from your legs.
Sure, they can’t do a frog-kick particularly well, or a back-kick neither. But for straight-line swimming I’ve tested out speeds I can reach with a pair of different split fins compared to paddle fins, and the split fins were actually faster and they use less energy from your legs.
Some divers get so passionate about fin designs but it really doesn’t matter. If you don’t want split fins, fine, don’t buy a pair. But in a comments section, they have to say something about split fins that they’ve probably never even used.
I know a guy that has been diving all his life. He was diving the old-fashioned brass dive-helmets in the Navy and he’s been a commercial diver for a very, very long time, and he still uses a pair of split fins. They do get the job done. They are a perfectly reputable style of fin.
Tiny Bubbles
Hands up if you’ve ever freaked out or seen somebody freak out because they’ve seen some tiny bubbles leaking from a cylinder valve.
Now, a steady stream of bubbles can be an indicator of a fault, so it should never go completely ignored. But, in most cases, it’s a rental cylinder that’s a bit beaten up or the O-ring is a little bit ropey and it’s just letting a little bit of gas slip through.
Even with a constant stream of these little bubbles, realistically, it’s only a couple of full lungfuls over the entire dive. Let the diver know that you can see some bubbles leaking and then just let them decide.
Another one is bubbles from high-pressure hoses or water weeping from a high-pressure hose after a dive. If you look closely at your high-pressure hose, you’ll probably notice lots of little pinholes all the way along its length at regular intervals. The holes are there to prevent ballooning if there is a real leak in the hose.
But it’s not unusual for air underneath the rubber outer shell to just seep out at the start of the dive or water that’s soaked in through those little pinholes to then weep out when you’re setting up for dive number two.
If the bubbles don’t stop or they’re coming out with any great force, you have a problem with the high-pressure hose. If it’s just for the first minute or two you get a few bubbles trickling out, that’s perfectly normal. Don’t worry too much about that.
Mixed Signals
I’m oddly sensitive about the hand signals that I and other divers use. Most of the fundamental signals are all the same around the world, but every now and then you’ll come across someone with a completely different hand signal for something that you use all the time and you just have to roll with it.
That’s why a signal-check is part of a good buddy-check before a dive, just to make sure you’re both talking the same language. One of the first things in my commercial diving course was that they don’t use the OK hand signal. It’s all thumbs up if you’re good.
After a decade of telling students that this means up, if you’re now telling me that it’s OK, I mean, I guess I’ll just follow along.
Another thing is that with multiple divers – say there are four of you – and someone asks if everybody’s OK and we all do the OK hand signal, that’s only half the signal. You should be following up with individual acknowledgments. Point to a diver, they do the OK back to you. Point to the next, OK, then point to the next and OK.
If one just stays with the signal up, you don’t know which person is meant to respond next. Have they already responded? Just acknowledge individuals, because it’s really easy to miss a problem.
Writing Underwater
Some divers get oddly passionate about certain things. For me, it’s when someone insists on writing the date in their logbook in a different way then I do. On dry land, it doesn’t really bother me but if we’re under the water and someone writes on their slate using a Z for their sevens or doing ones like little upside-down Vs, I have to get them to rewrite the number.
It’s something that I’ve tried to get over but it’s also a little bit awkward when I’m doing my own notes under water and someone says: “Oh, can I write this down on your slate? I’ve got something to say to you” and they do the same thing.
It makes my eye twitch because it’s my slate and I have my own weird way of writing stuff down under water so that I can quickly just decode it later. It might just be me, but those little numbers and how you write stuff under water just bugs me if it’s done differently.
Octo Breathers
It doesn’t really matter which second stage you use. There is a slight difference between a primary and an octo other than the colour but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if a diver is breathing from their octo.
But some divers make it their mission to tell them that they’re breathing on their octo. It’s bright yellow, trust me, they know that they’re breathing from their octo, because octos are made to just sit on your hip during a dive. They tend to be set up with a slightly higher cracking effort, so you do need to inhale just that little bit harder to breathe from it.
Most divers won’t even notice the difference, especially if their regulator has just failed and they need some air, but octos are made to be breathed from and if someone’s using theirs for whatever reason don’t get too riled up – just let them do their thing
Disappearing Buddies
A good dive buddy knows the perfect distance to be from their buddy, and while being too close can be quite annoying, because you’re gonna get a fin in the face, and too far apart is also annoying, because if I run out of air I want to be able to grab you pretty quick, the most annoying is when the dive-plan describes heading over here and heading in this direction, only to find that your buddy has decided to go that way. That’s just irresponsible.
The irrational thing that bugs me is when my buddy is right in my blind spot – that’s kind of just behind and above. You look from side to side and your buddy’s not there. You’re looking sown and they‘re not there. You look behind you and they’re not there.
It’s only when you completely flip over that you notice that they're actually up there and you can call off the search party. The only reason they‘re up there is because they prefer to be able to keep you in their eye-line. They don‘t really think: what if my buddy wants to know where I am.
Or they keep swapping sides. Just pick a side and stick to it, just for your buddy’s sake, so they know that if they glance over to that side you’re there and everything's good.
So that’s my 10 things that annoy some scuba divers. Let me know down in the comments below if you have any other little tiny things that people do under water that bug you. I’m always keen to see what bugs other divers.
Don’t forget to head over to scuba.com if you’re in the market for some new dive equipment. As always, dive safe.
Also on Divernet: Top 10 Pro Diver Skills & Traits, Will we ever have a global sign language?
