When a new mask comes along, you just know. You know it’s the one. But only after it’s passed a scuba-style Rosie Project of specifications of course! A girl has standards 
Check out my new video on choosing the perfect mask. From finding the perfect fit to determining quality, I hope it helps you out this Summer! Click here!
Don’t be fooled by the low rating of ocean and diving content in this novel, I mean, just look at the cover! And she’s in a cocktail for goodness sake. I’m sold.
Helen Fielding’s quick-witted yet over excitable protagonist is reminiscent of perhaps the author’s most famous character, Bridget Jones. But I personally like Olivia Joules better. Coz she dives. But also, she just has more…. attitude?
First of all, she does things like this, ‘Sixty feet below the surface, it was like being in a dream or on another planet. Olivia, dressed in a red swimsuit and diving gear, was on the edge of a precipice, a sheer cliff falling away a thousand feet into the abyss.’ And then describes backpackers like this, ‘The standard dress was faded, threadbare clothes which might have fitted when they left Stockholm or Helsinki but which, after six months of diving, rice and peas and dysentry, were now two sizes too big.’
Oh, and then there’s this -
Yes! There are a few well placed illustrations throughout the book, that bring frivolity to her seemingly ridiculous situations. Not since childhood have I been this excited about book illustrations.
So the plot is pretty much her racing around the world following a journalistic lead but thinking she is caught up in a terrorist conspiracy… Good Summer holiday read including ‘The white heat of Miami, the implants of LA, the glittering waters of the Caribbean’ and ‘the deserts of Arabia.’ (taken from the blurb). Definite chick lit, meaning guys may not relate to her as much, although she does talk about shagging a lot.
Click here to buy!
One of the most common questions people ask me as a diver is, ‘Aren’t you scared of sharks?’ My answer? Yes and No.
This is especially true these days, as overfishing increases the sharks search for food in shallower waters. With our coastal culture, Australia is obviously going to have an increase in attacks, but I believe there are ways to lower the rate.
For divers, the comfort is in that a sharks eyes are towards the top of their head, and a diver swims below. (This possibly accounts for more surfer fatalities.) But in this scenario, the fear is not in the shark itself, but the predator between you and the surface, topped with a pulsing heart and a quickly depleting tank. But then I thought, is there an increase in attacks for other reasons that we have just failed to see amidst the horror? And for this reason I say,
“Bring back the fluro!!”
Black is the new… well… black! Everything is black (with the exception of increasingly sexist pink fins and regs for women) and the thing about black is, it is very seal-like. So, why do we insist on imitating one of the sharks favourite meals? Yes black is slimming, sexy, guaranteed to all co-ordinate, doesn’t fade etc. So how come I find such appeal in the old 80′s clips of divers in bright pink and green (and yellow and blue) ensembles! Even earlier in fact, is vintage retro diving at its best…
… How is that not the BEST thing you have ever seen in your life??
So embrace the fluro! You may leave the 80′s nappy style crotch tab horror though, nobody wants to see those EVER again. But bright colours, fandangled suits and clashing palletes is what I want. For the simple reason that in the marine world some fluro colouring means ‘poison’ and I’ve never seen a hot pink seal. So go get your fluro on.
(Photo credit – Asian Diver Issue 1/2009.)
I can’t hear. Well… not very well. Sounds distort and surround me, hit me from all sides. It’s all wrong.
I turn full circle to find out where, but I can’t see properly, no peripherals. Nothing. Though the landscape is lush with plants; colour is dulled. Red disappears.
Then there’s the animals, communicating no doubt, by each emitting their own musk. It is wasted on me. Scent is mute. No fragrance, odour, stench. Nada.
And no taste. Mouth only concerned with one thing. Breathing. Guess that’s kind of important.
Only one sense left… Will it stay? As evidence that my body is still mine? That something that makes me human still resides? But no, even touch is different in this place. The pressure, the temperature, the gloves. I cannot feel.
My body is not mine here, there is no gravity, no senses, of distance, of which way is up, of my usual vices. Of humanity.
But it is beautiful here, and there is so much more to gain. I give up my body willingly.
Bubbles, travel ever upwards, the only evidence that underwater, I might still be human.
(Pic – Diver bubble trail, Solomon Islands)
When I’m reading a book about diving, I judge it in three main ways. Am I losing sleep over its un-putdownable-ness? Am I transported into a romanticised version of diving, with exotic location/treasure/action (corny and stereotypical, I know)? And, Do I learn new things about the ocean and diving that will inspire me?
‘The Dive – A Story of Love & Obsession’ by Pipin Ferreras, despite that it fulfils only two of my important personal factors, is still a book that I rave about. I recommend it to non-divers, such is the interesting content about human limits and behaviour.
Short synopsis – Pipin Ferreras and his wife Audrey Mestre, were freedivings’ power couple. They became obsessed with the competition, and pushing the limits of their own bodies, until Audrey’s attempt to break 166 metres on one breath ended tragically. Following the controversy and claims of sabotage, Pipin recounts his own story, and the love between him and Audrey and the ocean. The one-minded obsession of the human psyche in a foreign element is described here in breathless prose. Oh, and it’s a true story. Click here to buy!
Extended review – I feel the euphoric reason why people freedive and test their limits is described excellently. I am not supposed to breath underwater (wow it’s a revelation!!). I do know this, I just defy it! But freediving is a much more extreme version of the sport. Not only that, the book describes the actual physical changes the human body must endure when diving to extreme depths on one breath. Terrifying! All rushing blood and shrinking lungs. It seriously does not build a case for an enjoyable afternoon in the ocean. BUT IT DOES! The novel, builds and builds, by describing Pipin’s autobiographical need to live, breathe and work the ocean. It is obsession in its purest form. So is reading it. I am also now a strong contender for a new sport; the ‘Read extreme book on single breath’ championships. Seriously, I had to remind myself to breathe normally. Pipin’s story describes how the ocean draws one in. It is inviting, terrifying and to beat it, to defy nature and survive under water at those depths is a victory against the element herself.
On a more personal level, Audrey herself, seemed like the kind of person you could meet in a dive shop and be instant friends with. Her at-one-ness with marine animals, her excitement and sense of adventure, her powerful obsession. Perhaps it is because Pipin has chosen to previously include in the book many archived photos of Audrey, (Diving with stingrays; Dancing underwater; Watching the sunset; Doing yoga) that her realness is so beautiful. She is not just a character in a book.
Autobiographical books about diving do stress the psychological fixation and passion of the ocean and the sport. And they recount accidents with descriptive reality, rather than having Flipper shoot in and save the day. This fascination of reading one is not a melancholic experience. It is not the macabre need for detail. It’s appeal is in the science of the sport, and the liberation from an ocean that can just as quickly assert her authority.
‘Ahh, I just love the smell of wetsuit in the morning!’
It was one minute past eight, and staff were still in the process of switching the diveshop sign around to ‘open’ as we strolled in the door. We were the first customers of the day.
Random though that comment seemed, it did hold a grain of truth. Wetsuits do have a particular scent. And in a world where our five human senses get culled once underwater, smell being one of the main ones, you come to recognise fragrances on land with that bit more respect.
Sea water does have a particular smell, as does stagnant water, (though ‘stench’ may be a more apt synonym there) because different plants and fish probably do have their own aroma, just as flowers and land animals do. Why should underwater be any different? Apart from that our noses aren’t designed to inhale when surrounded by any other substance except air (I know. I’ve tried. My sinuses were clear for days… ).
And I’m sure you have all noticed the flood of aromas that hits us after a dive? Shampoo lingering in a removed hood. Boat engine fumes. Fish and chips from the café next to the wharf (yes please). And wetsuit wash. They are always there. But post-dive they seem that bit stronger. And it has to be because that olfactory function is halted for the duration of the dive.
In a world where humans are categorized by those five particulars, then underwater we must become something else. But it doesn’t matter, or bother us. Because by losing those things we gain others. Lack of gravity for instance, but that’s another story.
Interested? Read Got No Sense!
I thought I would share this excerpt from the novel ‘Three Views Of Crystal Water’ by Katherine Govier.
‘Every time, it is as if I have never done this thing before; never left the safe air and gone feet first in to this cold, wallowing, two-faced, foreign element. I call it alien, although in the sweet sate it is what nourishes me and even fills my body: aren’t we ninety per cent water? But I fear this part of me. It is a world unto itself. I also adore it. Water is seductive, silky to the skin, welcome in its chill when the sun is burning. Endlessly lovely: sometimes a scroll, its lines of foam columns of script telling an ancient tale; sometimes a healer. It soothes, offering weightlessness and dream in exchange for consciousness. But try to enter it! Its surface is a pane of glass I shatter at my peril. It stings. Its weight exaggerates my insult. It bulges and caves into great troughs. It tosses me like an angry parent. It sucks me down.’
It’s about the Japanese women pearl divers in the 1920’s. The illustrious way it is written, and her descriptions of water especially, struck something in me that I’m sure you diveaddicts have also felt.
Note : oceanlingo.com will be reviewing more dive fiction in more depth (excuse the pun) soon!
Picture the people in your life. Father, Mother, sibling, lover.
Then there’s the dive buddy.
I think that non-divers (muggles) sometimes just don’t realise how much a dive buddy is trusted with your life. Essentially, it is someone that you defy humanity with! Through sign language and body language during training, it is someone you have got to know purely in an underwater sense. You know what frightens them, and vise versa. You know how fast they breathe air underwater, and their favourite marine creature. Underwater, you wouldn’t want anybody else.
Solo trips. Some might say interesting. And although you may get paired up with a kindred spirit, you usually get paired up with one of three buddies.
1. The rookie/cowboy.
2. The mamas boy.
Or 3. The knowall.
The rookie/cowboy swims here, swims there, doesn’t wait for you and doesn’t look at you once. I could be stuck in a giant clam for God’s sake! But instead, he’s racing after a stingray. He also has the post-dive potential to be wearing white bonds trunks under his wetsuit.
Wet white bonds trunks = not forgiving (even though he thinks it’s impressive).
The mama’s boy chows down his air at the sign of a yawning fish and clutches your ankle the entire time. You wanna go up? But we just got down!
And the knowall just doesn’t care. He just goes through the motions with you. Like a bad date. Like ‘mehh.’ You point at something; he nods. You sign you’re cold; he nods. You sign shark; he nods (He says swap buddies; I nod).
So in an industry where body language is essential. I find comfort in the fact that my dive buddy just ‘gets’ me. That we can dive together only once or twice a year and just jump straight back into that easy diving, with no awkward - handshake/who’s gonna lead/you, no you/I’m scared of fish – conversation. Because he already knows my ‘I’m cold’ face, and the buckle that I sometimes can’t quite reach gearing up! I know that he hates dive reels with a passion (it’s a looong and tangled story), what the code word ‘pizza’ means, and how important his mares hat is to him.
We only know our underwater selves.
(Pic – Buddies watch the sunset at Byron Bay, Aus)
