Diver Down

originally posted on 12/24/07

I like Scuba diving. I haven't been in over a decade though. I've thought of going while here in the Philippines, since the diving is world-class and all, but I don't have my certification card here, which presents a problem. I did go snorkeling, and it was cool, and it reminded me of how much fun diving can be. It struck me, why haven't I been diving in so long?

Well, let me introduce you to the second group in my series on douchebaggery - divers. They're awful. I'd forgotten how annoying they are. At the beach I am at right now, divers are the primary clientèle. Divers, like hikers (another group that can annoy me) get up needlessly early in the morning and then finish what they are doing at like 2 p.m. Why? Why go diving at 8 a.m. when you will finish with 4 hours of daylight left? Why not start at noon for sleeping purposes? This is vacation, right? Well, at 2 p.m. when the divers are done for the day, they drink. To the point of drunken embarrassment (and consider the source here) by 4 or 5 p.m. Every single one of them also wears a stupid "Turd River Dive Shop" or some such T-shirt, in case people couldn't tell they were divers, in case the fact that they only talk about diving and can't stand upright by sunset doesn't advertise this point enough.

When I started diving in the early 90s, I thought it might be an interesting way to meet girls. Oh, no. Not even close. Your average female diver makes your average Western female English teacher in Korea look like, I don't know, who's hot today to complete this analogy, um, a Barker's Beauty? The worst part while diving, you become excited to see a manatee, only to discover that it's just a female diver.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all. It's 1:20 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in the Philippines, so I need to buy a bottle of rum before the divers get back to keep my sanity.