The Divers Dictionary
By David Broadhead and Steve Metcalfe
| Term | Description |
| A-Clamp | A device that stops you driving a car away |
| Air Shares | The investments you will be able to buy when the government privatises the atmosphere |
| Backward Roll | Sandwich with the filling on the outside and the bread in the middle |
| Barotrauma | The injury caused when the boat trailer runs over your foot. |
| Beaufort Scale | An arbitrary scale of smelliness used to decide whether or not to wash your dry suit after you have sniffed it. |
| Boat Cover | Tarpaulin for the RIB |
| Bottom Timer | A device for measuring how bad the habdabs have got on your Egyptian diving holiday. |
| Buddy Checks | How your diving partner pays you for the petrol |
| Buddy Line | "If you knew Peggy Sue then you'd know why I feel blue" |
| Buoyant Lift | An elevator that feels really upbeat about life |
| Club Diver | What you do to your buddy if he finds the porthole first |
| Constant Volume Law | `If your neighbours are under 21, their Hi fi will always be played at maximum sound level' |
| Crinoids | The glands responsible for producing the mucus which adheres to your face when you take your mask off. |
| Crustacean | A very old diver who wears very old gear and takes twice as long as everyone else to get ready. Drives a Volvo. |
| Decompression | De ting dat give you de hurtin' ears |
| DIN Fitting | The noise inflicted while a tailored kitchen is being installed |
| Distress Flare | A knack for being upset |
| Dive Supervisor | The bouncer at a sleazy disco |
| Dry suit | the one that feels wet because it normally leaks and you sweat a lot. |
| Dump Valve | Loo cistern ballcock |
| Embolism | The adjective used to describe the ethos and characteristics of Embols |
| Foot Fins | Very, very short people from Eastern Scandinavia |
| Free Ascent | Slogan of the movement to liberate a perfume |
| Giant Stride Entry | A method of entering the water which involves placing one foot on the jetty and one on the boat just as it lurches away. |
| Gorgonian | A mythical sea monster with a talent for misappropriating divers knives and smearing tar over brand new dry suits. |
| Groundswell | Minced toff |
| Grouper | A small zip provided at crutch level on some dry suits. |
| High Pressure Port | Fortified wine being sold by someone on a large commission |
| Hydroid | A boring know it all. Hydroids frame their diving certificates, use only Latin fish names in their log books and talk the hind legs off an Octopus at 30 metres. |
| Hyperventilation | Leaving the window wide open on a windy day |
| Kelp | The lumpy green mucus produced by the Crinoid glands. |
| Lifting Bag | A shop thief's haul |
| Macro Photography | Taking snaps of the local trade discount store |
| Mask Clearance | Diver's eye protection equipment sale |
| Mini Cylinder | One of the four combustion chambers of a small car's engine |
| Narco-sis | Irritable female sibling |
| Neck Entry | Dracula's preferred dining method |
| Neutral Buoyancy | Buoyancy that refuses to take sides in a war |
| Nudibranch | The embarrassment of dropping your towel whilst changing on the beach (see Valsalva manoeuvre). |
| Pony Bottle | Bravery in a small horse |
| Pool Training | Learning how to screw back into ball off the five spot |
| Pot Dive | Tatty establishment where people smoke marijuana |
| Reciprocal Bearing | A device for helping reciprocals rotate on a shaft |
| Regulator | The part of your brain that makes you want to pee the moment you put your drysuit on. |
| Requiem Shark | Any shark sufficiently un-scary to cause you to hum the theme from "Jaws" through your mouthpiece and think you are amusing. |
| Sea Squirt | An annoying child who likes to turn on cylinder valves when you are not watching. They have a very short life span. |
| Self Donning | Characteristic of senior university academics who get there without being nominated. |
| Semidry suit | the one that feels fairly dry because you expect it to feel a lot wetter than it ever gets. |
| Short Fill | Nickname for a vertically challenged person called Phillip |
| Shot Line | Useless BT connection |
| Silicone Seals | Marine mammals with surgical implants |
| Squid | Derogatory term for a person who never helps launch or recover the boat and only brings one sausage to the barbecue, but eats six. |
| Stride Entry | An Australian getting into trousers |
| Suit Squeeze | The effect you feel when dressing for work after the Christmas blow outs |
| Surface Marker Buoy | Young male graffiti artist |
| Tubemouth | Mildly offensive term for a snorkeller. |
| Valsalva Manoeuvre | Time honoured method of changing clothes at the beach. This involves hopping on one leg whilst trying to pull a swimming costume off the other leg with one hand, while the remaining hand tries to prevent the towel that is wrapped around you from falling off (see Nudibranch). |
| Wet suit | The one that feels bone dry because nobody in their right mind would use one any more. |
This page was last updated on : 09 Sep 2018