The Scuba Snobs' Guide to Diving Etiquette: -------

The Scuba Snobs' Guide to Diving Etiquette

Debbie and Dennis Jacobson

AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Phone: 1-800-839-8640

©2011 Debbie and Dennis Jacobson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 5/31/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0347-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0346-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011908248

Printed in the United States of America

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Scuba Snobs is a Registered trademark of Dennis J. Jacobson

Contents

Chapter 1

How We Became Known As The Scuba Snobs

Chapter 2

Qualifications To Be A Scuba Snob

Chapter 3

Rules Of Etiquette On The Day Boat

Chapter 4

Liveaboard Rules Of Etiquette

Chapter 5

Dress Code

Chapter 6

Underwater Etiquette

Chapter 7

Special Rules of Etiquette for Night Diving

Chapter 8

Punctuality- the Ultimate Expression

of Good Manners

Chapter 9

Après Dive Rules

Chapter 10

Dive Talking

Chapter 11

Apology

Chapter 12

Take the Scuba Snobs Quiz

Chapter 1

How We Became Known As The Scuba Snobs

Debbie has been a certified diver since 2002, and has over 150 ocean dives. Dennis was certified in 1998, earned his professional dive master credential in 2000, and has over 500 dives, of which two thirds are ocean dives. We both love diving, and we love meeting divers. We are active divers, averaging at least two dive destination trips per year. Dennis gets another thirty to forty dives per year while training and instructing in local reservoirs. We both make it a point to mark a little pool time before dive trips if we have been out of the water more than ninety days.

Our daughter does not dive (yet) but has heard us talk of dive trips and been with us on some. A few years ago after hearing one of the stories in this book she looked at us and said, You guys are really Scuba Snobs. She was right. We are not only avid divers who love everything about diving, but we have worked hard to acquire and maintain those skills that competent divers exhibit. What makes us Scuba Snobs is not that we have those skills and habits as active divers. What makes us Scuba Snobs is that we expect other divers to have them too. When we find ourselves diving with those who don’t, we have a tendency to talk about them, and not in a good way.

New divers are usually a delight on a dive. They have retained the skills they were taught, they are likely to practice what they were taught, and they seldom overestimate their own skills (though it happens). Active divers, who themselves may qualify as Scuba Snobs are also appropriate on dives (usually). Unfortunately there are a whole lot of divers out there who have either (a) never learned good diving habits, or (b) forgotten them somewhere along the line, or (c) are just plain jerks. As a favor to them, but mostly to the divers who do know how to behave above and below the water, we offer this handy guide.

We hope you will have a good laugh and be amused, but we also hope you (or the person you’ve really bought this book for) will be a better diver and dive companion for having read it. Good manners are always appropriate, regardless of a diver’s skill level.

This book is for recreational divers. It presents our rules of etiquette for recreational diving. It is not about commercial diving or technical diving. Being a commercial diver or technical diver doesn’t qualify you to be a Scuba Snob. You might qualify, but not because of some certificate or license. Scuba Snobs can be those with only a basic open water certification, or they can be divers with professional