sharing air

it's a well known fact that I learnt to SCUBA (self contained underwater breathing apparatus) dive with the SAS at Chelsea Barracks

it's one of the more interesting things about me

or it was

I mean, I'm talking about
well over 20 years ago now. . .

. . .I digress

when taking a course in scuba diving, the first thing one learns about is the "buddy system" - you never dive alone, you see, you always go down with a buddy - you learn simple hand signals to communicate with your buddy and, very importantly, because all manner of mishaps can happen - to even the most experienced diver - you learn how to share air (one tank, one mouthpiece, two people breathing); I also learnt how to dive in zero visibility (that was with a blacked out mask in some filthy water in London's Docklands - one of my more memorable dives, but not for the right reasons); the course involved closed water dives (in quarry pits) and open water dives (on the south east coast) (I've only once been diving in warm tropical waters - off the barrier reef of The Maldives, with sharks) but we covered most of the requirements for the PADI qualification in the pool at the barracks. . .

I have no idea why I thought of that this evening - but I did