Diving Stories


In my book “Demon’s Treasure” there are references to “BCDs” and “octopuses.” (Yeah, and that’s the correct word, there.) A BCD is a diving jacket. Push a button and it fills with air, letting you float on the surface (or hover just above the ocean floor). Push another button, the air bubbles out, and you sink. Diving made easy.

I took my diving lessons in a swimming pool with a bunch of prank-playing jokesters. One in particular, a kid named Nick. I’d be kneeling on the bottom of the deep end of the pool, and Nick would sneak up behind me and push the inflate button. My vest would swell up like a balloon and I’d go shooting for the roof like a missle from a submarine.

Great fun.

(One night I was down in the deep again, and I’d made certain Nick wasn’t anywhere around. But while I was working, he swam up behind me and hit the button.


My vest swelled up to the point of bursting and I went flying out of the pool. I went up so fast I actually shot out of the water. As luck would have it, an old lady happened to be walking by when I went exploding from the water. She screamed, slipped, and fell on the wet cement. And guess who got yelled at. Yeah. Me.

I kept looking for ways to get even, but Nick wasn’t just crafty, he was wary. He always had an eye out for me.

One night though, I was hovering near the surface, watching him. He was on the bottom of the deep end practicing with the “octopus.” An octopus is actually a spare breathing regulator . . . the thing you breathe through when you’re underwater. Some divers have a spare for times a partner might run out of air. Nick was practicing a skill where he’d spit out his regulator, then reach behind him, feel for the air line, and place the regulator back in his mouth. This is important if you ever lose your regulator underwater.


I was watching Nick practice when a huge blop of hair came floating by. It was disgusting . . . but it gave me an idea. I grabbed the hairball, swam down behind Nick, and stuffed the hairball into his spare regulator. Then I swam around to face him and–through scuba sign language–told him I just wanted to watch him work. He nodded, spit out his regulator, reached behind him, stuff the regulator back in his mouth, and took a couple of breaths.

Wrong regulator.

I motioned for him to do it again, and he did.

Wrong regulator.

I gestured for him to do it again and . . . he couldn’t find the regulator. He reached farther back, twisting around, trying to find the air hose. After several seconds his eyes started to bulge and his face started turning blue. He was getting desperate. He flailed wildly around then finally grabbed a regulator, stuffed it into his mouth, and took a huge gulp of air–

Except he got nothing but hairball.

His eyes got as big as saucers and he just about exploded.

But he never did prank me again.

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s