I See you…

The best part of diving is the fish.

You see a lot of them.

The more you dive, though, you’ll eventually start seeing some other, bigger fish.

Fish that seem to be breathing an awful lot of bubbles.

You’ll probably also notice that these fish are, in fact, humans.

And suddenly, a competition arises.

To be the most competent, most sophisticated underwater human in the world.

As a result, you’ve decided to stop looking at the fish and start watching the humans.

Underwater people watching!

Everything else becomes irrelevant.

And if you do it for long enough, you’ll start noticing a few personality types.

And yes - you’re definitely one of them.

The Hunters

Looking for one specific thing.

Probably deeper than you.

Probably slower than you.

The Photographers

All stopped moving.

Crouched over something roughly the size of a lentil.

All with a very clear, very big, very excessive camera in front of them.

The Instructor

Perfect buoyancy.

Calm, controlled movements.

Backfinning while facing their students.

Students with perfect trim.

You immediately become slightly annoyed by how competent they all look.

The Tourists

All looking at different things enthusiastically.

Fish? Amazing.

Rock? Incredible.

Other diver? Fascinating.

Probably having the best time out of everyone.

The Meditative

Crossed legs.

Sitting down.

Current carrying them.

Not moving up and down with each breath.

Wholesome.

The Nervous

Checks their buddy.

Buddy checks them back.

They carry on.

Six seconds later, checks again.

Buddy is still there.

This does not appear to have resolved anything.

The DMTs

Probably purging each other's regulators.

Probably inflating each other's BCDs.

One has no fins.

The others are upside down.

Chaos.

The Nonchalant

Nothing seems to impress them.

Turtle?

Fine.

Shark?

Alright.

Manta?

Nice.

Whale shark?

Slight nod.

You've started to suspect they've been diving since the Devonian period.

Subtly, and definitely not out of jealousy, you have adopted at least one of these behaviours.

In your mind, you were already a perfectly competent diver.

Then came John.

John was different.

Perfectly buoyant. Completely controlled. Barely using his hands. Hardly any bubbles.

His fins were probably crossed and he was still moving.

Annoyingly, you wanted to be more like John.

So you watched him.

And then you copied him.

Because that's the thing about underwater people watching.

You don't just end up judging other divers.

Sometimes, you learn from them.

Usually without admitting that you were jealous…