Are You a Diver or a Cert?

There are two types of people in this world...

It makes life easier that way, doesn't it?  Make sure everything is nicely divided up into "us" and "them."  Things are more easily understandable and controllable that way and you know who stands with you in the world and who doesn't.

But things aren't really that black and white.  The whole world is actually grey, and purple, and bright azure and orange and yellow.  I'm a nihilist vegan who works at a zoo and has gun-toting, right-wing friends.  And that's cool, because the real world is prettier and more exciting than the inside of some goddamn bubble.

So don't mistake that I am about to say, "There are two types of divers in this world..." for some t-shirt-worthy, distillation of the reality of the thing.  There are dozens... hundreds of types of divers!  Techies, photographers, course directors, 80s divers, wreck, cave, and reef divers, depth junkies, adrenaline junkies, liveaboard addicts, exotic local travelers, muck divers, scientists, wannabes, quarriors, blowhards, bimblers, gear geeks, shop-rats... the list goes on and on.

What I am going to break down here is a line, across which there is an obvious divide.  The delineation is between those who really want to be good at our sport and those who don't. Those who are willing to put in the time, energy, effort, and (to be sure) the money, and those who just wanted the card for whatever reason.

This is the difference between Divers and Certs.

From an outside perspective it's nearly impossible to determine.  Certs and Divers alike will tell friends, neighbors, and family, "I'm a diver."  The chiefest difference will be that in the case of a Cert it will come as a surprise to most around them.  It will come up as an afterthought in casual conversation about some vacation story or anecdote if it comes up at all.  Typically it will be a lead in or a supporting fact in the actually interesting part of the story.

The people around a Diver... they already know they are a diver.  They know because almost every story about every vacation starts with, "I was on this dive vacation to..." and most stories happened either right before, during, or after a dive.  A dive which features very heavily in the story.  A story the people around them have trouble differentiating from the LAST 20 stories about a dive they have heard.

The people around a Diver have invariably also noticed the dive flag or generally dive-themed hats, t-shirts, bags, and possibly jewelry that feature into their wardrobe.  If they'd ever been to that Diver's house they would also have seen the dive magazines, books, textbooks, and various resort destination mementos that punctuate their personality as a diver all around the place.

Around a Cert's house... frankly, I don't know what you'd find there.  I try not to affiliate with those people and certainly don't want to go in their house.  Some magazines about golf, perhaps?  I really don't know, they could be conducting orgiastic sun-god rituals that culminate in human sacrifice for all I care.  But more likely it's golf.  Or X-box.  I often hear people talk about something called X-box, so whatever that is, it's probably that.

"Why, Roger," you ask, "Why do you go to lengths to avoid these people you call Certs?  And why does it sound like you spit that word?"

The depth of my disdain is likely born of years of dealing with a near-constant parade of them.  I lived in a place with world-class diving, but not known for its diving.  Oahu is an island that people travel to for a medical equipment sales convention, have a tropical adventure close enough to a Cheesecake Factory that they don't panic from lack of cholesterol, or visit their nephew who is stationed there.  Almost no one travels there specifically to dive.  And so every boat I crewed was full of people who were in town for their college roomate's wedding and thought they'd get in a dive while they were there.

These are people who had dived maybe a handful of times after they got certified, but just as often not, having gotten their card and never been in the water since.  They apologize that "it's been a while" without ever realizing that diving is NOTHING WHATHEFUCKSOEVER like riding a bike. They certainly didn't have any of their own gear... rarely ever even owning their own masks or fins, much less flying with them to the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

A Diver wouldn't dream of going on any vacation to anywhere up to and including a ski town in a landlocked state in the middle of winter without, at least, their mask.  This is assuming they're going on a trip, for some unusual set of circumstances, to someplace other than a dive destination.  No a Diver knows exactly what the overage charges for their airline are before they get to the airport, own a luggage scale, and have a small, crushable bag stowed somewhere just in case a slightly still-damp wetsuit on the way home would make their luggage just too heavy and second checked bag cheaper.

What it comes down to is a very different mindset.  While there are a great many kinds of divers, that differentiation comes after the person has started to learn their way around the sport and crossed a line. On one side there is not thinking of diving as much more than a bucket list activity, something you saw in a movie once and thought you'd try out.  Training is seen as more of something to get through as fast and a cheaply as possible without a second thought about how being poorly trained in an activity leaves you shitty at said activity.

The temptation here is strong to point the blame at the industry, the marketing, and the training agencies for catering to Certs, but while there is a valid point there, the truth is that we live in a capitalist society.  The industry is catering to its consumers.  These are consumers who you could probably try to browbeat into caring more about the sport or the environment, but you'd be more likely sending them right out of your classroom to someone else's who would deliver them what they want.  The industry could do better, but they have no impetus to (and that's a whole other conversation.

So while Certs might see diving as something to do on occasional vacation if they can remember to wake up on time and if they're not too hung-over... Divers see the sport as a defining characteristic.  They care.  They train.  They try to be better at it.  They talk to other divers and concentrate, while they're diving, on swimming better, trimming better, and avoiding contact with marine life or the bottom.  They become at peace with the sea and learn how to move effectively and calmly.  Many will go on to formalize their further training to become capable buddies or even capable of effecting a rescue, should the situation require it.  Most will learn how to avoid situations where the threat of it becoming a rescue exists.

No, Certs have no one to blame but themselves when they have no idea what they're doing in the water.  They stand on the coral, killing life all around them, demolishing the reef, and getting buffeted by the full force of the sea around them.  They are narrowly snatched from the jaws of death 1/2 dozen times over the course of a dive, without even knowing, by a DM harried by trying to keep an entire flail of Certs (yes, the group name for Certs is "a flail") from hurting them or themselves.

But at least they could tip.

(Which they usually don't.)