Scuba Diving Acronyms

[Amberjoy]

Thanks for this. I enjoyed reading the comments too! What does sticky mean?

 

[knotical]

... What does sticky mean?

That it was stuck to the top of a forum. This sticky thread stays visible at the top of the threads in the Basic Scuba Discussions forum.
Kind of like those yellow stickies used to post notes ubiquitously.

 

[PrairieChicken]

SFA (sweet F*** all) -- ie. we spent 40 minutes looking for mantas and saw SFA

my dive buddy and i have also developed some hand signals to help communicate with each other. we both really like cool coral formations so we we decided to make a "C" with our hand and move the hand up and down twice for 2 C's. the first time we tried it out she inadvertently made the motion near her face and i flooded my mask i was laughing so hard.

 

[dakaraiconchobhar]

Thanks for sharing, I have to learn more . .

 

[fiziks]

I'm a bit new to Scubaboard, but not to scuba. I've noticed that there are a lot of acronyms, many of them common in the world of scuba, but a few that seem to be specific to Scubaboard (or scuba-related forums), and I've seen a few people ask what specific acronyms mean. So, I thought I'd start a list, so that new members (and maybe even some not so new members) have a place to go to find out what some of those acronyms are. I've left out some acronyms I think are obvious (like OW), but if you find a scuba-specific acronym (LOL, IMHO, etc. need not apply) in a post and don't know what it is, or you don't think it would be obvious, post it. I'll add it to the list if I can.

AAS - Alternate Air Source
AGE - Arterial Gas Embolism
BM - Backmount (as in wearing tank on the back, as oppoed to sidemount)
BP - Back Plate
BP/W - Back Plate and Wings
CA - Certified Assistant
CESA - Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent
DM - Divemaster
DCS - Decompression Sickness
DCI - Decompression Illness
DIR - Doing It Right
LDS - Local Dive Shop
LOA - Low On Air
MSD - Master Scuba Diver
OOA - Out Of Air
OOG - Out Of Gas
SCUBA - Scantily Clad Underwater Bods Aplenty
SOP - Standard Operating Procedure
SM - Sidemount (as opposed to backmount)
SMB - Surface Marker Bouy
SS - Stainless Steel

If there is a better place for this, perhaps a moderator could move it (and let me know where it went ).

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

Such abbreviations may save time when typing or handwriting, but often it is clearer and nearly as quick to say the words. When I started diving we managed with next to no acronyms. For example, back then a diver's inflatable lifejacket was a diver's lifejacket (or merely a lifejacket if it was clear which sort is meant), and not yet another set of initials to learn.

 

[993guy]

Here’s an updated acronym list:
Scuba Acronyms - Blogs - ScubaBoard - Scuba Diving Forum - Diving Social Network

It’s a blend of several lists, including those mentioned previously.
Suggestions welcomed.

In normal threads you can "subscribe" if you know you want to refer back to it later, how do you accomplish the same thing for a blog entry?

 

[BlackSharkWhite]

Great Link!

---------- Post added February 28th, 2015 at 04:21 PM ----------

Nice!

 

[cnherrick]

MDL is missing from the lists

 

[red sea wrecker]

I enjoyed the post greatly. great info as well
thnx