Short people problems/hacks

[Fruitographer]

If I need help, I’ll ask for it. Guys often help schlep my tanks at the quarry or even push the cart full of gear to and from my car at the marina the local charter goes out from. Of course, their slip is waaaay at the end! If Capt or crew on the boat offers, I tip accordingly. With my regular dive buddies, I will buy lunch or dinner after diving fairly often.

Not only am I short, I’ve got two bum knees, sciatica on one side, and a leg recovering from significant weakness after a shingles attack 3 months ago. So I’m often limping or not walking quite well. I’ll take any gear schlepping help that’s offered.

I would have no problem helping you in any way. Especially if some one has a disability or medical condition. One of my dive buddies needed his hips replaced, so we would carry his tank to the water and all his weight. He would then get in the water and we would put his weight in his BC for him, It's about team work.

I just don't like being expected to help someone just because of my gender. Usually I'll be the first to lend a helping hand in any way possible regardless of gender, just don't make it expected. I'm in pretty decent shape and even though my wife is only 4'11" she'll run circles around me and can do more one armed push ups than any man I've met yet. I do appreciate how woman will work as a team without the ego aspect.

When I was speaking of hydros and corrosion, I was giving examples of what would cause a tank to explode. Like some one already pointed out the valve breaking off will cause the tank to shoot off like a missile rather than blow up.

Lobzilla made an excellent point about O2 being different in that a tank falling over can cause an explosion. There was a woman a few years back at an LDS that was filling an O2 bottle that tipped over and exploding which instantly took her life.

 

[Storker]

Diving is its own subculture, with the buddy mentality.

I just love the buddy mentality. The gear's heavy, at times almost unmanageable by oneself. But we're two persons diving together, and we're two persons cooperating. I help you, you help me, and we look out for each others. And when we're topside after the dive, we bitch about what the other person did that was crap, and we share experiences ("did you see...?"). For me, diving solo or with an instabuddy that I have no connection with would seriously diminish my experience

 

[laevimanus]

@Storker I'm looking forward to the "Did you see..." part. It would be a nice change from the usual polite smiles when I babble on about the different kinds of triggerfish, blennies, invertebrates, etc., that I saw.

Right now where I am, in quarries and stuff, we don't have a lot of "Did you see," lol