DO YOU WANT A GOOD PIPE?

The mood of Francis Le Guen

Because sometimes, do not mess around!

Music credits: Erwan & Eric Le Guen

Not given the gear! I just purchased an essential piece of equipment: 39 € 40! Yes, but be careful, you have to see what they say on the internet: “Increases respiratory performance. Exclusive annular valve system located on the conical part. Large tank fitted with a valve at the bottom. COMFO silicone mouthpiece. Attachment clip on the articulated mask ”. With that…

Because yes, I forgot to tell you, the essential part in question is a tuba! 40 balls for a pipe! I took the most expensive, okay, it's for the example ... But, you must not mess around.

When I started to dive, the tuba was a tube. Which was worth three cents. A beast black pipe, shaped like a white cane, but black, you see? Stiff as justice, with a tip that tore the mouth but we still breathed well, name of a pipe!

I also knew these incredible blue masks with incorporated snorkel, surmounted by a cage or floated a ping pong ball supposed to block the pipe to prevent it from filling up during the casting. As a result, the slightest ripple made the ball go up and we breathed in Morse code! When you did not get out of the water, the diver suffocated, turned blue like his mask ... Souvenirs, for “vintage” divers.

Vintage… Old man's diving, what! It's crazy this need to rename everything. The blind have become "blind", the sweepers, "surface technicians", and the old divers, "vintage" divers. Attention: I live my seniority could not be better: still no injection of collagen and my tuba to me always stands up on its own, thank you for him! But, yes, I am the age that I am… So what? Vintage… Looks like a disease! It must be said that in the wonderful society that we have built, we are 35 years old. As for the job market, fifty is synonymous with bedridden. While there are at the very least 30 years to go… And what do we do with all these “vintage” out of age? Let's move on and back to our snorkels.

They were long, these tubas, narrow: we breathed with a straw and the intense effort that had to be produced gave birth to a chest of bodybuilder without you being careful! And lung pains in the following days to disgust you forever from the "webbed hike".

Then appeared the “big section” tubas. Aaaaah we were breathing at ease. But to empty them, hello! It was after that everything went wrong. Trained in planned obsolescence which is the rule today, technicians and engineers in design offices have started to bring “innovations” to the market. Well yes, if you make excellent and durable gear, how do you want to sell it in the long term? You have to understand, too ...

From then on, the door was open to new materials, soluble in water, to metal contacts with integrated electrolytic destruction, to tear-proof seams which unravel themselves, to various battery-powered gadgets that cannot be replaced elsewhere "than in the factory" and to various watertight containers except in case of immersion ...

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed are kings. But we must also sweep in front of our door: we have forgotten simplicity!

Let's innovate… Silicone, first. Which had the immense advantage of taking on a snuff-box color in a few days. When it wasn't melting in the sun, sticking the rest of the material into a sticky heap.

The anatomical tips, then. So successful that we regularly came out of the water with a mouth of plaice! I would like someone to explain to me how one can be "anatomical" "for" everyone ": small mouths and big mouths, same fight? Tssss… Another huge advantage of the silicone tip: its chewing gum consistency and its robustness. A little cold water, a little stressed customer? Hop, no more tips! Bitten to heart. Sectioned. We replace!

Then appeared the valves, tubes, valves and various spirals. Let go of the mouthpiece for a moment and we find it wrapped around the ear… The clips for attaching to the mask, scalloped to the extreme, 3D delirium, nail traps and stupid traps.

All this for the most questionable respiratory comfort. With so many parts in the pipe, you are sure to keep the full of seawater in the snorkel and suffer the horrifying gurgling on the surface, while shouting trying to empty it. It whistles, it squeaks, it leaks from all ends: it is no longer a tuba but a clarinet!

So obviously, with a bad mind, we start to reconsider the slew of "novelties" that equipment manufacturers are spitting to the frequency of a heavy machine gun every season. Would it be the same for this "revolutionary" regulator? This stab with unparalleled comfort?

Besides, have you ever tried to choose a stab? In the midst of these hundreds of models? When I think that before, we had the choice between Fenzy and Fenzy… Do we really need all these innovations to go, as the philosopher Patrick Timsit said, “to piss off the groupers with a flashlight”?

Can we go even further in perfecting the tuba? Without a doubt. By the way, where do you put your diving snorkel? Before, it was slipped along the dagger, itself attached to the calf. But now, the dagger is no longer in fashion. Some let it hang over the mask, others across the crotch, like a big, soft piercing. Others struggle to force it into the stab pocket, from where it comes out (when you manage to pull it out without removing your shoulder) at a right angle! Gentlemen, manufacturers: the real innovation would be to provide accessible housing on your stabs to slip in your snorkels ...

Finally, it's time to tell the onanists of the technical sheet and the neoprene yuppies that the snorkel is never a pipe to breathe when you're in the water!
Moreover, my next (snorkel) will consist of a section of reinforced garden hose (technical curve obtained by the storage rolled up in store), slipped under the strap of the mask. With a hot-forced tip at one end. Anatomical. The mouthpiece ...

Text: Francis Le Guen