J like yellow

Vintage dive at Grand Congloué in the islands of Marseille. Christian Jeanrond in black and yellow, of course!

Definition

Along with black, yellow is undoubtedly the color of diving. Popularized by the Cousteau team, the bottles were and often still are yellow. On the seams of the first neoprene wetsuits, yellow bands were the rule!

Synonymes

Traffic Yellow | Yellowish | Lemon | Verkeersgeel | Verkehrsgelb | Giallo traffico | Amarillo tráfico

Starter

In the south, exploring the deep blue is often associated with yellow. A custom that has spread to other regions and even to the whole world, not without causing some confusion… This color is in fact inseparable from the plunge into the collective unconscious to such an extent that the cult film “Le grand bleu” should have been called the big yellow, for more plausibility.

It all really starts with La Spirotechnics which used to paint its blocks a Pantone 116C yellow (hexadecimal code # f7b500), resulting in RAL Classic (the most famous and widespread European color matching system for paints, coatings and plastics ) the “signal yellow 1023”. We are precise or we are not ...

These famous yellow bottles which are now popular with fans of vintage diving. Those even who practice “souvenir” dives in the high places of exploration during rigorous ceremonies near which the gesticulations of the modern druids of Stonehenge seem very sectarian ...

 

 

The rest of the equipment was also affected by the yellow tide. Even today the octopus emergency regulator is often yellow in color. On the clothing side, the neon revolution of the 90s and in particular the appearance of yellow came (necessarily) from Asians. Of the brand TUSA in particular, particularly colorful and original. Lycras, yellow jersey, yellow neoprene. Fins, masks, yellow snorkels. Yellow buoys and parachutes! Fever, yellow (no, that's something else).

Let's not forget the rigid diving suit Newsuit de Phil nuytten used by the Marine Nationale and up to the first locoplunger diving thrusters from Premeco, Apollo ...

And of course the “yellow submarines”: Most “pocket” and artisanal submarines and even our national Nautilus !

 

Yellow fish!

So, when you start paying attention, yellow is everywhere under the water. Even animal species: tiny tryptérygium from our Mediterranean shores, (falsely) yellow lieus from Brittany (because there are also black saithe), butterfly fish ...

But also invertebrates, saffron tubular sponges, monocoloured crinoids, exotic corals and other anemones, sabelles and axins ...

Fish hidden in a yellow crinoid, in the Philippines.

Tubular sponges in the Bahamas.

We even know a dive site called Dry Yellow consisting of a rock rising to the surface. The submerged part is covered with yellow coral, which gives the name of this famous site located behind the Pointe au Sel on theReunion Island.

Main course

A color to dream of? For sure… Children, simple freediving hunters limited to the capacity of our lungs; little slayers of flatfish with our short crossbows with trident arrows, we only had yellow bands on the seams of the pants and shoulders as braids. And we dreamed of those yellow bottles from the movies Cousteau, the underwater exploration passports, the real one. One day…

Cross the yellow line!

The Pasha: Jacques Yves Cousteau.

Albert Falco with the first Beuchat neoprene wetsuits. © Falco Collection

That day has come. At last. Followed by so many others. And I got a lot and used of those coveted yellow bottles; and the following ones, sanded, stripped, restyled, repainted: blacks, reds, white, green and not ripe, but that's another story…

Dessert

So: why is this color so prevalent in diving equipment?

No doubt historically for its supposed visibility underwater where, as everyone knows, the bright colors are quickly absorbed by the aquatic blue filter. Red is thus lost from 3 m, orange at 5 m, yellow at 10 m, green at 25 m. Everyone has noticed, for example, that at -20 m the blood appears green, the “red” gorgonians a beautiful blue while the yellow (which in fact is green) continues to blaze very low.

It was in the forties that Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the engineerLiquid air Emile Gagnan “Invent” (after Georges Commeinhes) and popularize scuba diving, using yellow painted tanks for the first time. In previous systems (the “Poumondeau” for example) the bottles were blue…

The scuba tank is also older, invented in 1839 by the Canadians James elliot et Alexander McAvity. The first, manufactured by Michelin , were inflated to the ridiculous pressure of 150 bars and often much less, so that these bottles were grouped by three, with the valves at the bottom, to constitute the first exploration diving suits with a “mistral” regulator, in order to have 'sufficient autonomy.

 

 

See you soon for a new definition of Scuba Bécédaire. The irreverent lexicon of diving, but not only. Because sometimes ...

Francis Le Guen

 

 

 

Café

And for our “gnan gnan” sequence, when we type “yellow diving” on YouTube, we only get films on the “yellow dry” of Réunion. Of which act. Here is the one that I propose to you. Its thoroughly! The vomit bags (yellow) are under your seat ...

And of course…