Coke: The Real Thing
Copyright (c) 1982-2006
Many times over the years I've been asked about our practice of drinking or eating while on the bottom. To drink, say, a Coke on the bottom isn't nearly so bizarre as it might seem at first glance. Still, it is something which might subject an inexperienced or apprehensive diver to some unnecessary risk. This is not something I recommend for the beginner diver, simply because the world is full of kooks, and I don't want to be responsible for a perfectly avoidable fatality. Also, this should never be tried while diving with a mask and SCUBA regulator! ---Not unless the diver is 101% comfortable with the activity. To drink something while on the bottom of the ocean should be reserved for people who have a bonafida reason to do it, and the equipment to do it safely. It should not be undertaken on a dare, or as a means of proving one's prowess as a diver.I've consumed beverages or eaten whole meals while on the bottom many times. I've encountered no difficulty. Yet I'll caution the beginner diver again, simply because, as the bumper sticker suggests, "Stuff Happens".In some diving industries it is necessary to log very long bottom times. To surface in deep sea dress is often more trouble than it's worth. I've logged many twelve hours shifts on the bottom. A lot of little discomforts over that period of time can add up to one huge pain. Anything we could do to lessen the strains of those long shifts went miles toward making us safer and more alert. That is how we justified the following activity.Noncarbonated drinks work best partly because the carbonation trapped in the liquid tends to make the container float at shallow depths. When we descended in the mornings, we often took a regular waxed restaurant cup full of a favorite drink with us, to sip at when we had time during the day. To keep it where we could find it, we lodged it between a couple of small rocks, or found some crevice into which we could jam the cup, if we were working on a wreck or some such.How-To:The container should be filled as completely as possible, even to the point of overflowing. There should be no air left at all in the container. Snap a disposable lid snugly onto the top and insert a straw. Double over the top half inch of the straw and secure it with a paper clip or rubber band; this will keep the salt water from running down the straw and mixing with your drink. There will be a little gap where the straw goes through the lid, but it won't allow enough of an exchange to be of much concern. Just don't go squeezing and squishing the cup unnecessarily. Sometimes we used to stick a bit of chewed gum around the straw hole, with mixed results. You can get creative if you really can't stand a little salt in your pop. Again, when you descend, make sure you don't inadvertently squeeze the cup. If you do, liquid will be forced out, and when you let go, the container will try to form a lower pressure, which will slowly draw salty brine back into the cup.Stash your drink in a likely spot. When it's lunch time, or when your throat gets too dry, retrieve your drink.Turn up either your helmet free-flow or the defogger vent, so that there is a healthy, continuous exhaust, but not so much that you're forcing air through your neck seal, into your suit (depends on the helmet style you're using). You don't want to find yourself blowing up with an open faceplate.We are assuming you're in lead boots, or at least have a heavy lead harness (say, 90 lbs.) to keep you in position.Bend your head and torso forward to such an extent that the face plate of your helmet lies in a horizontal plane. Make sure you are on firm footing, or better, wedge yourself against a rock or some other structure. If you were to fall down with your face plate completely opened, you would have to hold your breath for a minute until you got it closed and purged.With your face plate opening on a horizontal plane, unscrew the wing nut (or trip the release latch), and let the plate swing outward and downward (many modern hats are no longer so equipped, and you'll be simply out of luck).On good quality, traditional hats, the face plate will hang freely on its hinge. You will see the rippling water, right there a few inches in front of your nose. If your helmet is of such a design that you can move your head towards the back (now the high side) of it, you'll be able to focus your eyes on the water. It will be unpleasant at this stage to fall down and get your hair wet when your helmet floods, so be sure you're in a stable position.Remove the paper clip from your straw; put the straw up through the opening where your face plate was, and drink away! As you consume the liquid, you'll want to be careful to squeeze the container to displace the volume that you are removing. If you do not, salt water will find a way into the cup, and by the time your drink is a quarter gone, the salt will have ruined the taste. If, as you squeeze the container, you make a point to crinkle and crease the stiff, waxed cup, it will have a tendency to retain its deformed shape, and once let go of, will not draw much salt water back into the cup. Cold water helps the waxed cup to retain its crumpled shape.When done drinking, resecure the straw, close your face plate, turn the defoggers or freeflows back down, stash the cup, and go on about your business. Over the course of several drinks, more and more salt water will begin to displace the beverage, until it will be salty enough that you no longer want to fool with it. Usually you can drink most of the beverage before this happens. As a note of caution, consumption of large amounts of carbonated liquids may place considerable (compressed) CO2 into your digestive tract. If you were to ascend then, that gas will expand, and may well cause a case of the "intestinal bloats". That may range from simple, copious burping, to actual physical damage from excessive pressure in the digestive tract. We used to "shake our Cokes flat" before going down just to be on the safe side. Then we had no expanding gas problems.I've sometimes been asked why we didn't fashion or devise some sort of rubber bladder to hold our drinks, which would not allow any exchange of salt water. We might have, had there been a need; but the restaurant cup worked just fine. And besides, this was the "old days", and rubber bladders would have been far too "high tech".
Lunches and snacks can also be easily consumed in this manner, provided, as always, the diver exercises a goodly portion of common sense.