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Did You Say Flippers?There are a few things that will make experienced divers spot you as a newbie diver straight away. What are they fins or flippers?The terms dive fins and dive flippers have started to become synonymous. Personally I blame all the online dive stores who use both terms to get lower pay per click rates.My first dive instructor used to say that fins are what you use to dive with and flippers are what you find on dolphins. I once tried to point out that fins are what you find on fish so there really isn’t any difference. That didn’t go over too well and I’ll never tell anyone about the horrors that followed. So what’s the real reason that you can’t call dive fins flippers?Well, because I said so, no of course not, there’s really no good reason for it.The dive industry is pretty close knit and tends to have its own jargon. For instance, I can say, “I dove some hole last week with a 32% mix and the vis was zip.” If you’re not a diver or you’re a new one then chances are you have no idea that I just said, “I dove the cavern system of a sinkhole last week using an enriched air mixture that contained 32% oxygen instead of the normal 21% mixture and the water was so murky that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.” It seems like all industries and hobbies have these little quirks. All have these little words that insiders use to talk to one another. Learning them makes us feel like one of the “in” crowd. I have to admit, I’m guilty of indoctrinating my dive students of this elite verbiage. I used to charge one drink every time I heard someone call their air tank an oxygen tank and every time they called their dive fins, flippers. I never really collected, well maybe once.... It was just a fun little game but after they got out of class they were faithfully asking for a tank of air and looking for dive fins and snickering at anyone who wanted a tank of oxygen and some new flippers. Dive SlangThat isn’t to say that all dive verbiage is just pretense.For example, there’s a good reason not to call your air tank an oxygen tank. Some divers actually do use pure oxygen to decompress. The problem is, pure oxygen becomes toxic pretty darn quick, once you start increasing the pressure you’re under. That’s one of the reasons that we dive with normal air which has 21% oxygen. My advice is to just accept it. Learning dive slang can be one of the fun parts of your new hobby. It’ll make talking with other divers more fun and you can get your own little kick when “outsiders” don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. So don't forget they are fins not flippers! And in case you were wondering, BC stands for buoyancy compensator! Return to Underwater Diving Equipment Home Page.
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