Diving ear worms

We've all experienced ear worms at some point in our lives. You know, the annoying little tunes that get into your head. Maybe you heard a snippet on the radio, maybe a song popped into your head or maybe you've been deliberately sabotaged by the boat crew in some cruel collaboration between the skipper and the deck hand? The source of that annoying little ditty is important.  Chance tunes played on the radio as you are listening out for the inshore forecast on the way to a dive are just unfortunate. But the songs picked by the boat crew are a deliberate attempt to get inside your mind!
 
During a series of marine survey dives on one boat we found out that the skipper's taste in music affected our surface time between surveys by up to 30 minutes.  As the strains of the "Irish Rover" blared out across the deck, we speedily changed to fresh cylinders, repacked our survey kit, drank, snacked and watched our computers to count down our nitrogen levels. Once those dive plan numbers had hit the magic 45 minutes we needed for the next survey, we were in the water to escape the music. Only we couldn't. I spent 45 minutes humming the 'Irish Rover' round and round in a loop in my head! It was a dire situation, made worse by not really remembering the words, as it’s a song I usually only join in with after a few drinks. So the tune rattled round in my head as I struggled to focus on the job in hand.  We got back onto the lift, handing across samples, quadrats and tapes to a grinning deck hand.  Once on deck we promptly questioned the parentage of the skipper, and from the grin on his face he knew exactly what he'd done. 45 minutes of my lyric poor version of The Dubliners hit was the cruelest joke.
 
Just before the next dive ELO's Mr Blue Sky wormed its way into my head.  If you listen carefully to the video recording of the sea bed you can hear me humming along. Hey there Mr Blue! Somehow that was less irritating, maybe because I knew more of the song and didn't get stuck in the same musical phrase for the entire dive.  But I've realised I'm very susceptible to ear worms and now like to avoid anything too memorable before I go for a dive.  I don’t play the radio on the way to the boat just to make sure.
 
A number of years ago a candidate on an Advanced Instructor exam pointed out that, as water enters your mask when you smile underwater, this facial; expression could be used as a way of clearing water too.  "All you have to do is smile" he said "And breathe out at the same time." Marvellous! Great logic. The trick is to stop smiling before you've fully exhaled, but that's just technique.  It was the ear worm that came with the suggestion that I have struggled with ever since.  I alternate between Lily Allen's Smile and Charlie Chaplin's Smile like some Glee club mashup.  I have been haunted by the advice to this day.
 
If the boat crew don't blast something at you, and your fellow divers don't offer advice that plants some repeating tunes, then watch out for any non-divers.  On a liveaboard trip where a few of us sat out the night dive, the strains of the Little Mermaid theme tune were swiftly called up from an iPod, just to ensure that everyone was humming "Under The Sea" before they stepped off. Those of us on the sun deck, beer in hand, waiting for the divers to hurry up so we could have dinner felt it was fully deserved.  The divers returned from their dive in record time. Job done!
 
In this era of easily downloadable music and quick to construct play lists, I have considered that I could do a selection of the worst songs to play on a dive boat.  The theme tune from Jaws would have to be on it, not because there is the slightest chance of seeing a Great White Shark with a grudge around the Isle of Man, but anyone meeting a basking shark underwater would discover that part of their brain which screams ‘Shark!’ and would hear the Da Dum playing in the background.  Now that’s an ear worm worth planting.