Thoughts on whole dive group surfacing when one of the group reaches 1000psi

[Tunaman68]

That sucks, and is a BIG down side for the larger varied groups encountered on the LD boats. We had the same situation at Molokai on the 2nd dive but we'd already seen the hammerheads and were just floating in the blue after that. I would NOT have wanted to do that crossing in a zodiac or small boat however.

I will mention that on the back wall as well as at Molokai, the dives are live boat drift dives and with all those bodies in the water, I imagine it would be hard to let people surface where and when they want. I can see the scene with several groups of divers popping up at various places on the back wall in current with nothing but open ocean around should they be swept away from the island. Not so bad when there's 8 divers in the water, but juggling 24 - a boat captain's nightmare for sure!

We've had good luck with LD in general, and on moored sites we've been allowed to dive our tank but I would ALWAYS choose a small op if all things were equal especially for 'advanced' diving.

All that being said, if Tim guaranteed you could dive your tank, you should get a refund - that's a LOT of coin for a 30 minute dive!

 

[Tigerman]

The only person responsible for my safety in the water is me. A DM is a guide that's it. I would have ignored him and reminded him that all on the charter were certified divers and responsible for our own air consumption. So did you tip?

I do GENERALLY agree with this, but there IS certain conditions where you DO NOT want to be going off on your own without knowing what youre doing and possibly even have two sets of eyes to even know where the hell you are.
As long as you have a reef to look at, and no downcurrents to suck you down all is fine and dandy, but when youre out of sight of the reef with 700 meters of water below you and and a busy shipping lane outside of you, there is most definetly a good reason for having not only one, but TWO guides making sure you get back to the right place - one keeping the reef in sight, the other keeping the guide keeping the reef in sight in sight. Or do you feel like trusting that to two random people on the boat?
I seriously would NOT recommend taking your buddy to Saltstraumen and jump in there either without some serious local knowledge..

A normal reef wall dive for 26 minutes without any particular hazards and the dive being cut short on behalf of somoene outside of my buddy pair? Id give the guide the finger and keep diving..

60 minutes time limit is fair for recreational dives, I expect that its set to that people stick to it as close as possible to avoid any panicky situations and search and rescue calls. 50 minutes time limits should IMO have a very good reason - like getting back to an assigned dock slot time or other travel time constraints..

 

[Dr. Lecter]

The herd-only mentality is one of the evils of diving in Hawaii, and there's basically no sure way to avoid it on any given dive. When faced with the kind of bait and switch you relate, the only real recourse is to dive your tanks for the day and then blow off the dive op afterwards (assuming they don't kick you to the curb for disregarding their instructions during a dive). The big plus of that approach is that their only recourse is to say 'you won't be allowed to dive with us any more', to which your bank will say 'no further charges to the credit card will be honored.'

 

[Diving Dubai]

I had to smile at this thread. I agree with others here that it's not unreasonable for the boat to put a time limit of 60mins on a dive - so they know if someone hasn't surfaced there's a problem.

To all those boasting about sticking a finger up at the guides, No matter how experienced you are, you are in their charge and they are responsible for the group's safety as a whole. In my experience after a check dive most operators can see your experience and make their determination from that.

My last group dive was in the daymaniyat islands. The Dive guide was put off as both myself and my buddy were wearing bpw with dsmb's and reels attached - They assumed we knew what we were doing (we did) and gave us lots of latitude right from the off, however I wouldn't have minded if on the first dive they'd treated us like newbies until they'd seen us dive, after all just because someone is equipped with all the gear - doesn't mean they can dive..

going off topic it always amazes me how few people carry DSMB's - I think it should be a mandatory part of the basic training to be able to operate one and carry one even on a group dive.

 

[Spitts6654]

I will mention that on the back wall as well as at Molokai, the dives are live boat drift dives and with all those bodies in the water, I imagine it would be hard to let people surface where and when they want. I can see the scene with several groups of divers popping up at various places on the back wall in current with nothing but open ocean around should they be swept away from the island. Not so bad when there's 8 divers in the water, but juggling 24 - a boat captain's nightmare for sure!

Almost all of our diving in the Jupiter, FL area is drift diving. We do have a dive guide but they typically come up with the last diver, unless you outlast their air. When you run low on air, send your SMB up, do your safety stop and then the boat will come around and pick you up shortly after you surface. The current keeps everyone pretty well in a straight line so the Captain should have no issues picking up several groups.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

No matter how experienced you are, you are in their charge and they are responsible for the group's safety as a whole.

You (and not a few DMs I've met) are confused about what being a dive op's customer does (and does not) mean. Which is fine, because (at least here in the US) they're not the Scuba Police and the worst they can do is ban you for ignoring their instructions. Not only does that not really matter given how many other ops exist should you want to dive again, it will automatically void any further financial obligation you might have had to them for future booked dives regardless of what they say (if not, you need to find a different issuing bank for your credit card).

Is that an attitude I think should be taken at the drop of a mask? No. Will most ops (or more properly, DMs, because I've had some ty dives out here with otherwise great ops because that was the day they had to sub in a DM with a stick up his/her ass) let you more or less solo dive your tank as long as they're confident in your gear and ability? Yes. Is there still an appropriate place for the 'Screw you, I'm doing what I want with the dive I paid for and know I won't get reimbursed for" attitude? Oh yes.

Gotta agree with you on the SMB thing, though. Not sure why anyone thinks not carrying one in the ocean is a good idea, ever.

 

[geoff w]

We dived with Lahaina Divers for the first time New Years Day this year for their "hammerhead" dive trip to Molokai. It was billed as a trip for more advanced divers than their usual charters. Shortly before we got to Molokai, they dropped one diver (local, but not part of the Lahaina Divers crew) in the water; he was using his rebreather. The rest of us were split into 3 groups, each led by a DM. We basically started the dive as a group, and as buddy teams ran low on air, each group surfaced, and was instructed to inflate their safety sausage, since it was a live boat dive and the boat needed to locate and pick up each group. Conditions were calm for us. No need to come up early, but swimming out in the open without any hammerheads in sight (wrong time of year) didn't leave much incentive to suck a tank down as much as possible. We had as much bottom time as we wanted, with no need to come up at some arbitrary time. After everyone was on board following the second dive, the captain picked up the rebreather diver in the water (who just finished his 2-3 hour dive) at the designated rendezvous spot and headed back to Lahaina.

We've been on lots of dives in Hawaii (both Lanai and Maui) where the dive operator limited bottom time on a dive, so the surface interval could be managed and everyone could get in a long enough second dive without running up against no-deco limits for the depths planned for the second dive. My wife and I were on nitrox, we got in with the first group, and didn't need to surface until the last group went up. We had a short surface interval, but still got in a full second dive. Any passengers on air would have had a much more limited second dive, and been disappointed, if they stayed down as long as us.

In Hawaii, dive operators usually go out early and want to wrap up before the trades start blowing, which is perfectly understandable if you've ever been beaten up after the second dive getting back to the harbor. We've never been shortchanged on dive time; our limiting factor is usually cold before running low on air, although we've been on plenty of dives where we had to come up earlier than others on the second dive because we started running into no-deco limits on our computers

We were with one dive operator in Fiji where the current got strong for our entire group, and they spent the next hour tracking down everyone scattered all over the place. Sometimes if conditions warrant, it's better when the DM has everyone ascend as a group

 

[TSandM]

We dove with LD on Maui a couple of months ago. We did the Carthaginian on 32% (everybody else on the boat was on air) and the Mala Pier. We were asked to keep our second dive to no more than 60 minutes, which was fine with us, but we dove our no-deco time on the first one.

I've only done the back wall once, but I can imagine surface conditions there being such that the boat would be worried about finding all the divers if they came up in isolated pairs, especially if not everyone was carrying a signal device. Still, that is no excuse for telling you one thing in the shop, and doing something else on the boat.

 

[supergaijin]

You (and not a few DMs I've met) are confused about what being a dive op's customer does (and does not) mean. Which is fine, because (at least here in the US) they're not the Scuba Police and the worst they can do is ban you for ignoring their instructions. Not only does that not really matter given how many other ops exist should you want to dive again, it will automatically void any further financial obligation you might have had to them for future booked dives regardless of what they say (if not, you need to find a different issuing bank for your credit card).

Is that an attitude I think should be taken at the drop of a mask? No. Will most ops (or more properly, DMs, because I've had some ty dives out here with otherwise great ops because that was the day they had to sub in a DM with a stick up his/her ass) let you more or less solo dive your tank as long as they're confident in your gear and ability? Yes. Is there still an appropriate place for the 'Screw you, I'm doing what I want with the dive I paid for and know I won't get reimbursed for" attitude? Oh yes.

Ironic that when these operations eventually lose divers, they're immediately blamed as incompetent, dangerous operators who should never have been issued a license. Does anyone else see this pendulum swing on SB? When operators impose rules, they're facist... when no rules are enforced, they're incompetent and unsafe.

To me it looked a lot like laziness. There were times on this boat (which had four dive staff and 15 divers), that rather than the usual 3 groups of 5 that we were having, they would clump us into groups of 7 or 8 while two of the dive staff stayed on the main boat napping.

I can see that happening. I've worked with quite a few DMs who view diving as nothing more than a job, rather than a passion. Almost every time it is a local, not a foreigner. That sounds a bit racist but it's what I have seen here in Maldives, Egypt, SE Asia. That is NOT every local guide, but certain individuals only and they tend to be locals.

In NZ I worked with another kiwi guy who only dived the same sites time after time. I only knew him for one season when I worked there, but his enthusiasm for diving definitely seemed to have waned.

 

[BRT]

That sucks, and is a BIG down side for the larger varied groups encountered on the LD boats. We had the same situation at Molokai on the 2nd dive but we'd already seen the hammerheads and were just floating in the blue after that. I would NOT have wanted to do that crossing in a zodiac or small boat however.

I will mention that on the back wall as well as at Molokai, the dives are live boat drift dives and with all those bodies in the water, I imagine it would be hard to let people surface where and when they want. I can see the scene with several groups of divers popping up at various places on the back wall in current with nothing but open ocean around should they be swept away from the island. Not so bad when there's 8 divers in the water, but juggling 24 - a boat captain's nightmare for sure!

We've had good luck with LD in general, and on moored sites we've been allowed to dive our tank but I would ALWAYS choose a small op if all things were equal especially for 'advanced' diving.

All that being said, if Tim guaranteed you could dive your tank, you should get a refund - that's a LOT of coin for a 30 minute dive!

We certainly didn't all come up together in current in Cozumel this January. As people ran low on air the DM sent up a buoy and the low air people followed it up and did their safety stops on the buoy line. Everybody stayed in the same part of the ocean and the boat followed the buoy.