Are all divers friendly and respect fellow divers?

[Sas]

Nearly all of the divers I have met have been friendly and respectful. Like everything, you will get eejits who give the rest a bad name.

I have never dived on a cattle boat however. I hope to avoid this if possible as I do not like large groups of divers around when I go diving. I think in large groups incidents such as you have described are more likely to occur.

 

[diver 85]

the risk(s)of diving with bigger groups....

 

[Randy43068]

It happens quite often while diving in Caribbean, mostly on cattle boats with big mixed group of peoples. You jump in a water, start diving and let's say you see a nice swim through area worth of good photo shot or video. You stop, aim and right before you get a chance to take a picture, sudden stream of bubbles starts raising up right in front of your camera and even worse you camera gets kicked up by fellow diver trying to squeeze into this swim through area below you. Or even better – your camera is being kicked down from the above and you get fin kick in you mask by another fellow diver squeezing himself above. What the..? Can this people wait 30 sec? Do they have any respect for fellow divers and for god's sake do they even think about unsafe conditions they create? On my last dive, I even experienced horror story. Here is the guy who just taken a picture of something at the bottom and started swimming away. My wife (who is not very expririenced diver) slowly starts swimming to the same spot intrigued to see what is in there. Suddenly guy with the camera realizes that he needs another shot, turns around and swims back to the spot like his life depends on this. Obviously, he collides with my wife and poor girl immediately gets into uncontrolled ascent. Thankfully, I grabbed her and we are all fine. I was seriously condisidering punching this quy in the face but was able to control myself. Have you guys seen such selfish behavior and what the best way to handle it?

I read your post fast so maybe I missed something.

Just as with anything involving humans, there are good and bad people, jerks and nice people.

Overall I've found divers to be a good lot overall, there are some really unsafe divers and some real p-ricks in the mix.

 

[Crowley]

It happens in all walks of diving, not just in large groups, not just on "cattle" boats.

For a particular mentality of diver, meeting for the first time is like a p*ssing contest - who's got the better reg, who's diving nitrox, who has the special equipment configuration, who has more dives, who's been in the presence of famous divers... blah blah blah. It's funny to watch!

Most of my customers, beginners to experienced, cattle boat or VIP tour, are genuinely lovely people who enjoy being underwater looking at stuff. Some are a complete and utter waste of space, just like in any walk of life. They expect spoon feeding, and start to complain almost as soon as they reach the check-in counter at the shop. Some want discounts because they have more experience and therefore "will be less effort to look after". Some demand special treatment because they have XYZ certification or they read a book about tec diving once and now know everything.

We grin and bear it, then the rest of my divers and I have a good laugh about it in the pub afterwards. These "others", needless to say, are not invited!

So - the vast majority of divers I meet are indeed lovely, courteous people. But - not all of them.

Cheers,

C.

 

[gypsyjim]

Have met rude divers, friendly divers, helpful divers, selfish divers, knowledgeable divers, clueless divers, arrogant p#$%&* divers and some of the best people you could ask to meet anywhere, diving.

What can I say? We're people too, and a pretty wide cross section of people at that!

 

[Randy43068]

Have met rude divers, friendly divers, helpful divers, selfish divers, knowledgeable divers, clueless divers, arrogant p#$%&* divers and some of the best people you could ask to meet anywhere, diving.

What can I say? We're people too, and a pretty wide cross section of people at that!

I'd like to meet you one day even if you are a gun nut! < snckering >

 

[piikki]

Tropical destination, large boat, and several people carrying a camera &#8211; nobody needs to even be rude but that&#8217;s a recipe for a good amount of aggravation underwater. I shudder the more cameras I see because while it might mean someone actually has the skills to go with it, it&#8217;s no guarantee. In many cases, the bigger the equipment the larger the ego that expects that others yield at the shooting field.

I don&#8217;t enjoy taking a camera or having a buddy with camera when visiting new destinations. Less so when there are others in same situation. Everybody tries to desperately get the shots and situational awareness is down several notches. They see you taking a shot &#8211; there must be something there: MOVE OVER! You see someone taking a shot, you waste your time waiting in line to see what it is, rather than making you own leisurely dive.

People with poorer skills and awareness float too close, and smacking ensues. They did not maybe mean it but it happened. People who care less will come right onto your grill because they think you took too long or because they don&#8217;t think your shot will be good enough anyway because your camera stinks. People who think they are alone on the dive will take 15 minutes to get that perfect shot on the only worthwhile shot on the whole dive. They might even plant themselves on the bottom and ruin the shot for others to make sure they get a stable video of it.

So &#8211; I see the cameras on cattle boats and it&#8217;s an immediate shudder.

 

[soamelt]

Fortunately for me, I'm probably the biggest a-hole diver that I've met. I've been very fortunate to meet nothing but friendly and courtous divers (myself not included).

Greg

 

[ScubaSteve]

I think, as most have said, there are good and bad in every group of people. Diving is no different. The problem is that certain environments tend to get frustration levels up with some people and often that is when there is a lot of people focused on themselves in a confined space (on a boat or in a small area of the ocean looking at the same object). Hence the "cattle boat". Even the nicest person can move quickly to high frustration on a cattle boat so I tend to try to stay away from them. If I do find myself in the position where I am on a cattle boat, I go into it prepared to step aside and think about the dive if someone gets on my nerves. After all, any time spent underwater where I surface safely, is better than being topside at work (or many other places) and for me, that makes almost anything worthwhile.

 

[dlndavid]

Be constructive in your approach and your chances of getting them to consider changing their behavior will improve.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Is cutting the air line constructive?