Etiquette of “NO, you are not diving with us”

[wedivebc]

You made a pretty large assumption here.

I am not DIR, nor am I GUE trained. I have less than 10 logged dives. I would be the newbie diver in this scenario. I merely wanted to give an example of how someone who WAS a DIR diver would have a built-in excuse that was easily verifiable.

Why the hate? I'm just here to learn from you guys.

No hate at all. You may as well learn that this "rule #1" attitude exibited by many DIR divers is really a bunch of eliteist BS. If that is the route you are going then great, I have been taking a close look at DIR myself, but everytime I get that sort of attitude, whether in person or online it makes me want to rethink my decision to take a fundies course.
You as a newbie seem to already be aware of this situation

 

[PerroneFord]

No hate at all. You may as well learn that this "rule #1" attitude exibited by many DIR divers is really a bunch of eliteist BS. If that is the route you are going then great, I have been taking a close look at DIR myself, but everytime I get that sort of attitude, whether in person or online it makes me want to rethink my decision to take a fundies course.
You as a newbie seem to already be aware of this situation

I'm aware of the #1 rule and it's ramifications and its perceptions. For many reasons I will be taking GUE training along with other training. It's close, and I feel the training is good and sound.

I've tried to talk to a lot of divers. And there are arrogant divers from all walks out there. Honestly, I think the DIR guys get a bad rap from a few folks, but because they are so visible and so "different" I think they get singled out more than some others.

Though I have few dives, I was certified 11 years ago. I've had a lot of time to survey the dive community. I wouldn't hesitate to take a fundies course if I were you. Despite what you may see as poor attitude, it's hard to argue with the curriculum. They teach sound diving, and stress safety and competence. Hard to find fault in that despite what you may think of the organization.

I suppose it's a bit like religion. I have mine and you have yours. But it's hard to fault anyone's if they are feeding the hungry and healing the sick. Sometimes, right is simply just right.

 

[Diver0001]

And now that I hopefully got someone's attention, a brief excursion. I just removed my reg setup from a tank where I had it for a night to see if I have a leak (DIN valve so dir-bats may answer, snicker). I do not see a leak but I am ignorant. Do your gauge hose have these little 'holes' in the rubber? I noticed it yesterday, a series of teeny pinpricks run all the way down the hose, holes are about centimeter apart. When I got up from water I wipeth the hose and had it still attached and teeny water bubbles kept forming onto the hose on those holes. What are they? They run on two sides of the gauge hose.

Those little pin pricks are there to warn you when the hose is starting to fail. You *MUST* replace that hose before you dive again.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

Why the hate? I'm just here to learn from you guys.

It's all in the delivery, mate. The best DIR divers are assertive but unpretentious, direct but respectful. Choose to be one of those now before it's too late.

It's not hate, it's a learning opportunity. I guess Dave and I have both been around long enough to see the gang-war style macho posturing in the DIR discussions of old. The way you delivered your first post just sounded a little too.... familiar.... to me.

R..

 

[stevetim]

OK, some guy comes up to you at the beach, you don't know him, and he tells you he's been AOW for four years. Well, how many dives is that? 10, 15, 30? I would treat him like you run a dive operation and would have asked about his last few dives, and just for reassurance, asked if he had his C-Card. If he takes it the wrong way, that is your way out of being his buddy. I mean, you guys didn't even take the time, it seems, to ask his name. If I was in that guys shoes, I would have looked at your group with a little hesitation for not asking me pertinent info about myself and diving experience. He sure sounded like a kid in a candy store, and so eager to dive, he jumped in the water ahead of his readiness level.

 

[pakman]

If you put your ear real close to the little tiny holes, you will hear your hose saying in a high-pitched squeaky voice, "Replaaaaaace meeeeeeeeeeee..."

Oh my... I snug back to garage, pressed my ear onto the hose, and all I heard was
"but I am onlyyyyy twoooo mooooonths ooooooold" and a little cry after that

both of u crack me up... just snorted my diet coke on my screen after reading these two posts... gotta get back to work and clean this mess...

 

[Diver0001]

If you put your ear real close to the little tiny holes, you will hear your hose saying in a high-pitched squeaky voice, "Replaaaaaace meeeeeeeeeeee..."

Oh my... I snug back to garage, pressed my ear onto the hose, and all I heard was
"but I am onlyyyyy twoooo mooooonths ooooooold" and a little cry after that

Check the warranty. New hose will run you about $30 and the LDS can install it in 10 minutes for you.

R..

 

[Santa]

I see we are getting to the psych part of this

Maybe I'm reoeating myself a bit here but I think that when you have to be assertive in a situation where you feel more like bolting or just bowing your head, it's sticking to that one sound, factual or emotional reason that honestly makes sense to you, that will carry you through the doubts.

Obviously you were right to be wary about this guy - and as for being inclusive and a good comerade - that you'd be helping him by saying no.

 

[piikki]

>>OK, some guy comes up to you at the beach, you don't know him, and he tells you he's been AOW for four years. Well, how many dives is that? 10, 15, 30? I would treat him like you run a dive operation and would have asked about his last few dives, and just for reassurance, asked if he had his C-Card. If he takes it the wrong way, that is your way out of being his buddy. I mean, you guys didn't even take the time, it seems, to ask his name.<<

We tried to chat this guy up when he was asking about the float. We are newbies, we are curious, we’d love to fondle other divers’ stuff if they let us and hear about their adventures. He was basically physically backing off all the time. You know it’s really hard to be the inquisitor when there is not much reciprocation in the communication. Next time I know that alone is enough of a sign.

Since ‘he was not going to dive with but with our flag’ we didn’t push, and once in water it was like – someone’s going to get hurt if we stay on surface much longer. None of us could hear great through 7mm hoods, so going through the safeties was a pain – the window for chatting was definitely lost. If he did not heed our friendly advice on purple face, we didn’t feel like we’d get much respect with other queries. In all honesty, on shore the guy did indicate he had not been active diver all those 4 yrs but he talked about being on charters, and some locations were AOW is required like Dutch Springs. We knew he had been diving last time the previous weekend. We certainly did not take the right attitude and while I don’t even know how dive op would run this, I think we should have been more assertive when we both KNEW what we wanted.

>>If I was in that guys shoes, I would have looked at your group with a little hesitation for not asking me pertinent info about myself and diving experience. He sure sounded like a kid in a candy store, and so eager to dive, he jumped in the water ahead of his readiness level.<<

For being there, I think this is not an accurate description of his mentality or our attempt to find out about him. We have no experience, so I know we missed some good questions but we were asking him regular stuff even before we realized he was buddyless. The most glaring aspect in all this is that the guy knew all the time what HE was planning to do, and never asked anything about us. Only questions he had were about the float, and the beach. We voluntarily offered him the info we just certified. There was nothing eager about him, and we thought that maybe he is shy/clumsy which is OK with us. Maybe on charters you never need to do this, op pairs you up – we wouldn’t know since we've not been to one – so we gave him a break. But it’s like he had to go but he didn’t want to. Maybe he needed to get a dive under his belt before he was going to go somewhere, and he thought this would be easy.

P.S. Always look at this pair with hesitation, we've known to do some pretty weird stuff

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Any Diver May Call A Dive At Any Time. No Reason Is Necessary Or Need Be Given. At the same time no reason need be given for refusing to dive with someone especially a stranger who appears to be a walking disaster. There have been many posts about making something up. Why? It may be better to simply say hey, you seem to be having too much difficulty with this and I'm not going to be responsible for you. I'm not an instructor or even a divemaster, I don't carry liability insurance and it looks like you need to get some help, training, or instruction from someone who does. Harsh? Perhaps, but better than opening yourself up to a lawsuit or worse yet having to bring this doof up from the wreck because of the carotid sinus reflex kicking in and rendering him unconscious or worse because you could not see he was unconscious because he'd plowed up the bottom. Also I'm not aware of aow being required for dutch springs. Buddy teams are mandatory and I believe ( someone please correct me if I'm wrong) aow with a written plan required for deep sections but simply to dive there only requires a card. It sounds like this guy is one of those who picked up alot of stuff on ebay got his open water so he could get airfills and now thinks he's Mike Nelson. I've seen two of these at our local site. One of them even admitted he had done this and went further to say that he'd gotten a book off the internet to learn to dive and bought a compressor so he would not need a card for fills! We were clued in as he was unable to descend because he kept putting air in his bc because "once there's enough in, the rear dump will open and it'll come out!" Also that he neglected to wet his tank straps before gearing up and as a result his tank slipped out of both straps. You are under no obligation to dive with anyone who makes you uncomfortable in any way. Being blunt and honest may save everyone alot of grief and also cause them to get proper training and be able to enjoy the sport safely. Jim PADI Master Scuba Diver and Divemaster Candidate