Has Your Dive Guide Ever Gotten Lost?

[boulderjohn]

This story was relayed to me by someone who did the dive. I was not there.

It was on Ambergris Caye in Belize, and the group had signed up for a day of diving at a distant spot called "The Elbow," for which they paid a lot extra. They were told to get to the boat in the predawn darkness because it was a long ride out and a long ride back. They were told when they should expect to return later in the day.

When they arrived in that predawn darkness, no one was there. Finally someone showed up and saw there was no crew. He went out and came back with a skipper and DM, and they were not looking good. They later learned that it was a holiday in Belize, and everyone in the company had been out drinking until very late. The skipper and DM, they learned, had been dragged out of bed.

So the boat took off about an hour late, with the DM sleeping on a bench the whole trip out. Somehow, they got to "The Elbow" earlier than originally scheduled. The boat must have made amazing time, especially since it did not appear to be going extra fast. At the end of the day, they got back to the dock an hour earlier than scheduled.

They confronted the crew, but they insisted that they had gone to that special dive site as agreed. Who were they to say otherwise?

 

[Dark Wolf]

I have been damned confused for an hour or two, but never lost.

DW

 

[Kimela]

There have been times I've wondered if our guides were lost on Key Largo dives, as they had us swimming in oddball directions like bats out of hell, not stopping to look at anything! But the only time I thought we were separated from our dive guide was when another diver splashed and immediately realized he needed more weight so went back to the boat and got back ON the boat to get more! Our dive guide stayed with him while we went with the current, not realizing what was going on. Just as we were communicating to the other two folks in our group 'what now - should we thumb the dive and shoot an SMB?' he showed up with the 5th diver ahead of us. The boat had been tracking our bubbles and dropped them in front of us. (This was a drift dive in Cozumel)

Nothing nearly as dramatic as you guys have experienced, but then we're not the leaders on these dives, just the followers. It's nice to be us in moments like that. Thanks for taking the heat!!

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

A friend of mine was working on Oahu, and he told me how he'd often get lost when he started. He didn't shadow any of the other guides. Just got a quick verbal description.

You would think the employer would have a mini internship where the new guide shadows an experienced one, starts leading while still under the experienced guide, then let loose to lead by themselves when they got it.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

A friend of mine was working on Oahu, and he told me how he'd often get lost when he started. He didn't shadow any of the other guides. Just got a quick verbal description.

You would think the employer would have a mini internship where the new guide shadows an experienced one, starts leading while still under the experienced guide, then let loose to lead by themselves when they got it.

That was how they did it for me at Brac Aquatics, Ltd.

 

[Dody]

I've also had guides tell me they're going to do “turtle navigation ”, which meant when they got lost they pop up to the surface and see where they are!

The few times I went shore diving with only my wife as a buddy in pretty safe locations (that I did not know before) as per the locals, I did just that at the end of the dive. Fairly effective… but I am no dive guide.

 

[sea_ledford]

When I was a guide on Grand Bahama, there was a site that was notorious for getting guides lost. It was a shallow patch reef area, about 30 feet deep, very little depth changes, and it all looked the same. As a guide we got used to doing most of the navigation through landmarks and natural nav, so everyone attempts it at that site too. It is a perfectly reasonable expectation to be able to pick a rough sand channel between coral heads (backyard shed size) and swim out for half the time, turn around and return along the back side of the same line of coral heads. Except that never worked, you would have some that would be wider than others, and you would end up swimming in a "v" rather than a reciprocal.

After failing twice (over two dives, not twice in the same dive... I'm not THAT bad) and having to go to the surface to find the boat (0/10 do not recommend as a guide), I started using my compass. No more problems. My coworker had a special floating slate that she used. She would write critters down on it as she was finding them, but once she got lost, instead of just showing her divers the slate, she would pass it to them to pass around. Guaranteed, someone would "drop" the slate and it would float to the surface, where she would have to swim up to go get. And take a sneaky look for the boat while she was there.

Then there were the stubborn ones that would bust out their compass halfway through the dive, and remain lost. Pro tip, if your dive guide gets out their compass for the first time in the middle of the dive, they are probably lost.

 

[sea_ledford]

Oh, and since Trace started this, I did a dive with my wife on the Spiegel Grove. Trace was on board, maybe teaching a tech class, but I don't remember. I'm sure you don't remember me, no reason to.

Vis was pretty crap that day, the DM that I didn't follow, didn't mention that the cranes were oriented perpendicular to the hull. I got lost big time since nothing made sense to me. I ended up surfacing under the wrong boat. At least I knew it was the wrong boat, but my wife was low on air. They asked if I wanted a ride back to the right boat. No sir, I do not want a ride back to my boat. We will surface swim just like I planned from the beginning!

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

Pro tip, if your dive guide gets out their compass for the first time in the middle of the dive, they are probably lost.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Oh, and since Trace started this, I did a dive with my wife on the Spiegel Grove. Trace was on board, maybe teaching a tech class, but I don't remember. I'm sure you don't remember me, no reason to.

That's cool that we were aboard the same boat. I'm trying to remember a bad visibility dive. I've made so many dives on the SG. Were we diving with Silent World? That was my usual op. Were you on rebreathers or OC?