Seangel,
I am sorry that you had a bad experience with one of the groups. I would be curious to know where that was. If you were cruising a flat, shallow reef at 20' it would be less of an issue to me than if you were in a deeper or more complex environment.
Ultimately, we need to be 100% responsible for ourselves, along with our buddy.
I had a slightly scary experience this weekend, diving in a wonderful place called Mokolau or Hui Aloha CHurch in remote, Southeast Maui near my ranch. I was diving in rough, surging water along with a close friend who is an active special forces dive instructor who is in much, much better shape than I am.
The entry was a bit difficult, and it winded me a bit, and I was struggling to keep up and really sucking down air. It was my second dive with my new Dive Rite Tranpac II, which I hadn't gotten adjusted just right, and the weight pockets kept sliding to the front and I felt like I was fighting the BC as well as bouyancy as we surged through and around pinnacles.
It was my mistake that I didn't insist on stopping for a while so I could regroup and start fresh, but we were both anxious to see what lay beyond the giant rocks that guard the old Hawaiian church site and get max use from our air.
It caught up with me on the way back in, when we were bucking a bit of current and I could not believe how fast I was breathing down my HP 100 trying to keep up with my friend. There was about a 2 to 3' chop on the top, and we wanted to get in as close as possible before surfacing. We were up to about 20', between pinnacles, when I lost my buddy in the bubbles and stirred up silt, and couldn't tell which route he had taken. I waited about a minute, and then surfaced, with about 600psi on the guage. It was then that I realized how out of breath and stressed I was, and after looking for my buddy (who was circling below looking for me) I inflated my BCD and started slowly backswimming toward the black sand beach.
About 5 minutes later I got tossed by a big wave set onto one of the pinnacles, and the waves were crashing over me and breaking, and I couldn't breathe. I still had my primary in my right hand, and I was extremely happy to have saved some good air.
I rolled and dropped down and pulled my inflator to lose bouyancy, and the rocks kind of spitted me out. I resufaced and just boogied as fast as I could to the beach, and then stood in and knelt in the shallows till my breath and body caught up with me. My friend, when he surfaced, was surprised how fast I got in to the beach. He was still looking for me out by the rocks when I caught his attention.
In hindsight, my mistake was in not insisting on a slower pace and in making my partner aware that I was working so hard. For him, this was a Sunday stroll in the park. I've only been scuba diving about 6 months, and my body type is such that I like to move slow, and at slow, steady speeds I am usually fine for 2 or three hours of steady swimming without getting stressed. My partner knows this, and usually we're in perfect step, and it's probably my own ego, to a large extent, that didn't want to slow things down to match the conditions.
On the plus side, I've been swimming and snorkling these waters (this spot was a favorite spearfinshing spot for me in the '80's, but on calmer days) for decades, and my reactions kicked in when needed and I never got spooked.
Best Aloha,
Jonathan