New Diver - Liveaboard - Guide or No Guide

[MXGratefulDiver]

The biggest problem with not going with a guide is that you may end up swimming amongst wonderful sea life and never even know it's there. Marine creatures are often excellent at camoflauge ... it's how they avoid becoming lunch. Many choose their habitat because they can blend in with it extremely well. And sometimes, even if it's easily visible, you have to know where to look. Dive guides are familiar with not just the local marine life, but what types of habitat they prefer ... a specific type of sea fan or anemone, for example ... and therefore know where to look to find the very creatures you're spending all that money to go find.

Can you find them on your own? Perhaps ... but certainly not to the degree of someone who knows where to look, or what to look for. Lots of times it boils down to pattern recognition. I recall when I was a new diver and went on a dive trip where everyone else was raving about a certain type of crab that they were seeing. When I mentioned that me and my dive buddy had not seen any, they looked at us kind of funny and asked how we could miss them ... they were everywhere! Next dive, one of the more experienced divers swam toward us, signaled, and pointed down to what we had been taking as a rock. Closer inspection revealed that this rock had legs, eyes, and a spectacularly colorful underside ... these were the crabs they were talking about. Once we knew what to look for, we found several.

I hear what you're saying that they go different places, and that the guideless dive op offers the better dive sites. I'd say go with that dive op ... and if you can get a guide or manage to hook up with someone who knows the sites, do so. If it turns out you're expected to dive on your own, do as much research as possible beforehand to learn what to look for ... then swim slowly enough to give yourself a chance to develop that pattern recognition once you're on site.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[SeaHorse81]

I have almost always seen far more sea life with a DM than when going it alone. The only exception was when we were on new sites that the DMs had never seen before, either. If they've been on the site before, they tend to know where the best places are.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Liveaboard in Cairns is a high end bucket list dive. This is not a moment where instead of enjoying the Great Barrier reef, you would be learning how to stay neutrally buoyant or how to vent air properly. Those issues need to be figured out before you jump do such a dive. February 2014 still have two and a half months in between. If it is at all possible, I would recommend doing a few dives locally somewhere. I see you are from MN so that may not be an option in this season. In that case I would recommend putting in a few weekends of indoor pool practice. This should involve gearing up, jumping in, doing a few laps, working on buoyancy and proper weighting until your buoyancy is prime.

This will prepare you to (at least mentally) to splash with a greater confidence.

Good luck! It is a great place to dive.

 

[billt4sf]

Pretty good. I'd add the following...

1.) Only use one BCD to control ascent. If you don't vent buddy's BCD you risk a runaway ascent, and managing two BCDs not really good idea. I would dump my BCD and use the buddy's for buoyancy control during ascent, inflate his BCD at surface first, then your own.

2.) There's pros/cons (if not controversy) to trying to put the reg back in his mouth. If he's not breathing, trying to put it back in and keep it in is going to task load you, slow down the rescue, and not do any good. (He's not breathing.) It could also potentially cause you to inadvertently restrict/close his airway. If the reg is in his mouth, keep it in. If it's out, leave it out

3.) Either way (reg in or out) do what you can to tilt the injured diver's head back during ascent to help keep his airway open in order to avoid a lung overexpansion injury or embolism.

If it were me, I'd get diver from behind. Dump my BCD, and with my left hand I'd reach over his left shoulder for his LPI and use it just as if it were mine. With right hand I would hold his reg in IF IT WAS IN and tilt his chin up. This gives me the best shot at managing bouyancy and reducing risk of injury.

Thanks RJP!

---------- Post added December 6th, 2013 at 10:47 AM ----------

Liveaboard in Cairns is a high end bucket list dive. This is not a moment where instead of enjoying the Great Barrier reef, you would be learning how to stay neutrally buoyant or how to vent air properly. Those issues need to be figured out before you jump do such a dive. February 2014 still have two and a half months in between. If it is at all possible, I would recommend doing a few dives locally somewhere. I see you are from MN so that may not be an option in this season. In that case I would recommend putting in a few weekends of indoor pool practice. This should involve gearing up, jumping in, doing a few laps, working on buoyancy and proper weighting until your buoyancy is prime.

This will prepare you to (at least mentally) to splash with a greater confidence.

Good luck! It is a great place to dive.

Most responders concentrated on using a DM to see the most stuff. When I was a new diver (first 30 dives) I hardly saw a thing -- I was so task loaded trying to adjust my buoyancy, clear my ears, check my air, and check my buddy. Those dives were great! But not because of what I saw, more because I was learning how to dive and it was fun!

This is where the dive industry has some challenges. Apparently a significant portion of OW students just do a few dives, then don't dive any more. (You might say that they really never learn to dive on their own.) So I echo Sinbad's advice to get as much practice in as you can (yes, pool practice IS worthwhile) before the trip.

And I would definitely have an experienced diver accompany you. It could be a DM you hire, but check out that DM's experience level first -- a DM need only have (I think) 80 dives or so. An instructor might be a more suitable choice --- but again, check out their experience level first. You probably want not only a guide, but someone to help keep you safe. Depending on how good your course instruction was, and how easy it has been for you to adapt to task loading underwater.

Have fun!

- Bill

 

[terri717]

If it is at all possible, I would recommend doing a few dives locally somewhere. I see you are from MN so that may not be an option in this season.

Haha, you've got that right! We just had a huge snow storm the other day

But, the scuba center where I received my OW certification does offer bouyancy classes and offers pool time. I will definitely research that some more!

I agree, I would have no idea what to look for under water. Based on reviews I've read they supposedly do a great job telling you what to look for and where to go. I wouldn't mind asking some more experienced divers on our boat if they mind us tagging along. However, I wouldn't want to hold them back from their dive by taking too much time to descend, equalize, etc. If a group finds something interesting underwater what's the social dive rules/etiquette for going to take a peek (obviously not barging in, but giving enough space and maybe moving in once they move on)? The appeal to having a guide is to be able to look around and see all the cool stuff and to not have to worry about navigating back to the boat. I worry a lot (probably too much) so I could picture myself being so focused on remembering how to get back and not wanting to go too far, that I might not enjoy it as much and likely not go as far as I probably could. That being said, I have no idea what to expect from the GBR's, maybe the dive courses wouldn't travel that far out from the boat? Maybe they do?

The liveaboard with a guide option visits the following: 17 permanent moorings on the Outer Barrier Reef (including Norman, Hastings and Saxon reefs) that ensure minimal damage to the pristine coral formations. Our dive sites are frequented by myriads of tropical fish and include the ever popular large Maori Wrasse, who are always diver friendly. The swim through, wall and drift dives will appeal to every level of diver experience.

Liveaboard unguided (except for first dive and night dives): We have chosen some of the best known dive sites off Cairns such as Flynn reef, Milln reef, Thetford reef and Pellowe reef for their abundance and variety of marine life.

They offer more detailed descriptions of each of their sites, such as:

Milln Reef offers a number of exciting dive sites such as Whale Bommie, Petaj Mooring, Swimming Pools I, Swimming Pools II and the Three Sisters to name a few. Our dive site at Petaj is home to resident turtles and white tip reef sharks. At the Swimming Pools you can expect to see schools of diagonally banded sweetlips and nudibranchs to name a few.
Milln reef offers excellent wall dives and swim throughs and is great for night diving. Some of the walls are full of sleeping parrot fish in their mucus sacks, turtles and barracudas and the occasional bull ray. Whale bommie provides you with a good dive in depths exceeding 20 metres. A great site to dive at night where you can expect to see sleeping turtles, reef crabs, painted lobsters and some great soft corals, gorgonian fans.

• Rating: Novice - Intermediate
• Mild Currents
• Visibility - 15 to 20 metres
• Depth - 5 to 30 metres

 

[billt4sf]

• Rating: Novice - Intermediate
• Mild Currents
• Visibility - 15 to 20 metres
• Depth - 5 to 30 metres

Terri, You keep asking about what you will or won't see, but when I was at your experience level (newly-minted OW diver) I wanted some help diving safely and comfortably. I barely saw anything. I was at "Beginner", not "Novice" (let alone Intermediate). I was not ready for currents. Night diving was a pretty big challenge, especially if there are currents. Be advised that most operators will try to sell their dive adventures to the maximum skill range they possibly can.

- Bill

 

[DanMont]

Just curious....what's the answer?



---------- Post added December 6th, 2013 at 09:56 AM ----------



Yup, the one we're looking at is Pro Dive! I've heard they're the best 3D/2N liveaboard out of Cairns. What time of year did you go? Did you do the night dives? That's another thing that I'm scared (but maybe excited) for!

I was there in the middle of July this year. As I said previously the dive sites we visited really did not provide challenging conditions for me, but you should make sure you are comfortable with your buoyancy etc. before you go even if you decide to go on a DM led liveaboard.

In terms of the night dive the first one is DM led and the second is optionally led by a DM. IMO the best dive of the trip is the second night dive. Lots of sleeping fish and turtles to see and then we spent the last 10-15 minutes of the dive hanging around under the boat watching grey reef sharks that get attracted to the boat by the lights.

I would fully recommend the company. Very friendly staff, great dive sites, good equipment and boats.

 

[Lorenzoid]

. . .
I hear what you're saying that they go different places, and that the guideless dive op offers the better dive sites. I'd say go with that dive op ... and if you can get a guide or manage to hook up with someone who knows the sites, do so. If it turns out you're expected to dive on your own, do as much research as possible beforehand to learn what to look for ... then swim slowly enough to give yourself a chance to develop that pattern recognition once you're on site.

I'd add to this that if you are a really new diver then "the better dives sites" might largely be lost on you. I mean, if you have nothing to compare them to, then any dive site on the GBR is going to be the best you've ever seen. That's how it was for me. I don't mean to suggest not doing your homework and trying to get on board with a good operation, but don't knock yourself out fretting over making sure you hit the dive sites that all the so-called experienced divers rave about. You could be totally wowed in 20 feet of water and possibly have a better time than if you try to do very challenging dives. It may seem like this is the only opportunity in your life to dive the GBR, but it doesn't have to be that way. You can't see it all, if for no other reason than you haven't yet acquired the ability to appreciate what you see.

p.s. Now that I bothered to read the last post by Bill, I seem to be saying what he did.

 

[terri717]

You could be totally wowed in 20 feet of water...

That is so true! Especially when it's clear and the visibility during our OW was 10 feet at max (looked more like 5), in a greenish colored lake.

 

[Deviance]

I can see wanting a guide to show you the cool stuff. But wanting/needing a DM (which is often different than a guide) to "save your life when things go wrong" or "provide a level of safety" or "increase your chances of survival" or otherwise "supervise" you is really a bit much.

You twisted my word. I said that you are responsible for your own safety, meaning you should be a properly trained scuba diver and you are well prepared to dive, not the dive guide is responsible for your safety. Divers who need someone else (rather they are a Dive Guide, a DM or above) to survive (ie: not die) a dive should not be diving at all.

This is similar to going hiking. In order to have a safe and fun hike, a hiker should be hiking with somebody, brought sufficient provisions (food and water), and are properly equipped (nav aids, communication, clothing). However, if you do got into trouble, the local search and rescue team will come and rescue you. The search and rescue team is for genuine emergency (ex: you are stranded because of a land slide). However, hiker who got themselves into trouble and needed rescue because they are too unprepared and ill equipped is abusing the emergency services.

This is the same with a dive guide. A certified OW diver should be self sufficient both above and underwater. They should be able to control their buoyancy and get from point A to point B trouble free. A diver should not have to rely on a dive guide to control their buoyancy or get from point A to point B.

That any new divers expect this, or recommend that others need this, is really sad.

[shakehead]

News of two dead divers and the live-aboard being subjected to a probe by the local coroner's office is definitely sadder.