Rescue Diver, Thanks to the forum/thoughts and what next?

[Sas]

Sas, seems to me you're drawing your conclusion of groups of three divers being unsafe based on a very unlikely scenario that two of the divers from the same group will have the immediate OOA situation at the same time. The chances of this happening are very small. What might happen more often though is one diver running out of air and then you have a buddy and a DM to help you out. This makes diving in a group of three safer than being with DM alone. It's always better to have more redundancies than not to have them - regardless of the divers training levels. In case your buddy has no clue how to react when you're in trouble - you can always bail yourself out using their air supply.

I am not basing it on two OOAs only, please reread my posts where I included some examples of my own problems with diving with instabuddies in groups of three. I was basing it on the extra problems associated with having to watch two new buddies, when you are not sure of how they dive. I gave a few examples of problems I have faced. I agree that if you know the two other divers well and have dived with them, a three person team can be great due to extra redundancy.

From your posts I gather you are not yet a confident diver. I would definitely recommend some additional training for you as well. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you wish to discuss how dives should be organized and guided - you should get some experience doing so first.

I am a confident diver for the types of dives I do myself. I would not be confident diving outside my abilities and training however, i.e. a dive to 47m without redundancy and relying on a DM to lead me around. I would also not be confident to rely totally on other people for bailing out if something should go wrong. I have dived with a DM rarely, 3-5 times and not since about dive 20 (can't remember exactly), but have dived with many instabuddies, so I do have an idea of how dives go with instabuddies and have had a number of problems with diving with unfamiliar people. The conditions locally are often not favourable for diving, so there are extra problems that one must deal with when diving with instabuddies... this is probably why I am much more fussy about who I dive with. As far as organsing dives, I have organised groups and new divers to go on dives with so I do have experience in that area actually. I stick to shallower dives when I do not know the person, and I avoid going on deep dives with an unfamiliar buddy. I do dive in groups of three with two regular buddies and it is great when one of us has the camera as we dive with photographer in front, and two of us behind. This has never gone well with a tag-a-long buddy though...

Please don't dismiss DMs in general by looking at the number of dives they logged. Sure, your skepticism is completely justified with a number of DMs out there, but surely not all of them are bad. And 60 logged dives? Well, that's the worldwide PADI standard requirement for getting the DM badge. It's not only in Thailand, it's just the same in Australia.

I am not dismissing, I am just surprised that people would be comfortable making a career out of something, and having to be responsible for other divers, when they themselves are incredibly inexperienced. Some of course, would be fine, I just find it surprising at hearing that many DMs only have that many dives. However, I don't dive with DMs anyway these days as they are rare in my area. I know many people with around 60 dives and do not think any of them would be up to looking after a group of other divers.

Dives logged during the DM internship are often quite different from dives logged by a rec diver on guided dives. You do get experience and necessary training to guide the dives competently. So in those terms 10 logged dives guiding may be well worth more than 100 dives following someone around the dive site.

I know a few DM candidates. One of which surfaces every 20mins, waits 5mins, then descends again to rack up his dive total. I suspect that seeing this kind of behaviour biases me against DMs with few dives.

 

[mislav]

I am not basing it on two OOAs only, please reread my posts where I included some examples of my own problems with diving with instabuddies in groups of three. I was basing it on the extra problems associated with having to watch two new buddies, when you are not sure of how they dive. I gave a few examples of problems I have faced. I agree that if you know the two other divers well and have dived with them, a three person team can be great due to extra redundancy.

For any kind of a situation it is much more common that only one diver will have the problem than two simultaneously. I'm trying to get a message across to you that there's no way that diving in a group of three can be more dangerous than diving in a group of two. You keep coming up with this "two divers with instant problems" scenarios. And you're main argument is that now DM had troubles deciding who to help first? Well, at least there was someone there to help. Imagine a group of two divers alone in the water in a same scenario. And no one's there to help. Makes no sense to me to call this a safer way. And please, run any scenario that you come up with through this filter first - what would happen to your scenario if there were only two divers present when emergency occurs...

I am a confident diver for the types of dives I do myself. I would not be confident diving outside my abilities and training however, i.e. a dive to 47m without redundancy and relying on a DM to lead me around. I would also not be confident to rely totally on other people for bailing out if something should go wrong. I have dived with a DM rarely, 3-5 times and not since about dive 20 (can't remember exactly), but have dived with many instabuddies, so I do have an idea of how dives go with instabuddies and have had a number of problems with diving with unfamiliar people. The conditions locally are often not favourable for diving, so there are extra problems that one must deal with when diving with instabuddies... this is probably why I am much more fussy about who I dive with.

And that's exactly my point. I see no way of you discussing the matter with any merit in a field you have no experience of or even worse - where your experience is plagued with a history of problems. There are people who dive with instabuddies every day (myself included) and we often come up with solutions to the problems you have experienced or even more often - we prevent them before happening. How can you be so vocal about something you have very low understanding of is beyond me.

As far as organsing dives, I have organised groups and new divers to go on dives with so I do have experience in that area actually. I stick to shallower dives when I do not know the person, and I avoid going on deep dives with an unfamiliar buddy. I do dive in groups of three with two regular buddies and it is great when one of us has the camera as we dive with photographer in front, and two of us behind. This has never gone well with a tag-a-long buddy though...
I do not blame a tag-a-long buddy here, I do blame the organizer. Anyone can organize a dive in perfect conditions with well trained divers. But, as you have experienced yourself - the real world is not at all about that.

And again, organizing was one part of the issue and the other was guiding. So we have one thing you are not making a good job of and the other you have no experience at and you are so vocal about these matters? I don't get it.

I am not dismissing, I am just surprised that people would be comfortable making a career out of something, and having to be responsible for other divers, when they themselves are incredibly inexperienced. Some of course, would be fine, I just find it surprising at hearing that many DMs only have that many dives. However, I don't dive with DMs anyway these days as they are rare in my area. I know many people with around 60 dives and do not think any of them would be up to looking after a group of other divers.

One more time - 10 dives logged during the DM training might be worth more than 100 dives being guided blindly over a coral reef. There are a lot more competent DMs out there than there are incompetent ones. I wouldn't call DMs with only 60 logged dives incompetent based only on the number of dives they made.

I know a few DM candidates. One of which surfaces every 20mins, waits 5mins, then descends again to rack up his dive total. I suspect that seeing this kind of behaviour biases me against DMs with few dives.

So there you go - you are biased. It's your right to be biased and I have no problems with this. I agree to disagree. I do have a problem with you spoonfeeding your opinions to others while at the same time it is quite clear from your posts that you don't have the necessary experience to make a decent argument on this matter.

Apologies if I sounded too harsh, it wasn't my intent. With more training and experience, I'm sure you will be seeing things through different goggles. Then we might continue this discussion.

For me, this one ends right here.

Enjoy your dives.

 

[Sas]

Mislav, I am not going to address the commends towards me on someone else's public thread, as this is getting completely off topic.

On the issue of groups of three this was an interesting thread I felt:
Diving Triples? - The Dive Matrix Forums

Was thinking of posting it as a seperate thread but I am sure there are a few around here on the topic already. If I find them I will post them.

edit: rephrase to sound less harsh

 

[nereas]

Well sorry....
I have Nitrox
I stay in Thailand
I have approx. 60 dives, approx 10 over 30 meter and 1 at 47 meter
Former extreme sport guy (no that does not make me taking more risk, that makes me super carefully, thinking ahead of possible problems, but luckily there is not much in normal diving)
Technical education. Reading the gas laws to refresh my knowledge for fun.

I look for a bit of a challenge, but don't want to do something very dangerous, that behind me......

Here are the really cool classes:

OW1
AOW
Rescue
Nitrox (all the above finished now, n'est pas?)

Divemaster

Decompression

Instructor

Trimix

 

[nereas]

I am not basing it on two OOAs only, please reread my posts where I included some examples of my own problems with diving with instabuddies in groups of three. I was basing it on the extra problems associated with having to watch two new buddies, when you are not sure of how they dive. I gave a few examples of problems I have faced. I agree that if you know the two other divers well and have dived with them, a three person team can be great due to extra redundancy.



I am a confident diver for the types of dives I do myself. I would not be confident diving outside my abilities and training however, i.e. a dive to 47m without redundancy and relying on a DM to lead me around. I would also not be confident to rely totally on other people for bailing out if something should go wrong. I have dived with a DM rarely, 3-5 times and not since about dive 20 (can't remember exactly), but have dived with many instabuddies, so I do have an idea of how dives go with instabuddies and have had a number of problems with diving with unfamiliar people. The conditions locally are often not favourable for diving, so there are extra problems that one must deal with when diving with instabuddies... this is probably why I am much more fussy about who I dive with. As far as organsing dives, I have organised groups and new divers to go on dives with so I do have experience in that area actually. I stick to shallower dives when I do not know the person, and I avoid going on deep dives with an unfamiliar buddy. I do dive in groups of three with two regular buddies and it is great when one of us has the camera as we dive with photographer in front, and two of us behind. This has never gone well with a tag-a-long buddy though...



I am not dismissing, I am just surprised that people would be comfortable making a career out of something, and having to be responsible for other divers, when they themselves are incredibly inexperienced. Some of course, would be fine, I just find it surprising at hearing that many DMs only have that many dives. However, I don't dive with DMs anyway these days as they are rare in my area. I know many people with around 60 dives and do not think any of them would be up to looking after a group of other divers.



I know a few DM candidates. One of which surfaces every 20mins, waits 5mins, then descends again to rack up his dive total. I suspect that seeing this kind of behaviour biases me against DMs with few dives.

Auzzie women rock!

 

[h90]

Sas, seems to me you're drawing your conclusion of groups of three divers being unsafe based on a very unlikely scenario that two of the divers from the same group will have the immediate OOA situation at the same time. The chances of this happening are very small. What might happen more often though is one diver running out of air and then you have a buddy and a DM to help you out. This makes diving in a group of three safer than being with DM alone. It's always better to have more redundancies than not to have them - regardless of the divers training levels. In case your buddy has no clue how to react when you're in trouble - you can always bail yourself out using their air supply.

From your posts I gather you are not yet a confident diver. I would definitely recommend some additional training for you as well. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you wish to discuss how dives should be organized and guided - you should get some experience doing so first.

Please don't dismiss DMs in general by looking at the number of dives they logged. Sure, your skepticism is completely justified with a number of DMs out there, but surely not all of them are bad.

And 60 logged dives? Well, that's the worldwide PADI standard requirement for getting the DM badge. It's not only in Thailand, it's just the same in Australia.

Dives logged during the DM internship are often quite different from dives logged by a rec diver on guided dives. You do get experience and necessary training to guide the dives competently. So in those terms 10 logged dives guiding may be well worth more than 100 dives following someone around the dive site.

well I am pretty confident within my limits but more training can't be wrong.
60 logged dives and everyone know that every 5 min dive is a logged dive (don't want to speak about some illegal practice). Yes like everywhere it depends on the people. A 60 dives with learning something every dive might be great.
60 dives with drinking every night, just taking the tanks in the boat and swim with group the same 2 places day per day might be nothing.....

Thailand has both....