Rude Divers on the Boat

[sheeper]

Sorry to hear of your bad experiences! come visit Florida and dive with our club

I take my students on the boats I take my friends. We're lucky here with many dive boats to choose from.
So I pick my boats carefully. There are 3 (actually 5; one guy owns 3 boats) and they are well run, organized, respectful of their customers and understand that customer service is key. And that Safety is #1.

there are also plenty of dive boats that I do not return to....

 

[AdivingBel]

Retinas grow back...not worth getting upset over. We're all adults here. That snot wad hangin' out your nose probably ain't too pretty either.

As far as the pushing and shoving...well, try to avoid the clusters. If you can, get off the boat quick and go your own way with your buddy. Also, there's no "shot" worth ruining a dive over. If you have to follow a DM (like Coz) you follow the rules and try to give everybody as much room as possible...it's a big ocean. There is also no swimthrough worth ruining a dive or vacation over. Be easy, have fun, be nice. Research your dive ops whenever possible. That's worked for my wife and I. If you get caught in an untenable position, opt for safety underwater, be calm and reasonable on the boat. Odds are the offending diver(s) won't realize what they did and will apologize. If not and they're an A$$, you're not going to change their behavior anyway. You have to decide if you're going to let their a$$h*lishness ruin your trip. Everyone has a different level of what they can put up with. Know yourself and maximize YOUR enjoyment. Nobody is going to remember it tomorrow but you. Have fun & Be safe.

Also, dive A$$es make for great after dive drinking stories...have a good laugh on them...

 

[diver 85]

Most dive knives do cut thru rubber hoses...................but----if that's not your thing, a good (verbal) chewing out back on the boat is what I'd give em.......hell, set em straight as to what you'll 'put up with'----it might do them some good on their next time in the water AND it's not like you're going see them again & lose a great pal outta of it......

 

[Craig66]

I've dived off a lot of boats in a lot of places, and I have never run into the kinds of things you're seeing. I do do quite a bit of research (most of it HERE) on which dive ops to use and which not to -- and I have a huge advantage of belonging to what amounts to an international "club", so I can call out and see if I can arrange some friends on the boat when I'm there. (That's how we did our trip to West Palm Beach in Florida.)

If this is your routine experience, either you are diving in a bad area or you have had the disfortune to choose bad dive ops.

I agree, I have dived for 10 years now with multiple ops and multiple locations and never had this issue. In fact on the contrary, for an activity hobby, I am always struck by the fact that most divers are really nice down to earth people.

Of course there is always going to be that one exception - the load mouth, sometimes foul mouthed individual who tries and sometimes succeeds in annoying most of us on the boat, but for the most part I have not had any of these negative experiences.

Yes, there are probably diveops that lend themselves more to that experience - a cattle boat full of cruise divers in Coz is an example, but even then I am not sure they are going out to be purposefully rude but maybe their lack of experience means they just don't have the awareness of self and position in the water.

 

[mikeycanuk]

Funny the latest edition of Undercurrent (and last month's too) did articles regarding rude/bully divers. It started last month when a women reader was bulled/harassed by an older male, more experienced diver whom the staff basically told her he's been diving so long there was no point in trying to tell him he was a complete tool.

 

[3D diver]

Illustrates why I'm a shore diver.

 

[James R]

Most of the OP's stuff is just being annoyed. Words and babble by blow-hard divers. Whatever.

However, if some dude shoved my lady out of the way like that... There would be severe consequences.

 

[covediver]

I worked on dive boats in SOCAL 30 years ago and saw some of this behavior. Its rare, but just one incident can ruin a day on the water. I have seen a father teach his son to destroy an undersized abalone (back in the days when you could take abalone legally in SOCAL) only to have the kid turn and give me the finger. Fish and Game got them on the dock (wonder how DFG found out?)

I have had people make rude comments about my air consumtion (some of us are gazelles, others are rhinos); moving this biomass through the water is an air-intensive process especially on deeper dives. I decided never to dive with these people a second time. We were both happier, although one of them ended up getting bent later (too long-too deep).

I had a group of divers try to move in on a buddy framing a wolf eel shot so I body checked them, a move learned playing underwater hockey.

I have had people put on their wetsuits in the only head on the boat taking 10 minutes to do so, when the skipper specifically asked them not to do that.

Lots more. You can't go through life worrying about what stupid people think or do.

Good to see things have not changed much over 30 years, scuba snobs abound. But there is that karma thing...

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I think in some cases of nudity the captain or operator needs to set rules. Was the nude lady by chance French?
They seem to not have much of a filter with such things.
They should be informed that nudity and exposure is not allowed and dive cover-ups or towels need to be used. Some guests are sensitive to those cultures, and in the case of a dive boat unlike a burlesque threatre you can't just get up and leave the building. Perhaps middle aged overweight European men wearing banana hammocks need to get a clue too.
In the case of the ******* pushing people out of the way two can play at that game. I'd have shoved him back in self defense quite possibly dislodging his mask. Any unwanted intentional body contact technically describes an assault and possibly a battery, so I would make it very clear back on board that if it happens again there may be legal consequences.
All the other stuff that's harmless but just annoying has to be filtered out or it'll drive you nuts. Like when your trying to get geared up at your designated bench area and someone's standing right in front of you (where their not supposed to be) putting their fins on the deck (which their not supposed to do) and they fall into you or swing around knocking into you with their tank, and not as much as a "sorry". Or some idiot drops their tank onto your gear (in your area) breaking stuff. Or you get back on board and someone's moved into your spot because they like it better regardless that you have all your stuff there already.
Or people who leave crap strewn all over the deck so nobody can walk. Or techie guy with all his crap decides to get on a recreational charter using doubles and holds everyone up and makes it so the third or fourth scheduled dive gets cancelled because they ran out of time, and screwing the rest of the boat out of their last dive that they paid for because of Mr. Cool..

 

[agilis]

Act like you are from New Jersey. My buddy is and does, I'm more of a sarcasm kind of guy.

Actually, I doubt that any of them even know they are being rude, or don't care because they know they are entitled. Being polite to them, from my experience, justifies their position, and actions, in their own mind.

Canadians, being a polite people, are at a disadvantage.

Get more of your friends to go diving with you, outnumber the rudeness.



Bob
------------------------

I'm a Jersey guy, born and bred. Sarcasm and irony are part of our DNA. This is often lost on literal simple-minded provincials, so my usual strategy when I find myself on a boat with crude rustics is to keep my distance. Unless an instabuddy seems properly qualified, I refuse to enter into that kind of connection, invoking my God-given right to semi-solo dive, keeping a few meters removed from the writhing sloppy selfishly pushing head-kicking throng. I make it clear to everyone that I'm not watching over anyone and want no one in my immediate vicinity.

"Just pretend I'm from another boat, observing you all as part of an article I'm writing".