Safety standards - need your opinion

[notyetafishbutworkingonit]

Hi all,

I’m a long time (and grateful) reader and first time poster to this forum - sorry if I’m in the wrong subforum or don’t follow the posting guidelines properly. I am seeking your advice after a dive I did a couple of days ago, which - at least to me - appeared to have lacked basic safety standards. I want to write my concerns to the dive op (and possibly report it to PADI), but before that, I’m seeking your opinion on whether I may be overreacting to some aspects, or if you agree that safety was lacking, and what your advice would be for me to do (aside from getting smarter and learning how to sit a dive that doesn’t seem properly planned, which I learned now ;-).

Also - apologize if there is any typo or mistake, English is not my primary language.

First maybe a couple of words about me. I’m a typical average diver, with about 150 dives in the last 3 years, mostly in warm water but also in my dear local lake, I am by no standard a very good diver, but my goal is to have one day the trim, propulsion and buoyancy control of a tec diver although I’ll remain on the rec side forever. I do a lot of diving mistakes (and below is one) so at least I learn a lot

I am currently on vacation and I went diving with a small dive op, we were 3 divers and a guide, who is also a PADI instructor. Here is a summary of the things that I believe were not well executed.

• The boat departed to the dive site, at which point nobody had yet cared to check if I was even certified to dive.. So I figured well they may do that at a later point, but no, so before arriving at the dive site I asked the guide if maybe he’d want to check my c card, to which he said, oh sure, if you have them, that’d actually be great… Not sure it would have been checked had I not mentioned anything

• No medical questionnaire was filled. I am allergic to aspirin so I know I should mention it, but nobody would have asked or checked otherwise. I believe aspirin is a quite commonly used medicine in dive accident, right? I feel this is a simple thing to ask beforehand to avoid critical situations

• No boat safety briefing (im not sure there was even oxygen on the boat), no dive briefing (no max depth, bottom time, dive profile, no review of signals, no emergency protocols, I don’t know, to recall divers for example etc) - the only « brief » was « we will dive 60 minutes » and a (so condescending it was actually funny, but that is another story) buddy check with the guide

• There was quite some surface current and waves, also bottom current, overall not the easiest dive, but apart from that quite uneventful, I did a very conservative profile, because I quickly realized that if something was going south, I was pretty much on my own

• The boat had no dive flag, and we were on a submerged coral bommie in the open sea, where some boat traffic could take place, and the dive boat left the dive site to go further away in a more sheltered area while we were diving- this may be ok, I just feel that if something happens and there in an emergency at the surface, you want to have the boat as close as possible - also given the swell I’m not sure the boat could have seen my tiny SMB in a distance - he just told us when we jumped, I’ll pick you up in an hour

• The guide started to dive first with the current, and I thought it would be a drift dive, but no, at half time decided to swim back to our entry point, against the current (which we obviously never managed to do)

• So the boat arrived (after some worrying long minutes of not being in sight), and the guide swam like there was no tomorrow back to the boat, got in, removed his gear and started helping with maneuvering the boat, while the poor three of us were left hanging on to a rope, a good distance from the boat. They wanted to drag us, I objected (the line was already sharp into my hands just with the current and waves), well they dragged us anyways, and I believe my screams made them stop (my palms still hurt a bit, I’ll be fine. Here my concern would be that, if anyone had had an issue at that time, the guide is (or should be) the more able to assist in an emergency, so should have been the last to exit the water. But here, he would have had to gear up again, potentially losing sight of a distressed diver, and losing precious minutes. Also - dragging us on a rope may not have been the best idea, I had to let the rope go (for the sake of my poor hands) and thankfully the captain heard me yelling so he stopped the boat again. Then argued that it was dangerous to pick us up here due to the waves (maybe he shouldn’t have dropped us here in the first place?) but for him the choice seemed to be: have your hands cut and be picked up, or swim back to shore on your own..

• After pulling myself with the rope back to the boat, the advice I was given was: take off your fins first. So, generally, I don’t take off my fins first, because on one of my first dives, I did this, and I fell back in the water, and I realize how useless my feet were to propulse me anywhere (as announced, I make lots of diving mistakes. Now I’d take off weight and BC and keep my fins until I’m safety somewhere on the boat. So I did not listen to the advice. I just feel that the advice was very off, especially with the sea conditions.

• The rental BCDs had only one dump valve, on the deflator hose, on the left shoulder. No right shoulder or bottom valve. I actually don’t know if that’s standard, acceptable or not.

Now I can imagine you will be thinking why did she even do this dive and that I’m stupid for having done so, and I can only agree with you. I have no good excuse or reason for having done that dive and am happy im safely back on land. In hindsight I’ve learned a lot during this dive, and realized that I was trusting an op I did not know and pretty much risked a lot for lack of being more assertive. For the difficult it is to admit, I know I tend to go on trust-me dives, and I’m trying to un-learn that bad habit. I won’t follow someone in a cave or go deeper than planned, but I tend to at least trust the dive site choice and plan - well, that was a good lesson, I will become much more attentive from now on.

In spite of an incident-free dive, I just can’t help but feel worried for the students learning with that instructor.

This long post to come up to these questions for you:

• Are the facts above also something that would be of concern to you too? Do you agree with my analyses of why this could be a safety concern or not, and if not why? What are the most concerning aspects to you, so that I know specifically what to look out for in future trips?
• What should I do next? Writing the op? Padi? Anything else?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Not Yet a Fish

 

[DogDiver]

Just don’t dive with them again. After all, no good deed goes unpunished.

 

[TMHeimer]

Wow, quite a bit going on here.....I'll let others chime in and only say that I can't RECALL filling out any medical forms for charter boats (in Canada, U.S., Panama). Only time I recall this was for taking courses. But I may have just forgotten as it's been a while.

 

[boulderjohn]

This does not seem to be the greatest dive operator in the world, but I thought I would comment on some of your issues.

No medical questionnaire was filled.

Medical questionnaires are usually required only for instruction. I have only had to fill anything out for regular diving a couple times in my life.

After pulling myself with the rope back to the boat, the advice I was given was: take off your fins first. So, generally, I don’t take off my fins first,

Taking fins off first is the way it is done almost everywhere. You usually only keep the fins on with specially-designed ladders.

The boat had no dive flag, and we were on a submerged coral bommie in the open sea,

That is very common in many places in the world.

They wanted to drag us,

Also very common.

The rental BCDs had only one dump valve, on the deflator hose, on the left shoulder. No right shoulder or bottom valve. I actually don’t know if that’s standard, acceptable or not.

Are you sure? Do you have a brand name? BTW, there are no rules regarding this.

(and possibly report it to PADI),

PADI deals almost exclusively with issues regarding instruction. They have next to no power to control an operator running a diving program. There would be nothing they could do with this.

 

[notyetafishbutworkingonit]

Thanks a lot for the input, very interesting to see what are the common practices. Re the medical questionnaire, when I dive in France for example I have to fill it out every time, so I assumed this was a common practice all over, but good to know. Re the BCD, I checked and asked, because I couldn't find the valves, and was told indeed there was only one. I don't recall the brand but this was something I had never seen (not one of the usual brands you find in shops or dive centers)

 

[TMHeimer]

Thanks a lot for the input, very interesting to see what are the common practices. Re the medical questionnaire, when I dive in France for example I have to fill it out every time, so I assumed this was a common practice all over, but good to know. Re the BCD, I checked and asked, because I couldn't find the valves, and was told indeed there was only one. I don't recall the brand but this was something I had never seen (not one of the usual brands you find in shops or dive centers)

I believe I heard that France is one country where there are actual "scuba police" checking that divers don't go below their "recommended" limit. True? Quebec is the only place in N.A. that I know of that requires a govt. permit of sorts to dive.

 

[rongoodman]

Wow, quite a bit going on here.....I'll let others chime in and only say that I can't RECALL filling out any medical forms for charter boats (in Canada, U.S., Panama). Only time I recall this was for taking courses. But I may have just forgotten as it's been a while.

I'll be going to the Red Sea in March and see that the Egyptian government will require a health form to be filled out. Other than for classes, that will be the first time I've ever been asked for one.

 

[notyetafishbutworkingonit]

I believe I heard that France is one country where there are actual "scuba police" checking that divers don't go below their "recommended" limit. True? Quebec is the only place in N.A. that I know of that requires a govt. permit of sorts to dive.

Yes, on several occasions when I've dived in France we've been met by the maritime police while at sea, checking the boat's divers register, with proof of qualification of the dive guide and dive director, material on board, including medication and emergency stuff, number of divers with him/her and their certification, depth and time limit, etc. So while the individual diver would, I guess, not face any issue if diving beyond the recommended limit, the dive guide and dive shop would probably get into trouble for allowing it. I think indeed you need a specific French gov diploma to be able to lead dives and teach in France - you can dive with a only PADI or similar cert, though.

 

[runsongas]

well if their emergency plan was to give aspirin instead of o2, that is another reason not to dive with that operator

 

[lv2dive]

Several people have responded point-by-point so I’m going to answer more in general. I’ll preface my remarks by noting that:
A) you did a great job with your post, I would have never guessed English was a second language
B) Your post was a great use of ScubaBoard. Newer divers have limited experiences by definition - I applaud you for looking for insight from more experienced divers to get some perspective.

None of what you described would prompt me to write off the operation as unsafe. In North America, I do expect oxygen on the boat, but in more third world (and third worldish) countries, I bring my own oxygen if I have any concern that I may need it.

The biggest issue I have out of your entire experience is that your dive guide organized the dive in such a way that you were swimming against the current on your way back. That shows a lack of knowledge and/or experience on his part.

I’ve been on dives where I’ve been towed to calmer waters for a brief period of time - it wasn’t fun but It didn’t cut my hands. It was quite some time ago, so I’m not sure if I was wearing gloves and that is why my experience wasn’t as bad as yours.

Other than those two elements, nothing else concerns me unduly..

I hope you continue enjoy your diving and we look forward to hearing from you !