Stop Banging - Diving is supposed to be fun

[sabbath999]

I have very little experience with this (only eight dives where people were being guided... we were doing AOW in 5 of them so we were off doing our thing with our instructor) but I could see very quickly that it would get EXTREMELY annoying to me to have to follow a DM around like a puppy on a leash... Mercifully there was no banging in our group, but another operator had a DM banging away like he was Neil Peart in a drum solo... I swear if the guy could, he would have dove triples so he could have gotten three different tones.

The DM with the others from our boat were running them all over the place to see the landscape, blowing through their gas in 30 minutes or so (which may have been the point, I don't know)...

When we were free of our AOW we told the operator that we just wanted to go do our own thing, which was take pictures (me) and explore the corals (her)... she stayed right with me as a buddy and while I was shooting she was keeping an eye on me (and me her every 30 seconds or less) and the critters... she spotted one of the two frog fish I saw on the last dive which I got a good shot of (well, I think it is pretty good for a totally inexperienced underwater photographer with a point & shoot and only a built in flash)... here is the pre-photoshopped version (I have yet to fix it to make it look right)...

One of the things I am going to be asking operators (and their customers via the internet) about is how much they herd people around... I didn't get into diving to be a sheep to be herded by a DM)

 

[ScubaSteve]

....to be a sheep....

I am with you

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

I am with you

Be careful you don't get fleeced by an unscrupulous operator.

 

[ONESPEED]

I avoid any diver with an underwater noisemaker like the plague. The second I see a tank banger I know I don't want to dive with that

If you have good buddy skills you don't need horns, tank bangers or underwater maracas.

 

[diver 85]

You need to scratch those you mentioned off your next dive trip possibility....

 

[wreckchick]

Sadly, the tank banging is somewhat a fact of group diving. I try not to bang unless I need to get someone's attention for some reason and they just aren't cooperating when I try and catch their eye which is my preferred method.

Most people want to see lobbies and turtles and rays buried in the sand and if I know that the group will miss it if I don't attract them somehow, then I have to bang. If everyone is wandering off and we've agreed to a group dive, then I have to bang.

I apologize for the banging on behalf of my brethren but, speaking for myself, it's a necessary evil.

Rachel

 

[Garrobo]

TSnM: Yep, you've got enough dives and probably good enough eyesight to be attracted to the miniatures. Recently a DM tried to show me a little crab that couldn't have been over half inch in diameter. I couldn't see it to save my a**. Finally he got it on to his finger. Whoop-dee-doo! He was really proud of himself and talked about it for a good ten minutes during the SI. I've never been able to see what all the excitement was about. My first dive partner, a lady instructor down in Ft. Lauderdale was a photo bug who only wanted to take pictures of itsy-bitsy, teensie-weensie little fishies. She tried to point them out to me and wrote down their names but I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Gimmee a big ol' shark or ray any time. Oh well, to each his/her own.

 

[mikemill]

And here I thought that everyone wanted to bang underwater....

 

[Teamcasa]

This issue is always solved before I dive with any operation.
OTOH, I do understand why some many DM's are so strict. The majority of their clients are vacation divers, many have not dived in years and that requires the DM to act accordingly.

I'm sure they have heard all before, "I'm a very good diver with 100's of dives." As the DM watches them put their wetsuit on backwards.

I talk it over beforehand. Let them observe my skills in the beginning of the dive. Once they see I really can dive, they leave me and my buddy alone or peacefully follow behind us.

Communication and demonstration solves the problem. Failing that, I book with a different operation.

 

[TSandM]

Honestly, dive guides in a lot of places can find and point out well-camouflaged animals I would never otherwise see. And in clear, sunlit water, how ARE they going to get my attention to let me know they have something fabulous? I hate noisemakers, but fail to see any really effective substitute for them, for the guide. For my buddy, if I've gotten far enough away, and am paying so little attention, that they have to make a noise to get me to look at them, they should take a tank banger to ME during SI.