To All The Fast Divers!

[Firebrand]

Yeah, how about when you're hunting for shark teeth in Venice Beach with PERFECT conditions (No waves, inbound current, and 12+ feet of vis), you're the first one in the water, and then some inconsiderate diver descends down YOUR dive flag line, lands his fins about 18 inches from your mask, then procedes to flutter kick the hell out the bottom and stirs up vis to nothing!!! IT'S THE GULF OF MEXICO!!! It's plenty big enough to share, don't ruin the vis!!!

 

[bruehlt]

Yeah, how about when you're hunting for shark teeth in Venice Beach with PERFECT conditions (No waves, inbound current, and 12+ feet of vis), you're the first one in the water, and then some inconsiderate diver descends down YOUR dive flag line, lands his fins about 18 inches from your mask, then procedes to flutter kick the hell out the bottom and stirs up vis to nothing!!! IT'S THE GULF OF MEXICO!!! It's plenty big enough to share, don't ruin the vis!!!

Ouch - that sucks....*******s!

 

[Charlie99]

I just came back from a dive today, and the unpleasant experience of diving in a group with one diver who felt the need for speed! This certain diver would PLUMET to depth, stir up lots of silt and then with their "split fins" rocketed along a line. The whole time they did not look over their shoulder to check their own buddy...my buddy and I were looking out for theirs!

Several times, we lost speedy in the silt, on aborting the dive several we floated at the surface a waiting for rocket fins to figure out we were gone...it took them a while to realise we had gone. They'd come up, we'd go back down, and they'd shoot off@!.

Hopefully, in addition to complaining here, you had a heart-to-heart talk with the offending diver.

I've found an effective method of communicating the problem is to spurt up far enough to catch and hold their fin while the rest of the group catches up. Motion "slow down". After the second or third time, I use hand signals to change the lead to the slowest diver. If there is any communication problem, then I write it out on wetnotes. I have never had to go beyond that point, but if there was still a problem it's time to abort.

Interestingly, both times I've had to hunt down a fast diver multiple times, and then exchange the lead, I was in a group of 3 with an established husband/wife buddy team. Most guys (and it has always been men that are "runaway divers") figure it out after the first time I grab their fin and motion slow down.

 

[DavidPT40]

I went diving in a large quarry with a friend of mine and a guy who was a fast diver. The first time he zoomed off, we surfaced and caught up with him. The second and third time, we just let him go.

 

[Jeff Toorish]

Little by little

I've noticed that the dives where I spend a lot of time examining a small section of a wreck are FAR more memorable than the dives where I attempt to examine the entire thing..

So true!