True. Conversely, one of the strengths of a publicly accessible forum with a strong membership is that statements are in the public view and subject to challenge. That may not fully counter act the distortions of conventional wisdom, but it offers the option to hear different views and justifications.
Actually, this sort of forum is excellent for helping divers evaluate restaurants, locations, dive ops etc. I have learned a tremendous amount from Scubaboard and value the opinions of frequent posters like KathyV and Rich who have placed thousands of posts and have hundreds or thousands of dives. Collective intelligence is the strength of the internet.
Going a bit of topic and dabbling in some amateur psychology...In an ideal world the above would be true. The 'collective' would result in the best, most up-to-date, and most objective information.
IMO I find that due to the social nature of internet forums, many normal human group behaviour occurs. People are looking for a 'connection', 'acceptance' and common ground when joining a group. So often the strongest voiced opinions, by the 'most respected' group members gets repeated and amplified and becomes the 'truth' for the group. And it often results in people going somewhere or trying something with an opinion already formed by the group information they digested, and they report back basically voicing that pre-formed opinion. It's not only for diving, but I see it in audio, car, and watch forums I have frequented. 'Groupthink' is a strong thing!
A recent 'close to home' example I witnessed and thought was very interesting. The Sunshine Grill has got a very good reputation on SB, and often this gets suggested as a good place to eat. In a recent thread a few people were quite negative about the Holiday Inn restaurant. Whereas the Sunshine Grill manager and a large part of his crew moved over to the Holiday Inn restaurant about a 1,5 year ago and basically started to bring out the same great food. If it wasn't for one poster who's not a regular on the Cayman forum sharing a recent experience, some out of date information would have been rehashed and further strengthened. At that point I'm really curious if (in this example) are people recommending the Sunshine Grill because a lot of people recommended it to them so therefore it is good, or is it actually based on their own (recent) experience and opinion?
I do think internet forums are a great thing to find and share information, and meet like minded people. But just like in any social environment, be critical and open minded on the information being presented to you.
Anyways, enough of the armchair psychology....
I also never understood people swearing the East End is so much better than anywhere else on island to me the BEST diving is South Side where there are no mooring balls and you need to do a drift dive over the edge fantastic topography and virgin diving the drop off seems to start deeper more like 130-140 but that's my opinion
Sounds cool, need to do that one day!
This is part of why folks love East End - but it’s great all over GC.
Sharks are indeed one of the East End attractions, and we saw sharks on both dives.
Different perspectives. I've dove all 4 sides and still prefer East, South and North, to West - at least the part of the West that is dove most heavily. Part of this is related to the number of divers and boats on the west rather than the diving itself. I've been in freaking UW traffic jams there where some DMs didn't even know which divers were from which boat. And a lot of those divers were a mess. I don't remember the dives well anymore, but I remember the fusterclucks. It's been a long time since we've dove that area, maybe it has changed?
My west experience is basically the northern part going out from West Bay dock, so not the dive sites closer to Georgetown and away from the cruise ship diving traffic. Further north along the west side it is not that busy, each boat goes on their own mooring there, and occasionally you can encounter another group but it's not very common in my experience.
What were the names of the sites that you visited?
It was 'Fish tank' and 'Delwin's Delight'. In both cases we headed to the wall and I did 130 and 110 feet dives.
I understand that Babylon is a popular site, and I could see why. Hence I had been wondering if Babylon was a fairly typical or representative example of the East End, or if there is something different or special about it, like the way the Devil's Grotto stands out (at least for me and reportedly for others) among the west end sites.
Haven't been to Babylon yet, but curious to see it as it is a site many people rave about. So I'd like to try more of that side of the island and further refine my view.
Neither been to Eden Rock / Devil's Grotto yet, and very curious to try that out too. It's a site that gets great feedback from various online sources, whereas if I ask my friends living and diving on the island to go there for a dive I get a very 'meh' response to it (except when the silversides are in). Need to form my own opinion!
To clarify, I'm not saying that East diving is not great. IMO I just don't think there is that much difference between the various sides of the island, as popular opinion sometimes makes it out to be. Generalizing, I think the north and east offer somewhat more spectacular topography with the more sheer wall and chance to get a (longer if you're lucky) glimpse of some pelagics. The west for me has more in terms of quantity and variation in marine life, and some more swimthroughs/canyons if that is what you like.
