Untrained cave diving in the Dominican Republic

[tomfcrist]

Can anyone verify if this Gramde Claudio feller is an instructor for any of these agencies? I say burn him.

 

[tstormdiver]

I have had several occasions in which students told me that friends who were already certified told them that the only time they would ever use the dive planning skills I was teaching them was in class. In "the real world," the DM makes all those plans, and all you have to do is follow the DM.

Therein lies a major part of the problem. Divers either don't seem to be taught anymore or are to lazy to plan their own dives to keep themselves out of trouble. Its not so much a "real world situation", as it is these divers are either not being educated to plan & execute their own dives,... or simply do not want to take the responsibility of planning & executing their own dives. Its soooo easy to just follow like sheep. No thought given to the who's, what's, when, where's, why's & how's.Just follow the guide where ever he goes. What can possibly go wrong? We have a professional guiding us, he will keep us safe. Those divers are putting their lives in the hands of these guides/ DM's. Though many DM's & guides are excellent & take their responsibilities serious,.... some do not. How do you know which you have the first time you dive with them? Any diver should be trained to the level, to be able to plan & dive at their level, with any diver at the same or higher level. What has happened to being responsible for your own dive & safety? Maybe I'm different,... I stress to my students to plan their own dives (even if it is to follow the guide/ DM) but to dive their own dive, within their level of training, not to just follow Joe Schmo guide/ DM blindly.

 

[WSOPFAN]

It appears they do offer both SSI and PADI. I accepted the earlier statement of another poster in my earlier post.

I spoke with PADI recently about the missing/dead woman who was lost in Cozumel on Santa Rosa wall. I was told PADI is a training agency so if any accidents during training happen then they take the appropriate action. If they were listed in any way as a PADI shop and were failing to live up to those standards that listing may also be in jeopardy. This shop might perform training of several different agencies but they are NOT listed as a PADI shop.

Also from the website:

Diving with Neptuno is diving in the beautiful underwater world of the Caribbean reefs with the quality and security standards of an SSI- Center.

I am not sure what standards SSI expects but I doubt they would consider intentionally endangering divers lives like this would be "quality" service and maybe contacting them might help.

 

[boulderjohn]

Therein lies a major part of the problem. Divers either don't seem to be taught anymore or are to lazy to plan their own dives to keep themselves out of trouble. Its not so much a "real world situation", as it is these divers are either not being educated to plan & execute their own dives,... or simply do not want to take the responsibility of planning & executing their own dives.

I am going to disagree, Tammy. It is, as far as they are concerned, a class instruction v. the real world sort of thing. People forget what they are taught in class because for them the real world really is different from what they were taught.

After my certification, my first 30 or more dives were in Cozumel, where, to the best of my knowledge, I learned how the real world dives. There had never been a DM mentioned in my OW training, but "in the real world" I had a DM on every dive. (I didn't know then that Cozumel requires that by law.) I also learned in Cozumel that "in the real word," the DM sets up your gear for you. Then I went to Florida, where I was the only certified diver on a boat full of snorkelers and a couple of scuba classes. I sat near my tanks and gear for quite some time, waiting for the DM to come along and set it all up. When I finally realized that wasn't going to happen, I hurriedly set my gear up, for the first time in a couple of years. When I realized there was not going to be a DM leading the dive, I was thrown for another loop. This "real world" was different from the real world I had experienced before. What if I had done what many divers do and only dived on my regular vacation to Cozumel or some other site with similar policies?

In a thread a year or two ago, a person mentioned that she was a highly experienced diver, with more than 200 dives over 10 years in a wide variety of locations. Every one of them had been during a cruise vacation. Every one of them had been DM led. If you were a new diving student, and someone said to you, "Listen, I am an experienced diver with over 200 dives in a variety of locations, let me tell you what it's like in the real world so you can forget that crap they teach you in class," wouldn't you be inclined to listen?

 

[tstormdiver]

In a thread a year or two ago, a person mentioned that she was a highly experienced diver, with more than 200 dives over 10 years in a wide variety of locations. Every one of them had been during a cruise vacation. Every one of them had been DM led. If you were a new diving student, and someone said to you, "Listen, I am an experienced diver with over 200 dives in a variety of locations, let me tell you what it's like in the real world so you can forget that crap they teach you in class," wouldn't you be inclined to listen?

Listen,... perhaps,.... I am open minded enough to entrtain ideas, but, Follow blindly into a situation I have been taught or feel is beyond my skill or comfort level,... NO! Absolutely not. I was trained to plan & execute a dive with another diver at or above Open Water at my level of training.

 

[philliplehman]

IMO these kind of "guided" dives are 100% the fault of the irresponsible guides, it is already a blurred line between the safe cavern zone and the full cave zone so to put any blame on unsuspecting OW clients signing up for what thet think is a safe cavern dive and then a gudie takes them into the cave zone without them ever knowing it is absolute non sense.
If anyone has been to a cavern in Mexico or the DR you would notice one common thing, it does not look dangerous at all, in fact quite to the contrary, big beautifully decorated inviting places so unless you are cavern or cave trained and would know the difference i think few if any open water trained divers would spot the difference before exceeding cavern diving limitations, add to that a guide in full cave diving gear leading a dive everyone thinks is safe, how can any blame be on the open water divers? that is absolute nonsense.

The irresponsible dive "guides" all know better yet they choose to ignore every single established safety guideline and take unsuspecting OW divers well beyond the safe cavern zone. These people walk into a PADi or SSI shop and the expect that center adheres to safety guidelines set forth by the diving industry, just like when I fly on a commercial jet I expect they uphold safety guidelines and I trust the pilots to get me to my destination safely.

If an untrained OW diver decides on his or her time to try cave diving with no formal training and gets killed that is stupidity, if a dive shop advertises a safe cavern dive but in fact is taking OW divers into the full cave zone without them even knowing it and gets them killed that is murder.

In Chac Mool 2 weeks ago that is exactly what happened with tragic consequences, it is only a matter of time before it happens again.

The owner of Neptuno Robert told me and I quote "To me the signs mean nothing" and "this is none of your business"

This si all made worse by the fact that supposedly Neptuno offer cave diving training so they know full well they are breaking all established guidelines and also have an extremely dangerous "it wont happen to me" mentality.

We have filled an official complaint against Neptuno Dive Center to PADI, SSI, CMAS and I hope they will at least reprimand the shop and that this will stop they certainly do not listen to us.

 

[AfterDark]

IMO these kind of "guided" dives are 100% the fault of the irresponsible guides, it is already a blurred line between the safe cavern zone and the full cave zone so to put any blame on unsuspecting OW clients signing up for what thet think is a safe cavern dive and then a gudie takes them into the cave zone without them ever knowing it is absolute non sense.
If anyone has been to a cavern in Mexico or the DR you would notice one common thing, it does not look dangerous at all, in fact quite to the contrary, big beautifully decorated inviting places so unless you are cavern or cave trained and would know the difference i think few if any open water trained divers would spot the difference before exceeding cavern diving limitations, add to that a guide in full cave diving gear leading a dive everyone thinks is safe, how can any blame be on the open water divers? that is absolute nonsense.

The irresponsible dive "guides" all know better yet they choose to ignore every single established safety guideline and take unsuspecting OW divers well beyond the safe cavern zone. These people walk into a PADi or SSI shop and the expect that center adheres to safety guidelines set forth by the diving industry, just like when I fly on a commercial jet I expect they uphold safety guidelines and I trust the pilots to get me to my destination safely.

If an untrained OW diver decides on his or her time to try cave diving with no formal training and gets killed that is stupidity, if a dive shop advertises a safe cavern dive but in fact is taking OW divers into the full cave zone without them even knowing it and gets them killed that is murder.

In Chac Mool 2 weeks ago that is exactly what happened with tragic consequences, it is only a matter of time before it happens again.

The owner of Neptuno Robert told me and I quote "To me the signs mean nothing" and "this is none of your business"

This si all made worse by the fact that supposedly Neptuno offer cave diving training so they know full well they are breaking all established guidelines and also have an extremely dangerous "it wont happen to me" mentality.

We have filled an official complaint against Neptuno Dive Center to PADI, SSI, CMAS and I hope they will at least reprimand the shop and that this will stop they certainly do not listen to us.

This is the trouble IMO with the whole training structure as it is today. People are trained just enough to get in trouble, or somebody has to hold their hand and lead them through a dive. The agencies like to talk safety but give the impression that diving is like white water rafting, just do what the guide says. Instead of the technical and potentially dangerous endeavor it is. Diving is more like mountainclimbing it takes training and skill to do it safely. If someone wants a guided tour of the underwater world while on vacation they should take one of the quickie resort courses and be tethered to the surface by surface supplied air and lead around by DM guides. Nobody should be given the impression they are certified to scuba dive until they are trained, not over the weekend but for real. Any properly trained and thinking diver wouldn't follow anyone anywhere where they know they are not trained to go.

 

[Ayisha]

...Any properly trained and thinking diver wouldn't follow anyone anywhere where they know they are not trained to go.

I do agree with you. I'll tell you though what happened to me when I was not yet trained but trying to think. I had done my class and pool and was supposed to do my o/w cert. dives in Varadero, Cuba. The person I was assured that I could train with turned out to be a DM, the nearest current PADI instructor would take 3 days to arrive from another part of Cuba, and the shop took me on a discovery shore dive. The rest of the group went elsewhere to deeper water, and I had an instructor to myself. We went to a max of 25 feet and eventually came to a tunnel. The DG poked his head in and then kept going in further. I thought he must be just looking and will turn around, but he never looked back and disappeared. I waited outside the tunnel, seeing that he barely fit through it. I waited as I thought, I'm not going in there, there's no room to turn around, it's an overhead environment, he'd better come back. I waited and waited and then started to swim around to see if I could see where the tunnel exited, but I didn't see anything. Then I figured I'm here alone but I'm pretty comfortable, either I surface or I look for him first. So I went in the tunnel, which really tested my buoyancy since it was so narrow. I went slowly making myself as small as possible, terrified that I would get cut. I came out the other side into an incredibly beautiful cavern filled with what seemed like thousands of fish and the instructor. No wonder I couldn't see where the tunnel came out. We stayed there for a while since it was so beautiful, and then the other side of it was totally open water.

When faced with a choice to follow the instructor or abort on my own, I made a decision not to go and then changed my mind as the clock ticked on without him coming back for me. I wasn't even certified yet. I have no idea if that's happened to other students/divers, but early on, most of us think that dive leaders are "Dive Gods" who can save us from anything and will often follow them rather than abort on our own. When we gain experience and confidence and see and hear of Instructors making mistakes, then we realize we need to become self-reliant and that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves.

 

[tstormdiver]

this is the trouble imo with the whole training structure as it is today. People are trained just enough to get in trouble, or somebody has to hold their hand and lead them through a dive. The agencies like to talk safety but give the impression that diving is like white water rafting, just do what the guide says. Instead of the technical and potentially dangerous endeavor it is. Diving is more like mountainclimbing it takes training and skill to do it safely. If someone wants a guided tour of the underwater world while on vacation they should take one of the quickie resort courses and be tethered to the surface by surface supplied air and lead around by dm guides. Nobody should be given the impression they are certified to scuba dive until they are trained, not over the weekend but for real. Any properly trained and thinking diver wouldn't follow anyone anywhere where they know they are not trained to go.

amen!!!

 

[AfterDark]

I do agree with you. I'll tell you though what happened to me when I was not yet trained but trying to think. I had done my class and pool and was supposed to do my o/w cert. dives in Varadero, Cuba. The person I was assured that I could train with turned out to be a DM, the nearest current PADI instructor would take 3 days to arrive from another part of Cuba, and the shop took me on a discovery shore dive. The rest of the group went elsewhere to deeper water, and I had an instructor to myself. We went to a max of 25 feet and eventually came to a tunnel. The DG poked his head in and then kept going in further. I thought he must be just looking and will turn around, but he never looked back and disappeared. I waited outside the tunnel, seeing that he barely fit through it. I waited as I thought, I'm not going in there, there's no room to turn around, it's an overhead environment, he'd better come back. I waited and waited and then started to swim around to see if I could see where the tunnel exited, but I didn't see anything. Then I figured I'm here alone but I'm pretty comfortable, either I surface or I look for him first. So I went in the tunnel, which really tested my buoyancy since it was so narrow. I went slowly making myself as small as possible, terrified that I would get cut. I came out the other side into an incredibly beautiful cavern filled with what seemed like thousands of fish and the instructor. No wonder I couldn't see where the tunnel came out. We stayed there for a while since it was so beautiful, and then the other side of it was totally open water.

When faced with a choice to follow the instructor or abort on my own, I made a decision not to go and then changed my mind as the clock ticked on without him coming back for me. I wasn't even certified yet. I have no idea if that's happened to other students/divers, but early on, most of us think that dive leaders are "Dive Gods" who can save us from anything and will often follow them rather than abort on our own. When we gain experience and confidence and see and hear of Instructors making mistakes, then we realize we need to become self-reliant and that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves.

I know what you mean many years ago when I was a 16 year old tadpole I joined a dive club that had among its members several "real" divers Navy divers, UDT, and commerical. These guys were certainly gods to me at the time and yes I would have followed them anywhere, but they'd have none of that. Instead of leading me around they demanded performance and knowledge. They made me plan the dives and "corrected" me when I made mistakes. Believe me when those guys "corrected" you didn't make that mistake again! Those are some of the best diving memories I have. You did the right thing because to leave your "buddy" to a fate unknown would not have been the thing to do, and it did workout lovely didn't it? Another in a long line of lessons I'm sure.