A few of the standard practices in Palm Beach Diving:
- one or two DM or dive guides in the water, each with a flag/float, each with a group. The Guide or DM is a value added aspect of the dive trip--staying with the guide is done for the assistance on finding or staying on the best parts of the reef. The DM or guide IS NOT there as a babysitter or as a safety measure for diver errors/problems. That is what buddies are for, gerar checks by buddies, etc. If the DM or guide sees a problem, they would help like any other member of any other buddy team. Typically in Palm Beach, a photographer or slower paced diver or 2 in a group, will decide to stay longer than the guide and group want to, at a specific creature encounter or structure. As the drift current is pulling the guide, they will be moving on sooner or later, with the current. If a diver or buddy team chooses to stop and leave the group, that is 100% their right. Most boats do a check to make sure that each person has an smb themself before entering the water. Also...since 99% of the Palm Beach reefs run paralell to the current, the boats know pretty well where all the divers are, within 100 yards or so, even when some leave the flag....there is a drift zone which all but someone determined to swim to shore will be found in ( this happened about 6 months ago--most thought the diver purposely began swimming to shore from minute one...and he succeeed
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- Equipment checks are done on the surface, by buddy teams, not by DM or guides. In Palm Beach, most of us would be pissed if a DM even touched the valve on our scuba tank. Palm Beach does have nice spots for new divers, but it has a very large population of very advanced recreational divers, that would not stand for being "checked" by a DM.
- On a day when the drift current is flowing fairly well, the "norm" is to empty your BC or wing of air prior to jumping in the water. I myself, actually suck the air out of my wing entirely, to be as negative as possible on entry. The proceedure then, is wait just until your buddy is clear of the bubbles on entry, and eye to eye contact is saying GO..and both buddies begin a vertical swim downward at a comfortable pace, to assist the negative drop. Divers with sinus chellenges need to do a modified version of this....and often try to follow the line down towed by another buddy team or guide. At the bottom, you get dead neutral, close to bottom, check on your buddy and group if applicable, then begin dive.
- Many boats have regulars that DO NOT WANT a DM or guide, ever. In these boats, sop is either each buddy team tows their own float flag( common practice), or, each buddy team will be planning on sending up an smb, and each team has strict guidelines on where on the reef they are headed--and NOT to swim the opposite direction of the rest of the teams upcurrent. This tends to be more buddy team or group dependent.
- The Palm Beach charter boats are usually knowing exactly where most divers are at all times, even those without a float, due to the structure of the reef, and the speed of the current--it makes very predictable zones of diver movement within an hour.
- Divers in a group that get low on air early, sometimes signal the guide, but SHOULD SIGNAL THEIR BUDDY that they are going up early. It is not the guide's reponsibility in any event, but it is a buddy responsibility. Whatever the buddies had agreed on prior to the dive, should be followed at this point. The diver at the 10 foot safety stop, is expected/mandated to send up an smb prior to surfacing--it helps prevent being run over by any boat in the area--and lets the charter boat know if they need to force off some private boat headed to close to a diver on a stop
- The boat goes to each diver or group and picks them up.
Regarding the issue of the inflator hose, you often see people that had an inflator begin leaking air into the bc during a dive, disconnect it so that they don't get so positive that they are pulled to the surface. Being able to orally inflate a BC or wing is an incredibly basic skill....Back in the early days, all BC inflation was oral
As to proceedures if you lose your buddy....this is agreed on by the buddy teams. It does not involve the DM or guide, unless a buddy frantically goes over to a dm or guide, and indicates lost buddy and the need for help. Since there are many buddy teams with poor adhesion during a long dive, this creating the "same ocean buddy" expression, there are often buddies getting separated. This is a training agency issue, regarding behaviors of each diver, and peripherol awareness. Where it involves a photographer or videographer, the real issue is that with the focus and attention required by the photograpaher for their subject, they really can't be a real buddy....they "can" be in a 3 man buddy team, as a "dependent" buddy.
If a diver is new or low skilled, and gets on a charter boat in Palm Beach, and wants special assistance on the dive, then they must hire a DM or and Instructor for this. Easy to do, but they have to ask.
And again, a MAJORITY of regular Palm Beach Divers would be pissed if their gear or they were checked out by a dive guide prior to getting in the water. Many of us, have vastly greater experience than any DM or instructor on most boats, and when I say many of us, I am talking about the large number of 10 to 20 year diving veterans that are always out on Palm Beach boats.
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Why? because not only is it an unsafe practice, and it is against the law. If you want to venture off, you should have a flag.
As a boater, I can tell you it is frightening to be cruising at 40 mph to see a diver surface with no flag all to close with his op 3/4 of a mile away.
I used to have a 34 foot Regal commodore......rigged for diving
One thing I noticed, when cruising at 25mph to 30 mph, was that with any wave size much over 1 foot, flags appear out of no-where, and a "typical boater" going this speed will not see a flag in time.
One thing we pay dive charter boats for, is to be patrolling overhead...they patrol the zone we are in--they know that from the main group flag, and estimations of max and min for any diver leaving the group..The dive boat is sporting a huge dive flag, easy for any boat to see at great distance, and the dive boat will intersect the path of any oncoming boats headed for the area of reef the divers are on.
This works incredibly well.....I have been diving Palm Beach Charter boats since the late 70's, and have NEVER had even the slightest problem with OTHER BOATERS , thanks to the work of the dive boat....When I have dived off of beaches, towing a flag, you may be legal, technically, but you know you are a moron as you are doing it, because boats don't see or don't respect the dive flag. It is almost pointless, without a charter boat to enforce it.
Towing a 18 foot bright yellow Kayak or surf ski, with a tall dive flag works great....I don't know if most of the speed boats see or care about the dive flag, but most boaters don't want $2000 or more damage to their props and drives that running over a big kayak would cause--so they veer off
