What Responsibilities do Dive Operation Have?

[SDAnderson]

Scuba, I agree with your last sentence: It's about being proactive as opposed to reactive. Hopefully, divers will learn that it's their necks on the line and that being proactive is the best way to avoid all sorts of confusion and trouble. This is a dangerous and extreme sport - no matter how you may wish otherwise - and if you aren't willing to assume the responsibility for your own safety, you're likely going to be hurt.

Your first paragraph indicates that you are hearing the answer to your question, the second that the answer hasn't yet soaked in. Sorry that those dive professionals aren't giving you the answer that you want to hear, hopefully you will come to grips with the reality before you get hurt. Obviously, it would be better if EVERYONE was more responsible and proactive, but this is the real world and it just doesn't always work that way. Until it does, please dive defensively. I think a good rule of thumb might be to expect more of yourself than you do those around you and to NEVER assume that anyone has your six.

All of the attention and supervision that I keep hearing some expect is usually available, it does require a willingness to pay for a private dive master to serve as both sherpa and dive guide. We're talking in circles in this thread and I'm going to suggest that we change the basic parameters of the conversation: instead of arguing about what is, why not switch the conversation to what we would like for it to be? Tell us what you think are reasonable expectations for professional conduct for charters and dive masters, how you would like to see them implemented and how you’re going to pay for them. Remember – details count, you’re drawing up a contract for services. You probably won’t be able to afford me but assume a reasonable rate for professional labor, something like a minimum of $50 an hour, plus expenses.

 

[Scuba]

reefraff,

Thank you for your concerns about my safety. I assure you, as someone who dives solo as well as with buddies who sometimes may be of unknown quality, I solely depend on myself for my safety. I fully agree that all divers must take responsibility for theirs.

You say I heard the right answer: dive professionals are not responsible regarding issues discussed here. Well, the reason it hasn't soaked in is because I find it inconceivable that such pros are licensed to perform certain duties which affect divers safety, yet, have no standards whatsoever to uphold or care of due diligence in the performance of such duties conferred by the license. I hope you never find yourself explaining such before a judge. I can just imagine the shock when he explains that dive professionals have certain responsibilities for the tasks they perform as all other professions. Even though you guys really, really, try hard to get out of it with your predive release of responsibility contracts. Maybe divers going on a guided dive charter need to take an attorney instead of a dive buddy. LOL

In my last post, as well as others, you will find suggestions for reasonable expectations from dive pros - that are being paid for. A totally pointless proposition from your position. Regardless, they don't include hand holding, thank you anyways. If you are going to insert yourself into dive matters by providing a service and making decisions, you can not escape responsibility of due diligence. You seem quite capable of understanding this concept as relates to individual divers. May I suggest some thought from a different perspective, but you must first dry out the one you're soaked in, or it doesn't work.

I think we are being played by the "pro's" to indulge their fantasies. I hope someone crawls out from under the covers and steps up and explains what exactly dive pro's have been trained in, and are licensed for as relates to the matter at hand. I have never seen such fear of accountability and finger pointing across the board as is being displayed here. Although I understand it.

As we spin round and round.

 

[erichK]

reefraff,

I think we are being played by the "pro's" to indulge their fantasies. I hope someone crawls out from under the covers and steps up and explains what exactly dive pro's have been trained in, and are licensed for as relates to the matter at hand. I have never seen such fear of accountability and finger pointing across the board as is being displayed here. Although I understand it.

As we spin round and round.

Happily, most of the divemasters and operators we have dealt with did not to exploit the legal immunity that the drastic waivers of responsibility they compell customers to sign give them. I particularly remember the quiet care that operations like Dominica's Nature Island Dive and Cuba's El Colony hotel exercised. Nature Island preceeded a week of diving with an informal but searching chat, and both made the first dive a fairly easy, but closely observed one.

I've dived, off and on, for almost 40 years, with periods periods of intense activity and long gaps. This includes effectively solo, effectively night dives quite deep in such unlovely places like Lake Ontario in the TO area, the murky Muskoka Lakes, Quarries, etc. with no one around to supervise, long before BC's and computers. The fact that I *can* dive deep, dark, cold and and keep my effectively without any help or guidance does not make me *want* to do this. And I certainly don'e want my loved ones to have to, when we've spent a small fortune to participate what are usually portrayed as a pleasure dives. Waivers to dive the Andrea Doria, or even the Empress of Ireland are one thing. The degree to which an operator should be able to absolve him or herself from responsibility for a recreational dive by tourists is quite another.

If greater care and dilligence for other than the bottom line are not exercised--that is some real concern that customers have a safe and enjoyable experience--and if our industry does not do more to set real standards to insure same, then regulation will surely come, and it will be drastic, based on the fears of insurance company lawyers and government bureaucrats, rather than divers.

 

[SDAnderson]

Translation:

I know how to do this but I want you to be responsible for any failure on my part to do so safely. You make me sign a contract that squarely places the responsibility for my actions on my shoulders and I REALLY don't like that, so I'm going to advocate the use of state powers to force you to be responsible for my safety - to act the way I want you to.​

I suspect you're correct - short of coercion, there is no resolution to our disagreement, so I'm moving on. Dive safe. Please. Hopefully not on any boat I'm on. :11:

 

[H2Andy]

reefraff, what are you doing to that pitbull???

 

[SDAnderson]

reefraff, what are you doing to that pitbull???

Expiating his sins?

 

[Mel.B]

You Know

I'm for a DM of somesort going down and checking out the conditions and if possible running a line to the wreck first.

I doubt this is fesible though.

Chris

I haven't read all the replies so I don't know if this has been commented upon.

I don't normally dive with a DM. Only a handful of my 100+ dives have been with a DM and that's when I was overseas. However we were recently interstate on a dive trip and one of the dives planned was a wreck dive that has only been dived by about 200 people since it was discovered. It is known for bad currents and is very weather prone. When we got to the site, it took probably 45min to actually find the wreck and anchor. A bouy was thrown out to help judge the current (I don't know the technical term), but if the bouy went under water then we were aware there was a bit of current. Anyway, then the most experienced diver in our group (also an instructor), jumped in with a scooter to go down and make sure the anchor was near the wreck. We were all to wait until he had assessed this and surfaced to tell us. When he surfaced, he called the dive, stating that he was fighting the current with the scooter and that viz was about 2m. Clearly this is a situation where it was beneficial to have someone go down first and assess the conditions, but it is the only dive I have been on where it has happened.

I think that if it is a specific dive charter operation, then they have the responsibility to give you a dive brief which includes what the conditions are like (or expected to be like), such as an estimate of how strong the current is and which way it is running. If I'm out on my mates boat diving though, I take full responsibility for myself, judging the conditions and deciding if I'm going in or not. I've said no to dives before because I thought they were out of my league and I've said no to dives because I didn't like the conditions. Ultimately if you don't dive that day, you will get to dive another day, but if you do something totally out of your depth then you might not.

Mel

 

[erichK]

The problem is that there is a *big* difference between calling a dive or even a series of dives in Tobermory, a few hours drive away from home and finding our that dives one has spent thousands to book and travelled halfway around the world to complete are very different from what the pretty brochures/websites suggest.

Its also a copout to simply say that "diving is a dangerous sport", so people deserve whatever they get. It was when I started, back in 60's. Scuba was *then* an extreme sport and the training rigorous, almost military. However, that's certainly not the way diving is usually sold and taught nowadays. Now, a very broad range of divers, from juveniles and seniors to people with major physical challenges are being certified, mostly in much shorter, much less rigorous courses.

With such a range of potential clients, it is only reasonable to expect dive operations to provide some clear information about the difficulty of the dives they are offering, and also to make some effort to match sites to divers. Of course divers should do all the research they can, but there are often many dive sites in a region, and conditions can change radically. When we dove with Nature Island Dive in the Souffriere Bay area of Dominica, they on more than one occasion decided not to go to a site because the surf and surge that day would be too strong. Small as they are, they are clearly a much better operation than the big one metioned at the start of this thread. The total information given suggests that they should have cancelled the dive, and that whoever was really in charge was more concerned about filling boats and collecting fees than the safety and comfort of *customers*.

We've also run into operators that who were always in a hurry, and even trying to do two or three things at once. That is unsafe no matter what one is doing, and we won't use them again. There's always the chance they'll get so busy that they'll forget we're in the water!

 

[Mel.B]

The problem is that there is a *big* difference between calling a dive or even a series of dives in Tobermory, a few hours drive away from home and finding our that dives one has spent thousands to book and travelled halfway around the world to do are very different from what the pretty brochures/websites suggest. Wouldn't you be a little more reluctant to call a dive?

I actually refused to do a dive in the Solomon's island while i was there on a dive trip as I thought it was above my training level. 60 - 70m on air with a single tank with a pony was not my idea of fun, even though everyone else on the trip did the dive and the previous dives had been as a lead up to that dive. Granted, I knew about the dive before I went, but I still made the decision not to do it and I'm happy with that decision. I think if you are planning a dive trip you need to talk directly to the operators and people who have been there to discover exactly what type of diving it is and what the conditions are like.

I agree with you that if the conditions are 'unsafe' then the boat operators should move to another location. This happens quite regularly with the charter company I dive with, but sadly it appears that not all operators are this safety conscious.

Mel

 

[simonlid]

I really thought this thread was so funny. Come on, the certificate only shows that you have learnt the ability to train by your self.

It is so funny how you Americans talk about suing people or the operator.

Now lets think about a driving licence, lets say you take a flight to another town or even country you go to the Avis counter at the airport, they check your driving licence make sure that you know the laws and regulations by giving you the small folder that they usually do. They give you directions on how to drive to the place were you would like to go. In the folder you find the speed limit; now guess what you get into the car and it is raining heavily or it is foggy. You decide to drive at 60mph on the highway because that is the law, you smash into another car.

Now would you consider suing or even blaming Avis because they allowed you to rent a car?

Or would you blame the government that issued the driving licence?

Or would you sue or blame the state or country because they put 60mph on the traffic signs?

It is exactly the same about diving; the certificate only gives you the ability to dive by yourself; you have to make the judgement if you would like to dive in the conditions that you find at the dive site or you if you should abort the dive.

Now of course the diving operator could do a bad or good job when explaining the conditions that you will dive in. But in the end it is you that have to make the final decision if you should dive or not.

I have unfortunately done some dives that I shouldn’t have done, everything turned out ok for me but it was other divers that stayed on the boat due to the conditions. Looking back I should have done the same. I do not blame the operator for letting me into the water; it was my own decision the DM’s explained the problems that we might encounter maybe they did not point out every possibility but in the end it was my decision to get into the water.

//Simon