What's up with all the Finger Walking?

[Pink_AquaRanger]

Just wondering if this is a common occurrence or not. Recently I've taken my advanced open water and gone on a few guided dives with dive masters and all of them, granted it's only 5 people, couldn't keep neutrally buoyant. They would start descending towards the bottom and have to use their fingers to push them back up. It just seems ridiculous to me that someone who has gone through enough training that they are in charge of other people can't keep from crashing into the bottom of the ocean. So I'm wondering do agencies like PADI not care as much about buoyancy? It seems like a very vital and important part of diving that I can't reasonably understand why I've encountered so many so called high level divers who aren't good at it.

 

[The Chairman]

Just wondering if this is a common occurrence or not. Recently I've taken my advanced open water and gone on a few guided dives with dive masters and all of them, granted it's only 5 people, couldn't keep neutrally buoyant. They would start descending towards the bottom and have to use their fingers to push them back up. It just seems ridiculous to me that someone who has gone through enough training that they are in charge of other people can't keep from crashing into the bottom of the ocean. So I'm wondering do agencies like PADI not care as much about buoyancy? It seems like a very vital and important part of diving that I can't reasonably understand why I've encountered so many so called high level divers who aren't good at it.

It's not just one agency, unfortunately. I believe only three agencies require being neutral through the entire dive as a standard to pass OW. That would be GUE, NASE, and RAID. I might have missed one, but most only require a 60 second hover or such nonsense. And yes, I used alphabetical order to not offend.

 

[Pressurehead]

Just a thought, having been a guide and DM, you often carry extra blocks of lead to pass up to the so called 'trained' divers who don't have a clue what weight they need , and any form of trim is a mystery to them as well.
Try it with 6-to -9lb of extra lead in pockets.

 

[AdivingBel]

Meh...another whine about other divers thread. Pretty soon the soapbox instructor brigade will arrive to justify their existence. How about setting a good example and bettering your own diving and letting other divers work on doing the same. Geez...August must be let's be tedious and pedantic month.

 

[johndiver999]

Maybe they don't care. Maybe they think it is simpler to sink to the bottom, swish some water around their mask and clear, do a 10 second look around, make sure their gear is sorted out, their gauges look right and then pop some air in the inflator and get off the bottom. If it is a sandy spot and it hurts no plants or animals or affects the visibility, I really don't see much of an issue with spending 20 seconds on the bottom.

I do it often myself, if I am being lazy or if I am carrying several things and also have to load a speargun (that takes 1.5 hands) and don't want to risk dropping something and drifting away from it in the current.

Is it a contest or something?

 

[The Chairman]

letting other divers work on doing the same.

I don't think they're working on it.

 

[TMHeimer]

When I was coming to the end of my DMing (2015) PADI was adding stuff to the OW course to address buoyancy.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

“…It just seems ridiculous to me that someone who has gone through enough training that they are in charge of other people can't keep from crashing into the bottom of the ocean…”

And what training would that be exactly?
We’ve been beating this horse to death now for how many years???

 

[Jcp2]

I thought this thread was going to be a complaint about phone books.

 

[living4experiences]

I thought this thread was going to be about finger puppets.