Will DM be a guide or a babysitter?

My apologies for double posting a similar question in this forum, but I realized that in order to get responses, this ought to be it's own thread.

My son and I went out on our first "real" dive two weeks ago, with a friend who's got years of experience. This was dive number 7 for us. It was also our first platform dive. We only asked him to lead us down about half way (40 feet or so), then once we were oriented, he could go do his spearfishing. Well, we didn't even need him to take us down to 40. As soon as we hit the water, we felt confident, so he went about his business. We had a fantastic dive at 80'. I think he's a very good mentor, offering assistance if we need it, but by no means babysitting us.

My son and I are doing a novice dive at the Three Coal Barges site in Pensacola this weekend, off of a walk on dive boat arranged by the LDS. I am paying for a DM, but now I am second guessing this. Will we be in a large group following the DM around, or is he dedicated to just my son and me? We don't need a babysitter, just a guide. I am now wondering if I will be bored having hired a DM on what's called a novice dive, even though we are novices.

If you payed for that DM, he should be dedicated to just you, unless you and a group paid for him, in which case he is dedicated to that group. As far as being bored with a DM on a "Novice dive", I'm not certain what a "Novice dive" is. Either you are qualified, comfortable, and ready for the dive site or you aren't. Regarding your concern about being bored with that DM for this dive, it is a crappy DM that turns a dive into boring... He should be able to determine after a bit of time in the water with you how much help you do or don't need. If this is your first time diving in conditions like this, it is wise to have someone to show you the ropes and help you out. Whether that someone is a paid DM or experienced friend is up to you.

The underwater world is full of wonders to see, but as an inexperienced diver many times you don't know how to look to find all of the underwater wonders........a good DM will not only guide you around the site, but teach you how to find all there is to see.

a dm can be a babysitter, a guide, the person who ties into the wreck & is out of the water by the time you splash, the person who brings the hot drinks after the night dive, the person fixing the marine head...

if you hired a dm for a new place, let him or her know what you'd like them to do. if you hired them and all can agree on a dive plan, wonderful!

On one of my first boat dives (70+ feet) as an OW, the shop in FL required that I pay the $20 for a DM since it was below 60'. He did a good job making me feel at ease and giving me confidence, allowing me to do my shell collecting thing. I hope to soon finish DM and do the same for someone else.

Wjcons: Dives are sometimes classified as Novice, Intermediary or Advanced based upon the degree of difficulty of the dive considering depth, current, etc. Even though the Three Coal Barges site is classed as Novice you will find it considerably different from our offshore platform dives. There are many nooks and crannies to explore and small marine life to look for. Having your own DM he can find for you things like Arrowcrabs, Pederson Shrimp cleaning stations, possibly a Moray hiding in a hole, banded coral shrimp, flamingo tongues and things that you would overlook and pass by. So there are a lot of reasons as a new diver you may want to stay with having him along not as a babysitter but as a tour guide. Hope you have a great dive and post back and let us know how it went.

We took our AOW classes soon after we did our OW classes because we were going into the ocean and diving off a boat, both of which were different environments than the one we trained in. Our thought was that we since we wanted to have an instructor or DM there for the first few dives anyway, we might as well just take classes.

Just a thought.

wjcons:

My son and I went out on our first "real" dive two weeks ago, with a friend who's got years of experience. This was dive number 7 for us. It was also our first platform dive. We only asked him to lead us down about half way (40 feet or so), then once we were oriented, he could go do his spearfishing. Well, we didn't even need him to take us down to 40. As soon as we hit the water, we felt confident, so he went about his business. We had a fantastic dive at 80'. I think he's a very good mentor, offering assistance if we need it, but by no means babysitting us.

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You went to 80ft on your 7th dive? 7th dive is barely out of training for OW (PADI for example has either 4 or 5 dive count for training). You took your son to 80ft w/o training and w/o experienced diver?

I personally only like using a DM as a guide. I have been on dives before with know it all DM's that have just finished their DM with 75 dives under their belt and think they need to give their input on everything. I understand that a good DM can be a great help for new divers and I have had DM's that have guided dives that pointed out things I would've never seen, and I'm a marine biologist. I just feel that these DM's are hard to find. I don't mean to hi-jack the thread but I think that the DM class and the true requirements for a DM are day and night and more emphasis needs to be placed on this. Just because you have completed a DM class doesn't mean you are a true DM.

DM's are like any other profession, there are good ones and bad ones. And like most professional services, both types can make you feel like you wasted your money. A bad DM will do this by not doing much of anything for you, making you think that you could have floundered around on your own and saved some money. A good DM will do this by making things look and seem so easy that you think that you could've done it by yourself. Unfortunately, you won't know for sure until after the fact whether or not you got your money's worth. But, like anything else you're about to spend money on, know what it is you want and expect and then discuss it with the shop.