PSA for those doing vacation Guided Boat Dives

Yesterday something happened while I was guiding a dive I feel is important to discuss here on SB, hopefully in a place where many people will see it. I was guiding four divers, two of whom I'd taken diving before, two that were new to me but who dived with the shop all week. As I do when conditions or diver experience dictates I included in my briefing, "We're all going to descend down the line together, we'll need to stay well within eyesight at depth and we're all going to ascend together, again using the line the whole way up."

First dive my two "new-to-me" divers do their best impression of mud-darts and then proceed to take off at a fast swim for parts unseen. Eventually we caught up to them, and I spent the rest of the dive herding cats. This particular buddy team chose to ignore my thumbing the dive and due to one young-lady's NDL I began my ascent (my other dive guide took over watching them).

Due to the first dive on the second dive I re-itered the above brief and talked about safety.

Second dive the same buddy refused to come up when I thumbed the dive, including flashing me impolite gestures. After swimming after them and strongly emphasizing the need to surface they finally did.

Here's the deal guys: If you're paying me to take you diving and I determine the conditions warrant a group dive the fact you have more air, or you needing to get one more picture does not give you the right to blow off a signal to end the dive. It's for your safety. If you think you got ripped off on the dive by all means address it -- but at the surface where we all have plenty of air!

Thanks

Michael

Would be interesting to know a few details about the dives in question.
I know in the land of the "follow me" dives, the guide is God, but in both occasions these 2 sinners had to cut their dives short, just wondering.

A thumbs up means the dive is over, no questions, no hanging around. Do something like those two on a research dive and your scientific diving career just ended.

Kudos to you for being a good guide, sometimes people just don't get it...

Yea really. When the dive is up its up. For all they knew the coast guard could have called to get them to shore for whatever reason. Come up and argue all you want but dont be down there risking others. If you want to dive like that, dive solo.

Ana I think I was pretty clear about the circumstances of this particular dive. I am generally the type of guide who actively encourages diver teams to dive their own profile. These two divers in question had poor skills, were new to the site, and did not have compasses. In cases like that due to liability if you lose people you take diving I keep everyone together. They were great on air, and I am sure they could have eked out another ten to fifteen minutes (for what it's worth on the second dive we'd be down 52 minutes when I thumbed it) and I totally empathize with anyone's right to feel frustrated when they feel a dive is cut short. The place to debate that though is at the surface and not to ignore anyone's signal to abort a dive -- to paraphrase Mr Exely, "Anyone can call any dive at any time without fear of repercussions."

Ana I am sorry you've had less then ideal guided dive experiences, one of my personal points of pride is that I give people as much lee-way as I can -- but I am dive professional and I am always going to ere on the side of conservatism when it comes to safety. If a diver doesn't like that they are welcome to tell me, refuse to dive with me in the future, even give me a nasty Yelp Review, and that is their right -- they still need to follow my instructions while we are diving.

Michael

You were clear about the type of divers these people were, I was wondering about the dives.

I don't disagree with you not being happy about them ignoring your call, heck I would've probably been arrested if I was in your place, and they give me the finger when I tell them is time to go up.

My experiences and/or opinion of guided dives have nothing to do with this, not need to have any feelings for me.

I wondered about the profile of the dives. Now you tell me the 2nd dive lasted almost an hour, thanks that was the type of data I was looking for. When I read the post I wondered if something happened around 15 minutes or so.

And yes, anyone can call a dive, yadah yadah yadah. But I'm sure that dealing with "the public" (which I know better than to attempt) this is not the first time that you dealt with people that are 1- bad divers and 2- don't follow your directions.
So I can see how you are calling out to anyone that has the potential to be in your guided dives in the hopes to get through to them. Good luck with that.

As far as ending a scientific career I wonder how does that scenario comes in play here?

As far as the coast guard calling them to shore, I wasn't thinking on that but sure let's go with that. On that scenario I also would like to know about the details of the dive, because based on the post I only know that the bottom was muddy (hence the mud-darts) but I don't know if it was open salt water from a boat, a whole in ground with fresh water and steps to get in it, or something in between.

Once again just wondering... not judging... just wondering.

It's a good reason why 'group diving' shouldn't happen.

Buddy system provides more control for the supervisor/leader and provides more flexibility for diving pairs to actually plan and conduct their own dives within a larger support framework.

If you don't trust the divers' to be safe on the dive - then don't take them on the dive. If the *&%$ did hit the fan, you couldn't deal with all of them anyway... so it's a false presumption to think that you are 'keeping them safe'.

Mud-Dart is a term I stole from Shadow Divers and in this case I was referring to the fact that on the first dive (30m bottom, ocean wreck dive) despite my entreaties to descend slowly using the line these two decided to fully deflate at the surface and drop as fast as they could to the bottom and then figure out their trim.

You seem to be quite dismissive of the idea that anyone can and should thumb a dive when they feel it necessary. From looking at your posts on the "thumb a dive thread" I have the impression that your goal on a dive you've paid for is to dive regardless of how that will effect others around you. That isn't an attitude that is conducive to being a good buddy.

Michael

Devon, you must have posted as I was typing. You have good points, this was a far less then ideal situation. FWIW I do think a group of four is manageable, although I'd agree not across all possible situations. These are the first two I've had in a while who just sucked at diving, and perhaps I was too complacent. Ah well, learning experience for me.

Michael

divermike1011:

Mud-Dart is a term I stole from Shadow Divers and in this case I was referring to the fact that on the first dive (30m bottom, ocean wreck dive) despite my entreaties to descend slowly using the line these two decided to fully deflate at the surface and drop as fast as they could to the bottom and then figure out their trim.

You seem to be quite dismissive of the idea that anyone can and should thumb a dive when they feel it necessary. From looking at your posts on the "thumb a dive thread" I have the impression that your goal on a dive you've paid for is to dive regardless of how that will effect others around you. That isn't an attitude that is conducive to being a good buddy.

Michael

Click to expand...

thanks for the additional data. 30m bottom ocean wreck.. got it. Actually not getting it that much, because if they mud-darted to 30 meters and stayed there for about 52 minutes that is a bit more that regular NDL for air, but getting info about the dives is becoming too much work.

You are correct about me being dismissive about anyone else's dive. I do not claim to care, and I don't buddy dive, if I'm forced to dive with someone when on work trips I make sure to let the insta-buddy know that I'm useless for them.

Hey I'm sorry I hijacked your thread. Shame on me for wanting to know details about the dives in question.

To all divers out there, when your guide tells you to go up, don't give him/her attitude, just go up, your guide may know something you don't.