I was recently on a liveaboard dive trip to a remote area of Indonesia. On this particular boat there were three local dive guides working with nine guests, six of whom were photographers or videographers. We were divided up into groups of three with the three guides rotated every dive amongst the groups. In my group, all three of us were carrying cameras. There was also a European tour leader, putatively supervising the dive staff.
On my first dive with one particular guide, my buddy and I were spending some time with a macro subject which the other diver had already photographed, and by the time we had finished (staying within reasonable proximity of each other), the guide and the other diver were barely visible, just rounding behind the ridge on the far side of the second gully ahead. Fortunately, the visibility was very good, and we were able to catch up and rejoin him and our other group-mate. When we returned to the boat and while everyone was discussing their dives, I mentioned this to one of the other divers, who had experienced the same thing on his dive with this guide, and this diver took the initiative to speak with the tour leader to ask that the guide exercise more situational awareness in regard to the location of the divers he was supposedly leading (the guide spoke only the local language).
My following two dives were with the other guides, so that for our night dive, my group was assigned this particular guide again. In the course of the dive, the guide departed from the dive plan and began to swim into black water. Despite my repeated requests to turn back to the reef, he only signaled to follow him, which the other two did, and since I was not eager to find myself alone on an unfamiliar reef in the dark, I went, too, every so often banging on my tank and trying to get him to turn back. Finally he looked confused, turned around, and went back the way we had come, much to my relief. Since I was at the tail end, I swam ahead, following the dive plan as outlined in the briefing. We were meant to cross over to the back side of the reef until it was time to surface. But low and behold, after we had crossed over to the back side, the guide took off into the black water again. At this point, I signalled to my buddy, and we agreed to ascend. I made our intentions known to the guide, who signalled okay, all four of us swam back to the reef, and we ended the dive. Back on the boat I was furious. I was so furious that I couldn't even talk with the tour leader as I knew I would not be able to explain calmly and reasonably what the problem was. The next day I did talk with the tour leader (in French since his command of English was worse than my French), and I told him that I absolutely would not do any more dives with this guide, whom I considered to be a danger.
For the next couple of days, this guide was assigned only to the other two groups while my group alternated between the remaining two guides. Eventually, the diver who had spoken with the tour leader about how fast the guide had been going approached me and explained that the others felt that it was unfair that they had to put up with the guide I wouldn't dive with, considering that nobody wanted to dive with him at all and the burden should be shared equally amongst everybody. While I didn't agree with this view--my thinking was that everybody else could exercise the same right to refuse to dive with this guide--I thought it over and finally agreed to give him another chance. I was told that it was an easy dive, in daylight, and that the guide couldn't possibly screw it up. He did.
We all dropped in with the usual backward roll from the boat, but since the guide dropped in on the other side of the boat from the rest of us, he descended a couple of meters, and we all met him under water. The surface conditions had a bit of swell, so we entered the water a little distance from the reef, which we couldn't see through the water, but the island was large, and in theory we should have been able to reach it in a minute or 90 seconds of swimming towards it. The guide, however, lost his bearings and swam off at an angle. I was thinking that there must be a ridge underwater that he was aiming at. We all followed. Minutes ticked by... 5 minutes into the dive, and I'm banging on my tank again asking him where the reef was. He just looked at me and kept descending. He made it down to 35 meters on a dive with the maximum planned depths of 20 meters (third dive of the day). I signaled for him to ascend to find the island and then descend to lead us in the correct direction. He signalled "okay" and kept swimming. Finally at the 8-minute mark, after another attempt to get him to ascend to get us headed in the right direction, I ascended myself, took a compass heading, descended, and led the whole group to the reef. We finally made it to the reef at 13 minutes into the dive.
Naturally, back on the boat I was more adamant than ever that I would not do even one more dive with this guide. The tour leader decided to sort the problem out by going along with this guide on every dive, but as he himself was unfamiliar with the dive sites, he would not the lead the dives. This meant that he was asking the divers to do dives conducted by two guides, neither of which was fully competent, in an extremely remote area of the world. I made it clear that I would skip a dive before consenting to any more dives with this guide, and I followed through. I skipped the next dive that he was assigned to lead our group. I want to the beach (and got sunburned) instead. Once more this guide was assigned to our group, and I went down with just my buddy, no guide. Finally this guide was no longer assigned to my group (it was an 11-day trip), and I did every dive from that point on.
I guess the others on the boat concluded that I am a difficult, unfeeling person who doesn't care about making the poor Indonesian dive guide, who, after all, earns very little, lose face. The fact is, though, that I am sorry for the guide--he seems like a nice guy, and he's definitely a good critter spotter when he sets his mind to it, but he quite frankly doesn't have what it takes to be a guide (even his dive skills are lacking, and I saw him break coral with his fin kicks). I simply value my own safety above the consideration of his feelings, and I decided that I'd rather dive alone than dive with a dangerous guide.
On my first dive with one particular guide, my buddy and I were spending some time with a macro subject which the other diver had already photographed, and by the time we had finished (staying within reasonable proximity of each other), the guide and the other diver were barely visible, just rounding behind the ridge on the far side of the second gully ahead. Fortunately, the visibility was very good, and we were able to catch up and rejoin him and our other group-mate. When we returned to the boat and while everyone was discussing their dives, I mentioned this to one of the other divers, who had experienced the same thing on his dive with this guide, and this diver took the initiative to speak with the tour leader to ask that the guide exercise more situational awareness in regard to the location of the divers he was supposedly leading (the guide spoke only the local language).
My following two dives were with the other guides, so that for our night dive, my group was assigned this particular guide again. In the course of the dive, the guide departed from the dive plan and began to swim into black water. Despite my repeated requests to turn back to the reef, he only signaled to follow him, which the other two did, and since I was not eager to find myself alone on an unfamiliar reef in the dark, I went, too, every so often banging on my tank and trying to get him to turn back. Finally he looked confused, turned around, and went back the way we had come, much to my relief. Since I was at the tail end, I swam ahead, following the dive plan as outlined in the briefing. We were meant to cross over to the back side of the reef until it was time to surface. But low and behold, after we had crossed over to the back side, the guide took off into the black water again. At this point, I signalled to my buddy, and we agreed to ascend. I made our intentions known to the guide, who signalled okay, all four of us swam back to the reef, and we ended the dive. Back on the boat I was furious. I was so furious that I couldn't even talk with the tour leader as I knew I would not be able to explain calmly and reasonably what the problem was. The next day I did talk with the tour leader (in French since his command of English was worse than my French), and I told him that I absolutely would not do any more dives with this guide, whom I considered to be a danger.
For the next couple of days, this guide was assigned only to the other two groups while my group alternated between the remaining two guides. Eventually, the diver who had spoken with the tour leader about how fast the guide had been going approached me and explained that the others felt that it was unfair that they had to put up with the guide I wouldn't dive with, considering that nobody wanted to dive with him at all and the burden should be shared equally amongst everybody. While I didn't agree with this view--my thinking was that everybody else could exercise the same right to refuse to dive with this guide--I thought it over and finally agreed to give him another chance. I was told that it was an easy dive, in daylight, and that the guide couldn't possibly screw it up. He did.
We all dropped in with the usual backward roll from the boat, but since the guide dropped in on the other side of the boat from the rest of us, he descended a couple of meters, and we all met him under water. The surface conditions had a bit of swell, so we entered the water a little distance from the reef, which we couldn't see through the water, but the island was large, and in theory we should have been able to reach it in a minute or 90 seconds of swimming towards it. The guide, however, lost his bearings and swam off at an angle. I was thinking that there must be a ridge underwater that he was aiming at. We all followed. Minutes ticked by... 5 minutes into the dive, and I'm banging on my tank again asking him where the reef was. He just looked at me and kept descending. He made it down to 35 meters on a dive with the maximum planned depths of 20 meters (third dive of the day). I signaled for him to ascend to find the island and then descend to lead us in the correct direction. He signalled "okay" and kept swimming. Finally at the 8-minute mark, after another attempt to get him to ascend to get us headed in the right direction, I ascended myself, took a compass heading, descended, and led the whole group to the reef. We finally made it to the reef at 13 minutes into the dive.
Naturally, back on the boat I was more adamant than ever that I would not do even one more dive with this guide. The tour leader decided to sort the problem out by going along with this guide on every dive, but as he himself was unfamiliar with the dive sites, he would not the lead the dives. This meant that he was asking the divers to do dives conducted by two guides, neither of which was fully competent, in an extremely remote area of the world. I made it clear that I would skip a dive before consenting to any more dives with this guide, and I followed through. I skipped the next dive that he was assigned to lead our group. I want to the beach (and got sunburned) instead. Once more this guide was assigned to our group, and I went down with just my buddy, no guide. Finally this guide was no longer assigned to my group (it was an 11-day trip), and I did every dive from that point on.
I guess the others on the boat concluded that I am a difficult, unfeeling person who doesn't care about making the poor Indonesian dive guide, who, after all, earns very little, lose face. The fact is, though, that I am sorry for the guide--he seems like a nice guy, and he's definitely a good critter spotter when he sets his mind to it, but he quite frankly doesn't have what it takes to be a guide (even his dive skills are lacking, and I saw him break coral with his fin kicks). I simply value my own safety above the consideration of his feelings, and I decided that I'd rather dive alone than dive with a dangerous guide.
