Russoft
Contributor
I hope this is the best place to post this story.
While I've been diving since 1998, I haven't done regular diving so my experience is quite limited considering the number of years I've been certified. My wife got certified in 2012 with only a few Discover Scuba courses to show for experience. We have less than 50 dives if we put them together. Since I've started diving more regularly in the past few years, I keep being reminded that a dive shop will happily take your money and then throw you in on the deep end.
In Mexico, we dove a cenote. I explained our current level of experience to the dive shop prior to expressing interest in diving a cenote. I somewhat foolishly assumed that they wouldn't take us on a dive beyond our experience. I found myself swimming through narrow caves in pitch blackness. While I'm sure we were technically not cave diving due to our short distance into the overhead environment, I am pretty sure our divemaster took us far beyond our limits.
That experience should've led me to be a lot more cautious and inquisitive about dive sites prior to doing the dive. It didn't. A year later I was in southeast Africa doing open water dives. I'm not particularly concerned about going a little deeper than 18 meters. It seems divemasters have been taking me below 20 meters since I was certified as a teen. What I found profoundly disturbing about my dives on this trip was that of the three divemasters on the dives with us, not one of them thought it was unacceptably to push our dives into deco.
My wife and I agreed to stay non-deco, which wasn't really a problem since my air consumption was too high for that length of bottom time anyway. After our first "premature" ascent from a dive, we were coached on breathing slowly so we can stay down longer (and go into deco, which is what every recreation diver wants, right?!).
Next dive, everyone was talking about how "we'd probably go into a bit of deco if we see some nice things on the bottom". Again, I called the dive early, because, you know, I'm a recreational diver. We, and most of the other paying customers, sat on the boat for what seemed like a half hour. When our DM finally climbed aboard with a 12 year old diver in tow, they told us the story about how they went into 20 minutes of deco. So our DM took a Junior OW diver into 20 minutes of deco. Wow, this guy is a real gem.
I'd finally figured out that our DMs were a bunch of cowboys when it came to our safety. They were all very experienced divers and didn't for a second consider the experience level of their customers.
At the next dive briefing my first question was "what's the max depth?". The DM was a little wishy-washy with his response "oh, 18 meters... 22 at the deepest". I figure that's okay. When we hit the reef on the next dive, we're at 18 meters. Wow, no one lied. Then I realize we're swimming into the current. Someone dropped us on the wrong end of the reef. So we swim against the current. I watch as my depth gauge drops below 20 meters, then 22, then 24. Who plans a dive with a shallow to deep profile?
I call 50 bar at 25 meters and the DM was so slow to send up the buoy for me to ascend that I almost ran out of air and had to use my wife's octo to avoid depressurizing my cylinder entirely. After that, I wasn't doing any more 'deep' diving and if anyone breathed a word about deco, I'd be staying on shore.
Most of the paying customers banded together and demanded a dive site we all knew was shallow. The DMs relented and we finally got a relaxing and very enjoyable dive. More sunlight was available for photos and enjoying the coral. We all got very long bottom times well over an hour and we all ascended with grins plastered on our faces. Why couldn't that have been ALL the dives?
Dear DMs (and/or dive shop management) Please don't take my money and give me a thrill. If I want a thrill, I can pursue cave diving or ice diving or deep diving. When I'm on holiday, I want to relax. I want long bottom times on pretty reefs. I'm not in the mood for debate and negotiation when I'm on vacation. I don't want to be swindled. If a bunch of seasoned divers want an advanced dive, then don't try to convince me the dive is within my limits just to fill up the boat.
To my fellow low-experience divers: Insist that dives be within your own limits and at your comfort level. Spell out what you want from your dives to the DM. Don't assume that just because a DM is friendly and helpful on dry ground, that they won't push you to do a dive that you are in no way ready for.
While I've been diving since 1998, I haven't done regular diving so my experience is quite limited considering the number of years I've been certified. My wife got certified in 2012 with only a few Discover Scuba courses to show for experience. We have less than 50 dives if we put them together. Since I've started diving more regularly in the past few years, I keep being reminded that a dive shop will happily take your money and then throw you in on the deep end.
In Mexico, we dove a cenote. I explained our current level of experience to the dive shop prior to expressing interest in diving a cenote. I somewhat foolishly assumed that they wouldn't take us on a dive beyond our experience. I found myself swimming through narrow caves in pitch blackness. While I'm sure we were technically not cave diving due to our short distance into the overhead environment, I am pretty sure our divemaster took us far beyond our limits.
That experience should've led me to be a lot more cautious and inquisitive about dive sites prior to doing the dive. It didn't. A year later I was in southeast Africa doing open water dives. I'm not particularly concerned about going a little deeper than 18 meters. It seems divemasters have been taking me below 20 meters since I was certified as a teen. What I found profoundly disturbing about my dives on this trip was that of the three divemasters on the dives with us, not one of them thought it was unacceptably to push our dives into deco.
My wife and I agreed to stay non-deco, which wasn't really a problem since my air consumption was too high for that length of bottom time anyway. After our first "premature" ascent from a dive, we were coached on breathing slowly so we can stay down longer (and go into deco, which is what every recreation diver wants, right?!).
Next dive, everyone was talking about how "we'd probably go into a bit of deco if we see some nice things on the bottom". Again, I called the dive early, because, you know, I'm a recreational diver. We, and most of the other paying customers, sat on the boat for what seemed like a half hour. When our DM finally climbed aboard with a 12 year old diver in tow, they told us the story about how they went into 20 minutes of deco. So our DM took a Junior OW diver into 20 minutes of deco. Wow, this guy is a real gem.
I'd finally figured out that our DMs were a bunch of cowboys when it came to our safety. They were all very experienced divers and didn't for a second consider the experience level of their customers.
At the next dive briefing my first question was "what's the max depth?". The DM was a little wishy-washy with his response "oh, 18 meters... 22 at the deepest". I figure that's okay. When we hit the reef on the next dive, we're at 18 meters. Wow, no one lied. Then I realize we're swimming into the current. Someone dropped us on the wrong end of the reef. So we swim against the current. I watch as my depth gauge drops below 20 meters, then 22, then 24. Who plans a dive with a shallow to deep profile?
I call 50 bar at 25 meters and the DM was so slow to send up the buoy for me to ascend that I almost ran out of air and had to use my wife's octo to avoid depressurizing my cylinder entirely. After that, I wasn't doing any more 'deep' diving and if anyone breathed a word about deco, I'd be staying on shore.
Most of the paying customers banded together and demanded a dive site we all knew was shallow. The DMs relented and we finally got a relaxing and very enjoyable dive. More sunlight was available for photos and enjoying the coral. We all got very long bottom times well over an hour and we all ascended with grins plastered on our faces. Why couldn't that have been ALL the dives?
Dear DMs (and/or dive shop management) Please don't take my money and give me a thrill. If I want a thrill, I can pursue cave diving or ice diving or deep diving. When I'm on holiday, I want to relax. I want long bottom times on pretty reefs. I'm not in the mood for debate and negotiation when I'm on vacation. I don't want to be swindled. If a bunch of seasoned divers want an advanced dive, then don't try to convince me the dive is within my limits just to fill up the boat.
To my fellow low-experience divers: Insist that dives be within your own limits and at your comfort level. Spell out what you want from your dives to the DM. Don't assume that just because a DM is friendly and helpful on dry ground, that they won't push you to do a dive that you are in no way ready for.
Kudos for not being silent about the trust me dives. DMs and Instructors need to listen to their charges and let them set limits. Just say no to 'trust me' dives.
