Never Again will I be unprepared!

[beaverdivers]

You alone are responsible for your safety. Not the DM. The DM did his job. He found stuff for you all to kill and knew where to direct the recovery efforts had you screwed up.

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This incident is criminal!

Both the boat captain & the DM would have been thrown in jail, if they had lost you.

Why?

Because they were absolutely negligent. Period!

[beaverdivers]

You and your nephew are both certified divers, right? As such, you ought to be competent to do a descent, dive, and ascent as a buddy pair. This will require a depth measuring device, and a timer. If you agreed to go into the water without that minimum equipment, then really, what complaint do you have of the dive op or DM?

The complaint is a major one.

The dive op, boat captain and DM were in criminal violation due to the fact they put divers' lifes in jeopardy!

They were completely negligent. They placed a new diver in a life threatening situation and location.

They should not have been up North at that dive site.

Even if the divers would have had the appropriate gear, it would not help them as they floated to Cuba!

OK! You heard it from me.

Proper gear is a different issue.

( Yes, you should each have dive computers and proper functioning gear )

[Islandheart]

Hank,
Thanks for having the guts to post your experience here. You're already showing you're becoming a better and more responsible diver.

I don't want to rehash comments others have made. I hope others reading this will see their own short comings in their diving and make changes because you've shared your story.

Take some refresher training to help reinforce safe diving and make sure your nephew does the same.

Last word, Most and I repeat Most rental equipment is sadly poorly maintained and of lower level quality.

If it's less than it should be, Don't bet your life on it. Go sit on the beach and dive another day.

[Hank Shackleford]

Thanks to all of the advice I received here I went out and bought a complete set up for each of the 3 divers in my family. We all have new gear top to bottom. Rather than buy it on the Internet where I am certain I could have saved some money I bought it all from a local dive shop.

A note about shopping with local specialty scuba retailers. They do not like to make deals. Hence some do not move a lot of merchandise opting instead to get as close to the full retail as they can. I have been a retailer owner for 30 years so I know their reasons for doing so. But with equally good equipment available online at far lower prices I am hoping that if after the sale service becomes an issue that I made the right decision. But it took some long and friendly back and forth haggling before we struck a deal I was happy with. I will always recommend trying the local dealer out first but remembering the Internet has some decent dealers now too but they can't deliver personal service or give you a place to drop by just for the heck of it.

This year will see us take no less than three dive trips. We leave in a week for a Spring Break trip to the Keys, then Hawaii and then a summer trip back to Cozumel. This time we will have all the equipment we should need including a big fat orange inflatable tube, and a watch!

[Low]

[ThreadJack] Just to Jack this thread a bit...

Proper gear is a different issue.

( Yes, you should each have dive computers and proper functioning gear )

This point Speaks loads to me... If you don't have everything you need to be safe; why put your life at risk?

Thanks to all of the advice I received here I went out and bought a complete set up for each of the 3 divers in my family. We all have new gear top to bottom.

There is no gear like your gear. Having your own gear means: you take better care of it, you know it's inner working and it's quorks, If something goes wrong you better know how to deal with it. Other then the bottom line cost of each piece, why on earth would someone not have their own gear on a dive? It just seems to be safer IMO.
[/Threadjack]

[Bubbletrubble]

There is no gear like your gear. Having your own gear means: you take better care of it, you know it's inner working and it's quorks, If something goes wrong you better know how to deal with it. Other then the bottom line cost of each piece, why on earth would someone not have their own gear on a dive? It just seems to be safer IMO.

The vast majority of divers who own their dive gear have no idea how things work inside a regulator...much less know how to troubleshoot any tank/reg issues beyond replacing the yoke valve o-ring. The only thing that makes it more likely that "owned" gear functions properly (vs. rental gear) is the amount of wear-and-tear to which the gear is subjected. As long as the owner performs post-dive rinsing and stores the gear appropriately, professional annual or biennial reg servicing will catch most reg problems before the owner even notices them. On the other hand, rental gear that is used often by inexperienced divers (who don't know how to rinse gear properly) might require professional servicing every few months.

Rental gear can be perfectly safe. The problem is that people don't know how to do comprehensive functional tests on regs and BCDs before they take possession of the gear. The gear that I've rented both locally in San Diego and while on vacation has been in very good condition. That being said, I would never use any gear (personally-owned/rented/borrowed) that was not functioning properly.

[Pelagicsal]

[ThreadJack] Just to Jack this thread a bit...

... Other then the bottom line cost of each piece, why on earth would someone not have their own gear on a dive? It just seems to be safer IMO.
[/Threadjack]

Ummmm.... Because my checked bag was held hostage by the airlines. Because the airline sent my checked bag home on a flight I got bumped from...
Once, gear was borrowed from shop owner. Another, rental gear that was new - not sure if it'd even been wet before.

[Chris at Silent World]

I want to thank everyone who responded. From the title of the original post to the end on the post I took full responsibility for the dive. How I forgot a simple dive watch can be attributed to my lack of experience despite having dove over the last 25 years. When you are in the water more often than I am the pre-dive check list may seem second nature but in my case I simply overlooked a fundamental basic. Even though the DM timed our previous safety stops my brain didn't click on this very basic AND CHEAP item until the DM wasn't there.

What we did after this dive hasn't been discussed. First, I asked for and received a Dive Computer for our subsequent dives. Next, I asked for and received a Dive Briefing from the DM prior to our next dive for both me as well as my nephew. For my nephew's benefit (I was already kicking myself over my mistakes) I asked the DM to go over everything he felt that we did right, everything either of us did wrong and everything each of us needed to improve upon.

We were a group of four divers, the other two divers were our travel companions. There were no other divers on our boat the day we went spear fishing on the north end of Cozumel. What would I want from the DM in this circumstance in the future? I'd want him to leave his spear gun in the boat and pay closer attention to the divers. I cannot defend my mistakes, I made them, I own them, I am thankful I didn't cost anyone else to have to pay for them.

One post stated what a DM's job wasn't (babysitting). I thought I would grab a few key items from PADI's website on what someone would learn if they took the DM course;

Leadership Skills
Organize
Solve Problems
Help Others Improve
Supervise
Guide
Teach

Our DM did those things and more. Did the dive shop let us down? Yes. How? The DS loaded all the equipment on the boat in a large pile. Not until you reach the dive site were we provided our equipment. On one trip out the equipment missing was a snorkel. How hard is it to set up four divers? Who is at fault here? Still me. What will I be doing about it? Taking my nephew diving again but this time we will bring every item of our own, take it to the boat ourselves in the morning, take it off the boat at the end of the dive, clean it, inspect it and haul it to our room until the morning when we will start all over again. Plus, to make it easier I will have a new laminated checklist attached to my BC.

My post is a cautionary post, though I have many years of experience I am still a recreational diver and expecting the next DM or DS to live up to those I have experienced in the past is foolhardy at best.

I would like to thank each poster, each of your comments are respected and in most cases have caused me to add your comments and suggestions to my thought process. I would also like to thank ScubaBoard.com for providing this website as I will utilize it to become a better recreational diver.

You have a great attitude and will therefore be fine as you progress through your dive career. I wouldnt listen to the nonsense about getting bent or not knowing your surface interval or repetitive dive times etc, etc. You were at MAX 40' for 40 mins right? Anyone who knows anything about decompression will be laughing at those comments

Its always easy for people to criticize what happened in the ocean when they were not there. I wont comment on the DM because its often very subjective as to exactly how in control of a dive a DM or instructor is and your perception of it may not be in line with others, however at face value it seems that you could have been looked after a bit better. Especially as you were apparently on an advanced site (however conditions could have been great on the day)

The important thing is that you learned fast and have made adjustments and will avoid those situations again.

[Ben Prusinski]

I have two dive computers. My first dive computer was a Suunto D4 that I picked up last year while learning to dive. I have my Atomic Cobalt as primary now so this works along with a backup SPG in case the Atomic Cobalt fails since the Cobalt has air pressure monitor and want to make sure I don't lose track of air consumption. One thing I learned this weekend was to do pool sessions when you buy new gear. Especially a new BCD or regulator to make sure all the new gear works.