Check dive scam

[Edward3c]

The first dive I do on any dive trip is a check-out dive.

Went with a club in August and the whole team did a shakedown dive, as I was the "new" diver they paired me with one of their instructors. A gentle 20m poodle along a wall, was I offended, NO.

Two days later I was assessing one of their divers on their ability to lead a dive requiring decompression stops.

Regards

Edward

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

I don't have a problem with a check dive, if it doesn't make me lose a day of good diving and cost anything. And if I am carrying my own gear, (I always have my own gear), why would that be needed?

 

[k374]

I don't particularly have an issue with a check out dive but it should be 5-10 mins, just very basic to check essentials and prior to the first dive of the day. I don't see why it cannot be incorporated as a short 10 min procedure before the entire group starts diving. The way I was presented with the check out dive was - it was a regular 40-45 min dive, 30 Euros or so, the DM would asses skills during the entire time in some shallow uninteresting area so possibly the whole day wasted.

Doing a FULL 45 minute check out dive is fine if it is a dedicated dive trip and you're doing 20 more dives with that op, but say you're traveling to many destinations OR have only a short vacation and incorporating diving for a day or two, then it's unacceptable to spend a day assessing very basic skills like buoyancy control.

Even better, ask the person to sign up for a less challenging but interesting dive and then allow them for more advanced dives and skip the check out dive altogether...that is how it was done in Cozumel when I was there.

 

[scubadada]

I've very rarely been asked to do a check out dive. Occasionally, the requirement has been waived because of ongoing and recent dive experience. This explanation is usually sufficient along with diving all my own equipment with which I'm intimately familiar. I recently dived with Ocean Encounters West in Curacao, an excellent operator, and this was the case. They were perfectly graceful about it.

The required check out in Bonaire does not interfere with diving. An abbreviated briefing 1st thing in the morning for a returning visitior and then a great hour plus dive on Bari Reef with your buddy can hardly be seen as onerous.

I must admit, there are occasional benefits to check out dives. When an operator has the room or boats for multiple groups, I'm grateful when the divers are divided up by experience and skill level.

Overall, I try to contribute to a smooth dive experience for me and all the other divers.

Best, Craig

 

[TSandM]

I have yet to run into anybody who required a check out dive, although I've been places where the first dive was a simple one, just in case. (I've also been to a place where the first dive was a night dive on a 200 foot wall!)

But I do have some funny stories about checkout dives. One involved one of the GUE Cave instructors, who was diving in Australia, and was told that he had to go down and demonstrate fin pivots to be cleared to dive Nitrox. He showed his cave instructor card, but was told that didn't matter. He tried to get the head of his agency on the phone! Nothing availed, but he had to go down and do fin pivots. I understand that, somewhere, there are photos . . .

Another story involves a friend, who arrived (through no fault of his own) at the resort AFTER the check-out dive for the day. He was told he couldn't go diving with the boat in the morning, because he would have to do the checkout dive then. Understandably, he arrived for the checkout a bit irritated, and the instructor told him which skills he was to demonstrate. My friend descended and hovered, perfectly horizontal, in four feet of water, and performed all the skills. The guide gave him the thumb, and then proceeded to tell him he was going to have to do them all over again, because he didn't do them KNEELING!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Or you can use it to impress the hell out of em when you do all skills in midwater and hovering while the so called "checkers" are planted on the bottom on their knees.

That doesn't always impress. In Roatan I was required to do a "checkout" dive that amounted to nothing more than a mask clear and reg recovery demonstration. After doing both skills hovering, I was asked by the DM to do them "properly" ... meaning, while kneeling ... so that he could assure himself that I was weighted adequately ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I don't have a problem with a check dive, if it doesn't make me lose a day of good diving and cost anything. And if I am carrying my own gear, (I always have my own gear), why would that be needed?

The previously-mentioned Roatan check-out dive cost me a day of diving ...

Another story involves a friend, who arrived (through no fault of his own) at the resort AFTER the check-out dive for the day. He was told he couldn't go diving with the boat in the morning, because he would have to do the checkout dive then. Understandably, he arrived for the checkout a bit irritated, and the instructor told him which skills he was to demonstrate. My friend descended and hovered, perfectly horizontal, in four feet of water, and performed all the skills. The guide gave him the thumb, and then proceeded to tell him he was going to have to do them all over again, because he didn't do them KNEELING!

That was me ... what most irritated was that they prevented us from diving the previous day because their own bus was late picking us up at the airport, causing us to miss the "checkout dive" on the day we arrived. So we wasted a precious day of our vacation watching everybody else go out diving.

Then the darn thing turned out to be nothing more than what I do for my OW students on their first day in the pool.

It's a joke ... a bad one at that ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Jim Lapenta]

That doesn't always impress. In Roatan I was required to do a "checkout" dive that amounted to nothing more than a mask clear and reg recovery demonstration. After doing both skills hovering, I was asked by the DM to do them "properly" ... meaning, while kneeling ... so that he could assure himself that I was weighted adequately ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

If he couldn't tell that you were properly weighted by you doing the skills that way it doesn't say much for his level of skill.

And staying with the DM has to mean his idea and mine of what interesting is are the same. Usually it's not. Frogfish? Eh. Big moray? Oh yeah and I can usually spot them myself. I rarely look for specifics on reef dives and have no interest in fighting others to see what the DM is pointing out. I have been known to stare at nothing to get the herd looking in that direction so I can go sneak off and take a pic of something else without getting trampled.

 

[tstormdiver]

The only check out dives I have had to do were in Malaysia, which was just a dive on the resort's house reef. Saw my first octopus in the first few minutes there. The other was in the Galapagos. I can't really see how the dive masters had time to see if all of were profiecient or not, we had a couple divers in our group who kept them quite busy just trying to get them weighted. Niether operation required demonstraion of any skills, beyond basic buoyancy control.

 

[vladimir]

I can't really see how the dive masters had time to see if all of were profiecient or not, we had a couple divers in our group who kept them quite busy just trying to get them weighted.

The check-out dive was conceived to identify those two divers, and they made themselves evident in practically no time at all.