The Rule of Fun: what do you do when you aren't having any?

[Bierstadt]

Not just that. Enough people telling a diver they have no business being in the water, the diver just says screw it, quits, and sells off their equipment.

I cannot even imagine a diver telling another diver they have no business diving. Who does that???

 

[AZNetEng]

Not just that. Enough people telling a diver they have no business being in the water, the diver just says screw it, quits, and sells off their equipment.

@Marie13 are you seeing this happen from fellow divers, instructors, or a mix?

I hate the thought of someone being told that and that they give up diving.

Even if you see someone you feel is very unsafe there is a better way to deal with that than to tell them they have no business being in the water.

 

[kelemvor]

The idea of a buddy thumbing a dive because they were bored does lend weight to the need for a solo class... wow that would be frustrating. Even a local dive for me is going to be north of $100. Probably closer to $200 when it's really all added up.

 

[Steve_C]

1. Have see a number of SB posts of the form "if you do or think x then you have no business being in the water"

2. I think that the lack of a definition of "fun" accounts for half the posts in this thread. To some challenging is fun. To some practice is fun. Some classes were not fun but they were rewarding and I liked what I got out of them. To some fun is all gee wiz or tee hee. Etc etc. Personally being evaluated is not fun, and doing skills in a class is evaluation in my mind but I still take classes that are related to interests of mine when I can find them.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Fun is a relative term. Less than 2% of my dives have been aborted because I wasn't enjoying them. No vis, surge or lack of marine life are the usual reasons I abort dives. I've only had fun during 5% of my dives. This usually involves finding something new or having a great encounter with marine life. The other 93% of my dives are spent looking for subjects and attempting to get a good photo of them. This is mostly frustrating but I wouldn't call it not having fun. It's just diving.

Some divers have fun making dives I don't consider fun. I hate drift diving with a passion. I will never dive places like Cozumel again. I enjoy night diving but don't do it much because it's hard to read my spg at night. It takes two hands to hold my camera. Adding a light in the mix lessens my enjoyment. I guess I'm just no fun to be around.

 

[Steve_C]

Stop

Couple times I have hired a private DM and in spite of my go slow and look discussion ahead of time, they are hot to trot to find me the famous X and we are pushing it on a mission. I simply stop and look around a bit until they come back to me. It usually only takes a couple times for them to get the message that if I miss X because I wasted some time checking out what is under some kelp that I am happy and that is what counts in this situation.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Fun is a relative term. Less than 2% of my dives have been aborted because I wasn't enjoying them. No vis, surge or lack of marine life are the usual reasons I abort dives. I've only had fun during 5% of my dives. This usually involves finding something new or having a great encounter with marine life. The other 93% of my dives are spent looking for subjects and attempting to get a good photo of them. This is mostly frustrating but I wouldn't call it not having fun. It's just diving.

Okay, I log a lot of info, but I can't say I have a Fun-o-Meter in my logbook.

 

[The Chairman]

Enough people telling a diver they have no business being in the water, the diver just says screw it, quits, and sells off their equipment.

Or they learn from it. I get criticized every day, and I evaluate every single criticism to see if I need to change something. Quite often, I find something worthwhile. I try to never be defensive about it.

IMO it sounds like you are not simply talking about 'fun'

Perceptive. Unsafe dives are rarely fun but are characterized by "white knuckles" from trying to hold it together!

Personally, I have rarely thought any of my dive training was fun at the time I was doing it.

There were a couple of times in my training that made me cry. I'm not much of a crier, but it's obvious to me in retrospect that they were doing it wrong. Fun makes my students pay attention which means I can concentrate on content and skills rather than trying to get their attention. Fun is at the core of the Fundamentals of Diving!

 

[The Chairman]

1. Have see a number of SB posts of the form "if you do or think x then you have no business being in the water"

I've seen a few, but those people are usually put in their place by other divers.

 

[Marie13]

Nm