I had to stop watching

[Scuba-74]

There's never ever a good reason to kneel, sit or lie on the bottom. No, not even when spear fishing. At least, not for me. I've got a rep to protect!

How about when you need to drag a larger bug (with claws) from under a rock, and both your arms are in the hole all the way to the shoulders?

 

[The Chairman]

How about when you need to drag a larger bug (with claws) from under a rock, and both your arms are in the hole all the way to the shoulders?

Sigh. You can always find reasons to hit the bottom if that's what you want to do or just don't care. I've stopped trying to muscle bugs out of rocks and now use a snare because it's gentler on the bug and the environment.

Diving, even hunting while diving is all about limits. One of my limits is to never ever touch the bottom. We make choices that will affect how we dive as well as how we hunt. I have lots of friends who simply don't seem to care when they're on the hunt. I'm not one of those. You might be way OK with it and that's your choice. It's not mine although it used to be. The more I dive, the less impact I want to leave on the reef and I try to impart this same "leave no trace" mentality to my students. It's been years since I've harvested anything from the ocean other than sharks teeth. No, I don't lie on the bottom for that either. For the most part, it's take only pictures and leave only bubbles. I'm not going to condemn you for diving differently than I do, but I'm not going to start flopping all over the place to help you feel better about your decisions. There was nothing done in that video that couldn't have been done mid-water.

 

[The Chairman]

Caveat... divers often marvel how I dive almost exclusively in a Bathing suit and t-shirt. Not paying attention to your surroundings should be painful. If I get too close to the bottom then I'm going to get hit with fire coral or other hydroids. It's a choice I make that forces me to be careful.

 

[Joneill]

Thanks for the feedback. Only dove Caribbean once in Mexico years ago. There were a couple of morons on the boat who had consumed alcohol prior to getting on the boat but nothing like the total idotic behavior and lack of training I saw in that video. I was considering booking a trip to Bonnaire with the local LDS but will go to their Lake Erie trip instead. I figure hard to expose your ass to everyone else when in dry suit temps. Thanks for the feedback. If this is common practice I have no interest in diving in the Caribbean again.

It’s not common practice in my experience - I have yet to see anything like that in my admittedly short diving history (a large group of divers with bad technique kneeling on the bottom and silting up at 130 feet). There is some good diving in the Carribean, so don’t let 1 video sour you on it.

 

[doctormike]

There was nothing done in that video that couldn't have been done mid-water.

I think that's the larger and better point. Those guys weren't hunting lobster or welding pipe. Pete, I understand your position, but like most generalizations, it doesn't always reflect reality.

I'm a photographer, and sometimes to get a macro shot or a certain angle for a wide angle shot, I'll get negative and lie on the bottom. And I'll use the pull and glide technique or stabilize myself with a handhold on a steel wrecks in current. I know that some divers use reef hooks. And if we aren't hot dropping a wreck and there is no mooring ball, we tie in.

Yes, technically any time you touch the bottom you might kill some small creature, but I think that we have to be careful about where that line of reasoning goes. The impact on marine ecosystems of a diver kneeling on the sand is far less than that of a diver with perfect buoyancy who eats a standard western diet, including commercially harvested fish and meat produced by factory farms. Or of a diver who takes a an airplane trip or two to Truk Lagoon. Or for that matter, of a diver who decides to have a child. If you really have a zero tolerance approach to your environmental impact, then you just won't dive at all. At some point, we all draw a line and say that somewhere between never-touch perfect buoyancy and dynamite fishing is where we are comfortable.

Everything we do has an environmental impact. You are right to stress good buoyancy skills, and I agree that there is no need to dive like the divers in that video. But I would be careful about shaming divers who dive in different environments with different dive missions with sweeping generalizations.

 

[Joneill]

Wrecks are more interesting to some of us than pretty fishies and coral. I’ll take frigid any day. Viz isn’t necessarily going to be cruddy.

176 cold(er) water dives with no plans for hitting warm and/or salt water anytime soon.

Your choice - but there are also plenty of great wrecks in warm water with tons of marine life, corals and incredible visibility. It’s not a one or the other situation - you can have it all if desired. But do what you enjoy!

 

[Storker]

I would be careful about shaming divers who dive in different environments with different dive missions with sweeping generalizations.

But life is so much simpler if you can just say "this is how my world is and what's right here, so therefore it must be right for everyone else in the world, no matter how their world differs from mine". Nuance and perspective is hard.

 

[ofg-1]

I thought this was a discussion of basic SCUBA. Now, in my sorted youth, you could get "basic scuba" certified with 3 open water dives. "Open Water" was 5 dives. And Sam, you are older than me, and there was no such thing as a B.C. when I took my classes in 1967, some of the classes at that time looked like bottom dredging. You look at these people that may have as little as 5 training dives, and bitch and moan about them. Some of you are condescending arseholes.

Is there technique good? NO. Could they do better? YES. Do they need more training and experience? Yes. Would they benefit from good mentoring? Yes. Do they need a good public shaming on Scubaboard? If you answered yes, please see the last sentence of the previous paragraph.

 

[Scuba-74]

I'm not going to condemn you for diving differently than I do, but I'm not going to start flopping all over the place to help you feel better about your decisions.

I don't need you to do anything to help me feel better about my decisions, I'm perfectly fine with them I merely responded to your sweeping "NEVER EVER a good reason" generalization with an example of a perfectly fine reason to kneel on the rock or the sand. At least for me, and quite a few others I know.

As far as your personal opinion on the snares being gentler on the bug than hands, let's just say that snares are not allowed here in New England.

 

[johndiver999]

The most troublesome issues I see in the video is the women who is steadily loosing her tank, but nobody is paying attention. She was obviously way out of her comfort zone, simply by the fact that she is clutching the computer and watching the information is taking up 90% of her band width.

If the tank popped out and pulled the reg from her mouth there would have almost certainly been a life threatening panic attack. That was more concerning to me than needlessly kicking up silt and trying to bury the computer in the sand in order to record the maximum depth possible.