Resort's " New Normal " Rule - No AIR 2 or diving your long hose

[uncfnp]

With all due respect, this comes across like a MAGA American demanding his liberties to do whatever he wants, damn the consequences.
Some perspective might be useful....

I'm quoting from Post #210, because it is obvious some have missed the post:

"I hope everyone understands that Bonaire (along with Saba and St Eustatius) are closely tied to the Netherlands, and has to operate under European guidelines for things like safety rules of COVID-19. The island also needs to reopen its borders, which requires European/Netherlands approval, so operating under guidelines like those they've published is part of their campaign to be allowed to reopen. Those published guidelines are not some Draconian Buddy Dive attempt to penalize tourists for daring to come to their island; rather, they are an attempt to get approval to have the tourists even be allowed to come to the island. If that approval comes, it will surely be staged...perhaps with those published guidelines in place for a while, then slowly relaxed with experience and data being supportive. When? Who knows. Will they even open this summer? Who knows. But I see the publication of those guidelines as a necessary and welcome first step to reopening."

Have you found similar restrictions for any other dive op operating under the same “requires European/Netherlands approval,” situation? On Bonaire?

 

[oncor23]

It's important to keep in mind that this debate that a policy in effect for a dive resort means one of two things if you're diving:

• You're either at a statistically insignificant risk of covid transmission if you have to share air
• You may be dealing with a diver being asked to respond to an emergency in an equipment configuration that they are not familiar with

Hell, if we go back to the BSAC studies, they preach over and over about the risk of divers using unfamiliar equipment configurations and the risk that brings. The agencies that dictate a singular gear configuration do so for familiarity with equipment, so people aren't trying to figure out something they aren't used to.

Now, long term, that risk could be mitigated by forcing everyone into a standard gear configuration (not that that would ever happen or anyone would ever agree what that is), but if we live in the real world and accept that currently, different people dive differently, and that this is policy is for what is happening NOW, for this policy to make any sense, you would need to be convinced that risk due to covid infection in sharing air is greater than the risk of a diver responding in an unfamiliar gear configuration. Does ANYONE think that is true?

"Statistically" insignificant risk....and you know this, how?

For anyone just showing up at a resort and being told not to donate a long hose, while their secondary is bungeed on their neck...yeah, it's a problem. But once you know what the new rules are, you can choose to either avoid that resort or train for a different method of sharing air.

 

[-JD-]

The issue may not be dive operators making new rules, but governments passing new legislation. This could be the catalyst to encourage more than Malta, Israel and Belize to pass legislation controlling recreational diving.

And .... there goes the neighborhood.

 

[Joneill]

Understood. Do you think any of the other listed equipment is optional?

Yes - wetsuit/drysuit, weights (I don't need any without a wet suit), and compass (don't see a need where I usually dive - except at night).

To me, the wording does not say anything more than what a dive operator provides and maintains - I don't see anything that explicitly states tha a diver must wear a snorkel while scuba diving?

I detest wearing a snorkel - it can gets in the way, can be grabbed by accident when going for your inflator hose, is an entanglement hazard and is a good way to get your mask ripped off or, at least, leak in currents.

It might be useful on the surface in some situations so carrying one stowed or a folded one in a pocket is certainly not a bad thing - but I hate them when actually diving - but, by all means, wear one if you choose.

 

[lexvil]

Understood. Do you think any of the other listed equipment is optional?

It doesn’t imply a requirement, it’s for example. In law “may” implies an example, “shall” implies a requirement.

 

[oncor23]

With all due respect, this comes across like a MAGA American demanding his liberties to do whatever he wants, damn the consequences.
Some perspective might be useful..."

Apparently, you are not up on the latest amendment to the constitution.

#28: Unregulated commerce, being necessary to the economy of a country that values money over life, the right of the people to spread infectious diseases, shall not be infringed.

 

[Snoweman]

Yes - wetsuit/drysuit, weights (I don't need any without a wet suit),

Interesting choice. That's the one line that states "when and if appropriate". The whole regulation is operator centric.

 

[EireDiver606]

The BSAC incident reports don't support your view that divers grap the one in the mouth. The evidence is they do as trained.

So BSAC divers are the best divers in the world and are infallible? Clearly, they have in house BSAC training (no quality control) and are perfectly safe robots who feel no stress in an emergency especially with their superior training.

Regarding the fact that primary donate is used by tech divers, I would add that it is used by just a group of tech divers, following a specific method developed and optimised for cave diving in a specific type of caves, which are not common here in Europe.

Probably very useful and highly optimized for the specific type of diving for which they were developed, but absolutely wrong in different environments or with other types of divers.

I imagine there are more technical divers in Europe than the US who use primary donate as there is more than twice the population and there are more diving environments available as there is a lot more coastline and caves. No, the environments aren't so different that you have to invent a completely different set of protocols and training and rules in order to safely dive there. That's just plain stupid.

 

[saxman242]

"Statistically" insignificant risk....and you know this, how?

It doesn't take much effort to make some very conservative approximations based on death rates of covid (even assuming higher numbers) and reduce for people that are asymptomatic, low risk factor (most people that over in nursing homes aren't active divers), etc. Even if we ignore any cleaning action going on by passing the reg.


Of course, these are just estimates, and only as good as the approximations.

If you'd prefer, we could compare the number of recorded deaths of covid transmitted due to air sharing in an emergency with the number of deaths due to people being unfamiliar with their gear. Something tells me that would tell the exact same story though.

 

[tursiops]

Have you found similar restrictions for any other dive op operating under the same “requires European/Netherlands approval,” situation? On Bonaire?

Someone had to go first...makes sense it is the biggest dog.