SlugLife
Contributor
I agreed with your earlier post. It's nothing personal against the OP, it's really the shop's fault. OP is a relatively new, but highly enthusiastic diver, and I don't fault him for wanting to go far quickly.You mention diving with a new DM and being okay with it when they do not have much experience. Was that when you had 100 dives, 200, 300, more? I have less than 20. I do not believe it would be the same situation for me as it is for you. I am sure it is okay when you have a lot of experience. It is not okay when you do not and you are paying for the DM having that experience. How can I count on a DM to help if they do not have the experience? I understand why he wants to be a DM. If he is going to be a good DM, then I expect him to understand why I am not comfortable diving with him.
However, as a customer, there are always questions around whether you're getting what you think you're paying for. Dive shops who hire instructors, DMs, or guides .... essentially people in roles where they may need to look out for the safety and wellbeing of other divers, needs to ensure those divers have adequate training and experience for that role. This includes being able to provide a good customer experience, but also the ability to handle a scenario like a newbie diver who screws up due to limited training or experience.
If I was running a dive-business, the bare-minimum I'd expect is every diver to be trained/cert in Rescue. However, that must also have current/active knowledge of what to do in common Rescue scenarios. Of course a shop can always offer that training to an employee or potential employee for free or at a significantly reduced rate.
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With all of that out of the way, a little "secret" of the dive-industry is that you, the diver, should always act as if you are the #1 person responsible for your own safety at all times. Sure, the dive-shop may be liable from a legal sense. Sure, there are buddy-diving standards (which buddies often ignore). However, if you do want to be safe, the only person who can really ensure that is you.
Two inexperienced or bad buddy divers may be able to help each other out in an emergency, or may be a liability to each other. Imagine two dive-buddies who don't monitor their air, and run out at about the same time. Alternatively, one diver runs out of air, panics, air-shares, but in a panicked state burns through the other divers air at an absurd rate. A lot of experienced divers dive as if they're solo, but may also have a dive-buddy hazard.
I'm not trying to make anyone nervous, or think they have to attend a solo-diving course and buy a pony-bottle tomorrow. However, the idea that you are ready and equipped to handle common emergencies by yourself, might turn a lot of what would be emergencies into mere annoyances. Most divers should be safe if they follow their open-water training, but you can always improve that level of safety.