When we visited Italy in July, 2009, we couldn't resist taking at least one day to dive. After all, we thought, it may be our only opportunity to dive the Mediterranean. The site was off the Amalfi Coast near Positano. The operator was the Nettuno Dive Center (PADI certified).
We arrived on time, showed the girl working the front desk our 'C' cards, and took care of the bill. She pointed toward the equipment area and told us in broken English to find the divemaster who would supply us our rental gear.
When the divemaster threw (literally) me my rental wetsuit, I should have abandoned the dive right then and there. It was a 5 mil 2 piece that looked like the last diver who wore it was eaten by a shark. It was completely shredded, with pieces and parts hanging off of it. I zipped it up only to find that the zipper was barely attached to the suit thereby exposing me to the cold sea.
When the divemaster threw (literally) me my weight belt, it should have been my 2nd warning. I was never asked how much I weigh or how much weight I needed.
When we arrived at the dive site, Karen (my buddy) sank like a stone and I floated like an over-inflated beach ball. Karen, a newly certified diver, remembering her training, inflated her b/c and smartly abandoned the dive.
Despite this 3rd warning, I soldiered on.
When the divemaster started randomly pulling lead weights out of the other diver's belts (after our decent to about 40 feet) and stuffing them into my belt as well as into the pockets of my BC, that was my 4th warning.
I'm starting to feel stupid now.
The 5th warning came when, at 91 feet, my regulator began to malfunction (it felt like I was sipping air out of a cocktail straw) and I had to reach for my secondary air source. I caught the divemaster's attention and gave the 'something's wrong' hand signal while pointing to my primary air source.
What do you think happened next?
The divemaster became visibly angry at me. At 90 feet, he grabbed me by the front of my b/c and proceeded to do a complete gear switch with me - tank, regulator, b/c, etc.
Did he know I had anything beyond a basic o/w certification? No, he never looked at my 'C' card. Fortunately, I'm a PADI Rescue Diver who is 3/4 finished with Divermaster and this was something I'd done at least a half dozen times. But I could just as easily have been a nervous, newly certified diver with no idea how to do an underwater gear swap!
After that, we finally started toward the surface. When we passed 15 feet and no safety stop was called for, I tried to get the divemaster's attention. Either he was ignoring me or didn't see me. I started wondering if I'd be spending the rest of the vacation in an Italian hyperbaric chamber. My computer logged a 92 foot depth for 35 minutes. The nitrogen indicator was in the red.
We clambered on board the small dive boat and headed back to the marina. There was a couple from the U.K. on board and Karen noticed that they were talking to each other in an angry, animated manner. I made eye contact and the woman, who was about 30, asked what our certification levels were. She explained that she was only a basic open water diver. They were visibly upset and shaken that we were taken below 70' (the max depth for that 'C' level), and at how a certified divemaster could show a complete disregard for his training and our safety.
It was divine providence that no one got bent or showed symptoms of DCS. I remembered a dive I did on the Spiegel Grove a couple of years ago. Someone who was on the wreck that day but from another dive boat got bent. His profile, we heard from the captain of the other dive boat, was about the same as ours that day in Amalfi.
I believe no experience, however good or bad, comes without a lesson. Having logged over 200+ dives in places all over the Western Hemisphere even in marginal dive conditions, the worst things I'd experienced to that point were a few divermasters with bad people skills. Even during the occasional equipment malfunction, training had always kicked in and safety protocols were followed. But there are dive operators out there who think cash is king and safety is superfluous. Nettuno is one of them.
I hope whoever reads this walks away with the knowledge that each of us as individuals are ultimately responsible for our own safety. There is nothing wrong with being risk adverse and aborting a dive, even if that decision is based on nothing more than a 'bad feeling'. Your dive buddy may not be as experienced as you or worse, overconfident. Your own decisions and actions will determine whether a dangerous situation results in a safe outcome more than those of your buddy or your divemaster.
And never forget your training! Your life will someday depend on it.
