Bad dive shop or is it just me

[Esprise Me]

I agree with the consensus to find another shop. These issues you describe are not uncommon, but they're not universal, and should not be accepted as the norm. That said, I have a few suggestions for the future, since you may encounter other ops like this again.

The main thing that concerns me is that the guide refused to surface when you indicated you were low on air. Unfortunately, this seems to be fairly common, as I've heard a lot of stories like that here, but it is not OK. It puts you in a terrible position; it's not safe for you to stay with the group and risk running out of air, but it's also not very safe to surface alone. For future reference, the latter is better, and better still if you can shoot a DSMB and ascend together with a buddy.

I'm also a little concerned that in so few dives you received two faulty pieces of equipment from this shop. As others have said, these kinds of malfunctions do happen, they can be missed even by a careful shop, and it's ultimately your responsibility to check your own gear--but their equipment does not seem to be up to standards. Still, I would recommend getting your own computer, and practice disconnecting the inflator hose and orally inflating. You might want your own complete set of gear eventually, but a computer is relatively inexpensive, doesn't take up much space or require much maintenance, and since the layout of information varies so much, it's nice to have the same one every time.

The fact that they gave you less weight than you asked for is more annoying than concerning. As has been pointed out, many new divers are overweighted, but I find it odd that they would think 4kg was too much for someone in a 5mm, even with a steel tank. I've had the opposite problem, with a guide telling me I needed more weight and then, when I declined, sneaking it onto my rig. In the beginning, it's reasonable to be open to a shop's suggestions for amount of weight. But I would encourage you to do a proper weight check at the end of each dive, and once you know exactly what you need, insist on it. (A proper weight check involves hovering at 5 meters with 50 bar and being neutral with no air in your BCD. If you have more than 50 bar at the end of your safety stop, you can purge your octo to get rid of some air. A weight check at the surface with a full tank can help get you close to where you need to be, but doing it at the end of the dive is the best way to be sure for the next dive.)

The fact that buddies weren't assigned and buddy checks were skipped is further evidence that this operation is a bit too casual about safety, though if that were the only issue I'd hesitate to condemn them. If you don't have regular dive buddies, it's a good idea to chat people up on the boat as early as possible and try to find someone to dive with. Best case, you'll make a new friend. But when you have a decent guide, you're not really solo even if you don't have a buddy.

I think it's OK for a new diver to go a little past 60 feet. But if they took you there without warning, that's also not cool. My first two post-OW dives were with a very good private guide. He gave me a thorough briefing, gave me a chance to ask questions, and for the second dive asked me if I was comfortable going a little deeper, to 70 feet (21 meters). I was nervous, but he had earned my trust with the first dive, so I decided I felt comfortable pushing my limits with him. I would not have felt comfortable if he had surprised me by taking me to 70 feet without discussing it first.

 

[oly5050user]

My answer may be a bit at variance with some of the other respionses.

To answer the title of the thread directly - I believe - from afar - that what you experienced was a combination, of the shop's practices AND your inexperience.

I agree with several respondents, that the shop should provide you with the weight you need. But, I actually commend the shop in a way. Resort shops often get customers who have trained elsewhere, in colder water, with steel cylinders, and thicker wetsuits than those used in warmer resort areas. The shops in those resort areas are quite used to having to pare weight OFF of those divers, who are now diving in warmer waters, with aluminum cylinders. Frankly, as you will see from quite a number of discussions on SB, too many divers are still over-weighted by their instructors during OW training. In this case, it may have been that your instructor did a good job of properly weighting you, which might have been the 'exception' rather than the rule for customers that the resort shop encounters. So, while they (apparently) under-weighted you, at least they did not over-weight you, which is (unfortunately) a bit more common. Their failure was being too (over) confident in their experience with other divers coming to the resort, and not paying attention to your individual needs. This is NOT a good practice. But, unfortunately, it is also not altogether uncommon in resort areas. I am not justifying it, rather saying that you might well encounter similar behavior in other shops in the same area. It is nonetheless sloppy operation. And, a newly certified OW diver may feel pressure to 'go with the flow'. On the other hand, it was apparently a guided dive, and a number of resort shops become a bit cavalier in assigning / assuring buddy pairs on guided dives. As an OW diver you are certified to dive within the limits of your training and experience. Presuming that your depth limit in OW training was ~60 feet, they took you a bit deeper than your training. The depth limit is not an absolute, however. If the dive is guided, if the water is warm, if there is little / no current, if the visibility is very good, this is - unfortunately - not an uncommon practice. How was the dive briefed BEFORE you got in the water? Did they indicate the depth to which you would be diving, to give YOU the opportunity to raise questions? If they failed to properly brief the dive, and anticipated maximum depth, that was a sloppy operation.Yes, YOU should have checked it before splashing. Yes, THE SHOP should have verified that the battery was adequate before renting it to you. Again, a bit sloppy on their part.It sounds like the power inflator on the BCD had a slow leak. That is not altogether uncommon in rental gear that is used continuously (or personal gear, for that matter - I have recently replaced two power inflators on different BCDs that I own, albeit after 5 and 7 years of use, respectively). The diver(s) who used it before you may have experienced the same thing, but failed to mention it to the shop. At least, the divemaster guiding the dive did not do something that some resort DMs do, which is VERY bad - disconnect the low pressure inflator hose for you.Yes, and no. As a new diver, you will be more anxious about your air supply than a more experienced diver. GOOD FOR YOU! You are paying attention to your air supply! Now, the bigger question is whether the dive operation briefed the divers on a 'be back on the boat with no less than X bar' statement. That should have happened. In the western hemisphere, particularly in the Caribbean, diving with AL80 cylinders, it is not uncommon to have the boat captain or DM say in the briefing - 'Be back on the boat with no less than 500 psi', which would be ~35 BAR. Now, that is a 'back on the boat' value, NOT a 'start your ascent at' value. To get back on the boat with 10 bar would be equivalent to getting back on the boat with ~150psi. For me, that is unacceptable, and the dive guide should have heeded your concerns! As others have said, you will learn that you need to take care of yourself, and begin your ascent when you reach a value that will still allow you to ascend safely and be back on the boat with a reasonable reserve - the reserve should only be used if something goes wrong on the ascent.

I do not know where you were diving, or what the local practices are there. You might find that all the shops are like the one you used. But, it wouldn't hurt to look for others, if for no reason other than to compare experiences. It is unfortunate, but it is also reality - high volume, resort dive operations can become complacent, and end up engaging in practices that we caution against in our training of OW divers.

o

 

[oly5050user]

How is disconnecting inflator hose a bad thing? I see a out of control ascent a lot more dangerous than simply disconnecting a inflator hose and oral inflating a bc. An 11 year old Female student I did confined water for using a rental bc in a tropic resort during her certification dive did just that
No problem

 

[waraebi]

Still, I would recommend getting your own computer, and practice disconnecting the inflator hose and orally inflating. You might want your own complete set of gear eventually, but a computer is relatively inexpensive, doesn't take up much space or require much maintenance, and since the layout of information varies so much, it's nice to have the same one every time.

I bought my own computer today and now I feel 33,3% safer

I really want to try the weight check at the end of the next dive, I hope I get a chance to do a safety stop this time. If I have to beg for weights again at the next dive shop, I'll probably buy my own weights, too.

 

[Raphus]

If you only dive local. Own weigths are good, but if you travel you cant bring them with you.
I mean.. U can but you shouldnt..

Just do a weigth check every few dives.
As neopren gets older, the buoyant effekt decreases. So less weigth is needed. Also you will need less weigth with more experience.

If you can just barely gu underwater with 50 bar fully exhaled and empty bcd, you have the correct amount if weigth.
Some will argue, that u need to be neutral at 5m and slightly positive in 0m.
But tbh this is just a difference of 0.5 kg, so the normal weigth check you should have learned in your owd will be good.

 

[yle]

I'll give you my opinion, for what it's worth. I don't agree with those telling you that this is a "bad shop" and you should never use them again. If you let this experience define a "bad shop" for you, it's likely you'll never find a "good shop" and could give up diving. Keep it in perspective. What you experienced is not at all that bad, and you could definitely learn a few things from it.

1) My OWD intstructor told me that I should ask for about 4 kg of weights (5mm wetsuit and steel tank). So did I, but the dive shop refused and gave me only 2 kg, telling me that 4kg was much too heavy. As a result, I could not descend, needed the help of the dive guide to do so. One guide even put some stones from the ocean floor into my BCD to keep me down.

Your instructor was probably right, although 4kg and a steel tank with a 5mm suit does seem a bit heavy. The shop was using their experience to guess that your instructor may have overweighted you. You will get your weights and buoyancy refined with experience. This action by the shop is NEUTRAL (i.e. neither good nor bad.) You don't describe the details of the situation, but the correct remedy should have been to add 1kg to you at the surface, when you had trouble descending. Stones really don't provide much for ballast. There's a reason we use lead.

2) I thought it is absolutely necessary to have a dive buddy assigned and to do buddy checks before entering the ocean, but neither of that happened. Nobody checked each other's gear and we just swam around as a group.

This is pretty common, group following the guide, in many parts of the world. It is not the guide's responsibility to assign you a buddy, nor is it your buddy's responsibility to check your gear. You always check your own gear, and if you want a specific buddy... speak up. If you wait for other people to do things for you, you will usually be disappointed. And in scuba, you will put yourself at risk. From the OW class: you are ultimately responsible for your safety. Again, I'm rating this NEUTRAL. The shop did not have the responsibility to assign you a buddy or to check your gear.

3) They knew that I am only OWD certified but on one boat dive we went down to more than 21m. Is that a no-no or does that happen sometimes?

It's perfectly fine, it happens all the time. The only issue with deeper diving is that you have to keep a closer eye on your air (because you use it faster) and you have to keep an eye on your time (because you're far more likely to reach your NDL when diving deeper than 20 m.) That's it. You should be aware of these things when diving deeper than 20 m, and it's these two things you practice with the advanced or deep class.

There is no rule that new divers can only dive to 20 m. My agency has a rule that I, as an instructor, cannot take my OW students (while in their class) deeper than 20 m. And the agency recommends to new divers that they do not dive deeper than 20 m until they have more experience. But your guide did nothing wrong by taking you to 21 m.

I rented a dive computer from the shop but noticed under water that it was just showing "battery" on the screen, so I did not really know how deep we went until later after the dive. I know I should have checked it properly on the surface.

This is what I mean when I said above that you can learn from this experience. Computer batteries eventually wear out, it happens to all of them. When you rented the computer it may have seemed fine. And you're right: your responsibility to check the computer before entering the water. Not a big deal, you learn and move on. But nothing the shop did wrong. If you had checked it, noticed it didn't work and they insisted you should use it... well, yeah, that would be wrong. But your situation... again NEUTRAL. Could have happened with any shop.

3) For the two boat dives I got a rental BCD jacket that was not functioning properly, in my opinion, But as a newbie I am not sure about that. When we descended I totally deflated the BCD (in my opinion) and I surely did not put any air into it again. But during the dive I noticed that something was constantly pulling me upwards, so I deflated the BCD again and again. And each time quite an amount of air came out of it, although I never inflated it once. I also heard some bubbling sounds from the inflator hose. I was constantly fighting for not floating upwards, I managed to do so somehow (by crawling on the sea floor), but that was really miserable. And I was really low on air after 30 minutes ( I mean, like 10 bar), which is not normal for me. It was so disappointing for my fellow divers as well....

Your self-inflating BCD: most new divers are not taught how to check their gear properly. As an instructor with students that always use rental gear from our shop, I learned pretty quickly that a self-inflating BCD is one of the most common problems. The inflator valve gets stuck open (which has nothing to do with the hose.)

So here is how you check your gear 30 minutes prior to your dive: after assembling your BCD, tank, reg, orally inflate the BCD with a couple breaths (to make sure the oral inflate is working.) Fully inflate the BCD with the power inflator until the overpressure valve "pops". Stop inflating and make sure that valve closes. Now the BCD should be fully inflated. Test each dump valve with a quick pull; make sure each valve opens and closes properly. When you are done, the BCD should still be about half full. If not, reinflate it to half full. Then let it sit for 20 minutes. Check it again... make sure it's still just half full (if it has filled itself in that 20 minutes, you have a stuck inflator valve.)

All my OW students get this method for their BCD check, every dive... because I've found our rental gear needs it! And most rental gear also needs it.

With that said... with every skill you did in your OW class, your instructor should have explained when you might need to use the skill. You did two skills... inflator hose disconnect and oral inflate underwater... that you could have used to fix your problem: recognize that the inflator valve was stuck open, disconnect the hose and then use the oral inflator when you needed to add some air. You can reconnect the hose when you are ready to ascend so that the power inflator is available to you at the surface (not absolutely necessary, but a good idea.)

As for the shop and the DM? I'll rate the DM slightly negative here. Not "bad", but they should have known that changing the hose would not fix the problem, and they should have been able to offer an appropriate solution. If you didn't like the idea of disconnecting the hose while diving, the DM should have found a better solution. Two big parts of the DM course are learning how gear works so we can effectively diagnose problems, and devising solutions to those problems.

4) I finished every dive with less than 50 bar. When the needle entered the red area on the gauge I told the dive guide but they did not worry about it. I thought it was ok for the two shallow beach dives. But especially during the two boat dives with the strange BCD I anxiously checked the gauge all the time and I told the dive guide "now I am at 70bar - 50bar - 40bar. At the last boat dive we started ascending so late that I surfaced with 10 bar only, without safety stop. Of course they don't want to disappoint the other divers who had more air left, so they pushed me to the limits. But in the end I thought that was really, really close to being out of air, or am I being just overly anxious?

Are you being overly anxious? No... I would say you're just a little anxious. Anything above 30 bar, you still have air. Your depth at that point certainly would affect the urgency of the situation. If you're shallow and at 40 bar, not a problem. You should end soon, but you're far from danger. You're a new diver, and you'll learn from experience.

10 bar is not excusable. My pressure gauge shows red below 35 bar, with no lines... so anyone below that level can't even see 30 20 10, etc. The idea is that if it's in the red, it's time to surface. I think your guess... that they didn't want to disappoint the other divers... could be exactly right. If this a sign of a "bad shop"? Not really, you could encounter this with just about any shop.

BUT... ignoring you when your air is dropping to 10 bar? That is bad. Everything else on your list, I would rate as pretty common in that it could happen to just about any shop or dive guide anywhere. This issue, the low on air, is the one thing that is different.

However, the failure of one dive guide to manage the dive properly doesn't necessarily mean the entire operation (i.e. the shop management and all other employees at the shop) are the same way. I've been diving with plenty of shops that have mostly competent guides and then... there's that one that makes me wonder "how did they get hired?" It's true that the shop should hire competent people, but my point is that any shop can have a guide that is having one of those days.

I guess nothing goes exactly the way it is written in the textbooks in any dive shop.

THAT is the most important lesson. As you dive more you will learn the differences between what's in the book and the way things tend to happen in reality. The more experience you get, the less anxious you'll be when you see things that don't appear right. You'll also get better at evaluating when a dive operation really does have problems or when things are pretty normal.

To get there, of course, you have to keep diving!

 

[yle]

Water can not enter the tank, because of the higher gradient. Thats true, but still there is a reason, why it should not be below 20ish bar.

Most diving resort tanks have small leaks. So if you go out with 20 bar, these 20 bar can become 0 bar over night( or a few nights?)
Then moisture can enter the tank.

But you could make that argument for any pressure. If a tank can drain from 20 bar to 0 overnight, it could drain from 50 bar to 0 overnight also.

I'm skeptical of your claim that most diving resort tanks have small leaks. If so, it seems that most diving resort tanks would be empty every morning.

 

[Raphus]

Not really overnight, i am talking about very small leaks.

Thats what i saw and what others told me.
Maybe its just not true and the only reason some resorts want money if you come back with less then x bar, is because of safety, or just because they want money

 

[chillyinCanada]

A number of resorts may have a number of slow leaks due to worn o-rings. It's neither usual nor unusual.

 

[Edward3c]

Water can not enter the tank, because of the higher gradient. Thats true, but still there is a reason, why it should not be below 20ish ba.

Water can enter a tank, but its rare.

Most diving resort tanks have small leaks. So if you go out with 20 bar, these 20 bar can become 0 bar over night( or a few nights?)
Then moisture can enter the tank..

I've yet to come across a commercial dive operator that doesn't refill cylinders at the end of the day's diving, that includes night dives - which are normally not that late.