Check dives, private DMs, and local/shop policies

[DandyDon]

I've never shown a log book to anyone, at no place I've dived. I've dived at one place -St Kitts without a c-card. I had a Stuart Coves shark dive T-shirt on and the owner said, well since you have that T-shirt you'll be okay.

I hardly ever have been asked to show a card over the years and my travels to the corners of the US and several countries south.

 

[Mike]

That's cause with as much stuff that you bring to the boat they think you're Jacques Cousteau! Nobody is going to card Jacques.

Here's your T-shirt...

 

[Ron Lee]

OK. Another question: to what degree is customer demand the cause of divers being taken to sites that are well beyond their skills/ experience?

Your question is flawed and inconsistent with my view of Cozumel dive ops. It is almost like asking "Are you still beating your wife?"

What you don't need is a buddy who is either a weak or novice diver himself, or a complete unknown to you, so you hedge your bets by obtaining an experienced buddy, who may be able to shoulder a bit more than the normal responsibility of a buddy. He may, for example, be able to manage most of the navigation, so that you can concentrate on your buoyancy and on staying together. I think is is a prudent behavior for an inexperienced diver, and an appropriate use of a DM.

Exactly. Two newbie divers could actually help each other if separated from the group...or end up as two fatalities. See next response for more.

The person who travels to a holiday destination and hears that he needs a private DM (because, in TS&M's scenario, the dive op knows he is an accident waiting to happen) is not the type of conscientious person who values safety above all that you are. Conscientious types would probably research their intended destination and decide not to go there in the first place. I think this is what I was getting at in a previous reply.

I am not sure what the previous reply was but the idea that the suggestion of using a private DM equates to “you are an accident/fatality waiting to happen” is also patently wrong.

Several people have it right. A new/inexperienced diver, as is likely in this case, may not have the skills or composure to respond properly to this scenario. Does PADI teach people to make solo ascents? I am not an instructor but I suspect not.

The suggested skills from my post #284 do offer a person the chance to improve their skills/experience with a competent DM. The PADO OW or AOW certificates are nothing more that an industry agreed to minimum to dive. That diver has a responsibility to get additional training as required to meet the specifics of new diving locations.

A person who blows off the buddy system enters a new realm where self-reliance and solo diving concepts come to bear. Was Tamara trained in any of these concepts? Was she trained to handle solo ascents in a drift diving environment? Was she trained to respond calmly to being separated from the group and how to find them or safely abort the dive? Did she have the opportunity to get that experience/training but blow it off?

If you want to understand the start of the bad chain of events, figure out how the buddy pair failed. I will postulate that she would be alive today (assuming no medical issue) had she stayed with her buddy within about 20-30 feet of the DM.

I will add that the buddy system may tend to be a crutch. If a diver only knows being with a buddy, it is conceivable that should a separation occur that results in a loss of visual contact, some divers may tend towards the panic side of the emotion spectrum which may not end well.

My suggested private DM skills development does provide some help in this area. It is not suggested that someone resort to solo diving rather develop the skills and experience such that if you are suddenly alone, you can stay calm and safely rejoin your buddy, the group or reach the surface.

In this case, the March 2012 cruise ship diver and one other recent missing diver (maybe a recovered body?) the common element is that buddy diver discipline was lost and the missing diver was lost visually by the group. How hard is it to recognize that this is an area where skills can be developed to lessen this type event?

 

[ggunn]

I think that has been my point all along Bob... I'm not using Aldora if they ignore all certifications, logbooks and experience...

They don't. They practice "trust but verify".

I don't know why you keep harping on this tired point; two out of two dive ops who post here have said that they do the same thing, as do most if not all other ops on the island. If you refuse to dive with an op that won't take you to Maracaibo without watching you dive first, then you probably won't be diving Cozumel at all. We keep telling you that and you keep coming back with "I'll never dive with Aldora" OK, we got it. Don't dive with Aldora. Trust me; they won't miss you.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I think you could posit two very different situations involving hiring a private DM.

The first goes back to the idea that you should really add one stress variable at a time to your diving. So you are a relatively new diver (and therefore all diving has an inherent degree of stress) and you are diving somewhere you have never been before, with conditions which may be different from where you trained. What you don't need is a buddy who is either a weak or novice diver himself, or a complete unknown to you, so you hedge your bets by obtaining an experienced buddy, who may be able to shoulder a bit more than the normal responsibility of a buddy. He may, for example, be able to manage most of the navigation, so that you can concentrate on your buoyancy and on staying together. I think is is a prudent behavior for an inexperienced diver, and an appropriate use of a DM.

The other situation is a diver whose skills are clearly insufficient for the proposed dive. The dive op suggests a private DM because they are worried that an accident or incident might occur, if this person is permitted to do their dives with a random or equally inexperienced/unskilled buddy. The onus on the DM is to try to prevent an accident that is already known to be high-risk. This is not good judgment on the part of the diver, the dive op, or the DM involved, but I suspect it happens. In this case, if the information we have is correct, the diver was judged to require that kind of assistance and refused it, and still went diving. If that is true, the outcome shouldn't surprise anybody.

The outcome should not surprise anyone? that is over the top. If we go with the scenario of the diver being recommended to hire a personal DM (and declines) and then the diver is allowed to do a wall dive by the same operator who recomended a "guide"????....

Since I have worked as a DM, leading underwater many hundreds of dives (with tourists in currents often stronger than Coz)...I think i have some perspective on this....This would be true with all the operators I have worked with....if a "problem child" was identified before the dive, you can be damn sure they were identified to me (or i did the ID myself).

Once identified, this person was "my buddy"... I was also required to lead the entire group and pull a float ball... but I always kept the PC diver in my sight. I could envision them getting killed by shooting for the surface and embolizing or something outside of my control, but I would be very surprised if they were to get so far away from me that their body would not be recoverable.


Rather than the death being "not surprising", I would have to say that I am surprised that the previously identified PC diver was allowed to get so far out of control that they were not even recoverable... that surprises me. Of course this is all conjecture based on a scenario that is not proven...

I have dove with many problems, handicap wheel chair divers, super nervous divers, out of practice ones, even one who was clearly mentally retarded... and I was on them like stink on XXXX.

 

[robbcayman]

I dove with Blue XTsea 6 months ago or so. Anyways, there was an older couple on the boat (in their 50's) who had some prior dive experience. They hired a private DM to assist them and it was a good thing they did. The woman literally had a death grip on the hand of the private DM the whole trip and seemed to be a nervous wreck even in shallow water (30 feet) with no current. This left the husband more on his own, so I tried to stay as close to him as possible. I'm not sure how, but his tank was sliding off his back on the 2nd dive. I tried signaling him what was going on, but it was useless. I then went to re-tighten his tank and the private DM saw what was going on and jumped in. To make matters worse, the husband (who I had a lot of great conversations with) was beyond an air hog. He would joke back on the dive boat that he was sucking it dry within 15 minutes. Luckily, the DM had a really long octo that he was letting him use. In short, this DM was saddled with holding the hand of a woman whose nerves were all over the place, re-attaching tanks, sharing all his air, all the while trying to keep them from bouncing up and down on their dives. I was exhausted watching this ordeal unfold and I hadn't played a role in it.

I can't imagine what would have happened if these 2 had been on their own and they had relied on their prior dive experiences alone. I certainly didn't envy the private DM, but it just makes you appreciate what they do. I don't mean to take the spotlight away from the death of this poor woman. I just wish people would appreciate the fact of what they are asking these private DM's to do in some situations. That day reminded me that it's better to admit when you are in over your head than to suffer potentially negative consequences.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

Why not do what most places (not necessarily on Coz) do: a quick pool check out before you are allowed on a boat? Several times I have had to go in a pool, get neutral retrieve my reg, remove my mask.......then I am free to dive to my certification level. And I am not charged for the pool dive either. I too disagree with the logic of charging for a check-out dive when such a simple free solution exists. It does however mean less money in the pocket of the operator. Having said all of this, I respect the right of the shop to set their policy. I accept their policy and respect my right as a consumer to spend my money where I want (I am not saying I would not dive Aldora either......just stating facts and opinions).

How is it less money in the pocket of the operator? The checkout dive *is a real dive*. We did it with Aldora, was fine.

It was Just. A. Dive.

 

[Gdog]

Come on guys...gals. The world is really a hostile environment. We have no control over mother nature. We are not entitled to a break; a reprieve. But somehow we think we are. Then we take it a step further and venture into the underwater world, where we really are strangers and expect the same allowances. On top of that we expect someone else to be right there should we make a mistake to save us from ourselves. That is sometimes just not reality, whether we are underwater, deep in the back country on a camp trip, or even just walking down the street.

 

[clownfishsydney]

I dove with Blue XTsea 6 months ago or so. Anyways, there was an older couple on the boat (in their 50's) who had some prior dive experience. They hired a private DM to assist them and it was a good thing they did. The woman literally had a death grip on the hand of the private DM the whole trip and seemed to be a nervous wreck even in shallow water (30 feet) with no current. This left the husband more on his own, so I tried to stay as close to him as possible. I'm not sure how, but his tank was sliding off his back on the 2nd dive. I tried signaling him what was going on, but it was useless. I then went to re-tighten his tank and the private DM saw what was going on and jumped in. To make matters worse, the husband (who I had a lot of great conversations with) was beyond an air hog. He would joke back on the dive boat that he was sucking it dry within 15 minutes. Luckily, the DM had a really long octo that he was letting him use. In short, this DM was saddled with holding the hand of a woman whose nerves were all over the place, re-attaching tanks, sharing all his air, all the while trying to keep them from bouncing up and down on their dives. I was exhausted watching this ordeal unfold and I hadn't played a role in it.

I can't imagine what would have happened if these 2 had been on their own and they had relied on their prior dive experiences alone. I certainly didn't envy the private DM, but it just makes you appreciate what they do. I don't mean to take the spotlight away from the death of this poor woman. I just wish people would appreciate the fact of what they are asking these private DM's to do in some situations. That day reminded me that it's better to admit when you are in over your head than to suffer potentially negative consequences.

To be honest, these people should not have been diving at all. Simple, straight to the fact truth.

---------- Post added January 19th, 2013 at 08:13 PM ----------

As to some comments about my previous post about how strange I think it is that people need to hire private DMs:

First, on one of my first boat dives I did after I completed my open water course, I had to take control of an "Advanced Diver" who was panicking as he thought he was about to run out of air (he wasn't, he had what was then a rare air integrated computer and did not know how it worked). Similarly, most of the first 100 dives I did were with my brother who was also newly certified. We dived sites that as far as we know, no-one dived. We had no experienced people to mentor us, but we had no problems. This was probably because we were "water people", growing up in a beach side suburb of Sydney. Not all new divers are hopeless, I have met many divers with only 10 dives who were immediately competent.

Secondly, I think that a couple of people have hit it on the head about why many people hire DMs. This is because that these people either should not be certified at all, or, they are diving sites that require experience that these people do not have. In our dive club, we do not permit people to come on trips that may be above their level of experience.

Finally, I also think that as a huge percentage of the US population lives so far from the ocean, these people have little or no experience with how different it is to dive in the ocean compared to the lakes, quarries etc where they learnt to dive and have done most of their diving. I doubt that a single person in Australia has been trained totally in freshwater (mainly because we do not have such things apart from some caves in South Australia).

 

[Darol]

clownfishsydney said:

Finally, I also think that as a huge percentage of the US population lives so far from the ocean, these people have little or no experience with how different it is to dive in the ocean compared to the lakes, quarries etc where they learnt to dive and have done most of their diving.

There it is.........

The only current I've found where I live is the current in the Detroit River, and yes we dive it.