That's how I've handled it too.
Dive Op’s Limiting bottom time
- Thread starter chris kippax
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That's how I've handled it too.
modustollens
Contributor
45 minutes of bottom time is fine so long as it is 45 minutes of bottom time prices.
Safety, Air supply, NDLs - of course these are relevant; but, so is economics, especially for those who need to pay for travel to dive on holiday.
Safety, Air supply, NDLs - of course these are relevant; but, so is economics, especially for those who need to pay for travel to dive on holiday.
I think Cameron (northernone) gave a very good summary of many of the reasons operators may limit times. It is a reality in some regions, with some operators. And, it may be an annoyance to some divers. It honestly doesn't usually affect me, because I actively choose boat charters that take me to deeper sites (80-120 feet) where I usually don't have the gas or NDL for a dive longer than 45 - 50 minutes, anyway.
It is probably worthwhile to remember that the dive operation is a business. They have terms and conditions (T&C), just as any other business, be it an auto repair shop, a medical practice, an airline, etc. If you don't like, don't want to agree to, the terms and conditions of a business, DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. Nobody is forced to dive, forced to get on a particular boat, etc. If it is the only dive boat operating in a particular location, and you don't like the T&C, then you might not be able to dive like you personally want. But, you still have a choice - accept their T&C, or find another way to dive the site (tough, I admit), or don't dive. There is no unique human right to dive.
Where I fully agree with those who are annoyed by the practice is where you are not made aware of the T&C until after you have signed up, paid, boarded the boat, and left the dock. If, only after you can no longer make a choice, you are then told, 'Oh, by the way, even though we are going to a 30 ft reef, and all of you have at least a 60 minute gas supply, we are going to limit you to 45 minutes.' I would be equally, and verbally, PO'd.
One approach is to ask the op, when you sign up / make a reservation. There is more than a bit of fine print (on paper and on websites), and many of us often don't bother to pay attention to it. But, if diving YOUR way, for as long as YOU want, is YOUR priority / essential need, then ask before YOU leave the dock. If you don't like the T&C of a particular op, use another op if there is one. Definitely, talk with your business.
If everyone else on the boat has read and understood the T&C, and YOU decide that YOU are going to do whatever YOU want, and to heck with all those other divers on the boat, that is simply rude, inconsiderate, self-absorbed behavior. I have been on a boat where that happened, and watched, and enjoyed, the divers involved get a particularly colorful a** reaming from the captain, while every single other diver on the charter watched and clapped! Sitting on the surface in 5 ft swells for 25 minutes, waiting for the two divers was not fun. But, watching the entertainment after they (finally) re-boarded was some small compensation.
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Kharon
Contributor
Why I go to Bonaire (or other places that have shore diving).
I won't dive with any operator that limits my bottom time to less than an hour. When I was in Anilao a few years back, we would occasionally do dives that lasted two to 2 1/2 hours on a single Al80. That operator (Club Ocellaris) was all about diving and we spent more time underwater than we did sleeping.
I can see valid reasons for more restricted dive times, but I refuse to have my dives cut short like that so I won't use operators that do.
I can see valid reasons for more restricted dive times, but I refuse to have my dives cut short like that so I won't use operators that do.
mi000ke
Contributor
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Most of the dive ops on grand cayman have a "requested" time limit - usually around 50 minutes on deep (100' max) dives and 60 on shallow (60' max) dives. That said, the several I've dived with seem to be pretty reasonable if you go over by a few minutes. It usually takes 5-10 minutes to get everyone in the water, so I try to be first in and last out and that usually puts me close to my air limits. Also depends on the size and skill level of the group that's diving. I've experienced many ties with several operators here where if most of the group still has air, they let up finish up under the boat as long as we're buddied up.
I've found Red Sail to be pretty reasonable in general (I do a weekly residents' dive with them). They request a limit, but I had a 76 minute dive with them last week, and two 60+ minute dives yesterday. At the end of the dive they buddy up divers with similar air left, and pretty much let you finish out the dive, as do most of the ops on the island.
As long as the ops don't get to bent out of shape over a few minutes over the "limit" I'm not bothered too much by it.
I've found Red Sail to be pretty reasonable in general (I do a weekly residents' dive with them). They request a limit, but I had a 76 minute dive with them last week, and two 60+ minute dives yesterday. At the end of the dive they buddy up divers with similar air left, and pretty much let you finish out the dive, as do most of the ops on the island.
As long as the ops don't get to bent out of shape over a few minutes over the "limit" I'm not bothered too much by it.
3arl J0n35
Registered
I've found that on the reef (30-35 feet) I can "squeeze" about 70 minutes out of an 80.
Now I'm not a boat cap'n, but if I was, I wouldn't try to sell that as a 2-dive trip and a half-hour surface interval "half day trip" if common sense told me it was gonna take me 5 hours to accomplish all that and I wanted to work an 8-hour day and offer two trips per day. I never went to no fancy Ivy league college or nothing, but my simple high school math tells me the product of 5x2 cannot be divided into 8 successfully.
Just another example of piss-poor customer service and half-ass dive operators trying to accomplish the financially-impossible on some dream that they wanna be a dive operation.
That's akin to the maître d' walking up and telling you to hurry up and eat because they need the table the for another customer. It's just plain tacky. It's just impolite and improper and not a way to do business. If an operator needs 2 trips a day to keep the ledger in the "plus column" then he needs to examine the way he's doing business if he has to cheat customers out of what he's offering in order to do it.
During my lifetime, I've owned an operated a convenient store, a security guard company, and a Mailboxes etc. They were successful enough that I sold them all and retired and stopped work at the age of 40. I'm 51 now and haven't worked a lick since 2004. I didn't have to screw customers out of what I was offering to do it.
"I have to stay in business" does not supersede honesty in doing business. As Sam Walton said, "The customer is not always right, but he's always the customer." And today the man that said that and practiced that's corporation is worth 147 BILLION dollars. There's plenty of time I've had to refund a customer or agree with a customer when I knew he was lying or I knew my employee was right and the customer was wrong. That's where diplomacy decides if your business is successful, or decides if your dive boat sits in the slip all day because you don't have enough customers to make a trip. Crunching the numbers in the ledger is at the bottom of the list when it comes to "if a business is successful or not". I nearly run my first business into the ground (convenient store) trying to run it "by the ledger" and insisting that I was right all the time because I was the big boss. At the end of the day, the cap'n has NO authority. They guy with the credit card carries the authority, and some of you, even the one-horse-show who claims to be "running a business" won't understand that. When I finally realized it, I had to kiss a lot of rear-end to get my convenient store back to the position it was when I took it over as a dumb 28 year old kid who knew everything.
I guess the best way to explain it is when the dumb butterbar Lieutenant just out of OCS (who knows everything about everything) tells you to do something that you know is totally wrong and an idiot thing to do, you don't argue with him about how you're right and he's wrong and his idea is gonna screw up the whole platoon. You render him his salute and snap "Yes Sir, right away!" and then you go do it the way thats the right way.
Now I know and understand all the above is just my opinion, and my business advice is worth every penny you paid for it. But the thing is, I have the track record that supports my opinion. Not many people I know retired at 40 and still have a $6,000 per month residual income. Most of the people I know are in their late 50's and early 60's and are still punching the time clock for a bossman and hating every minute of it. I'm the guy that when you ask me "When do you want to go diving" I can reply, "Any day, any time. Doesn't matter."
"Price may be a temporary incentive. But business goes where it is invited and stays where it is well treated." should be carved into the wheelhouse of every dive boat in America.
Now I'm not a boat cap'n, but if I was, I wouldn't try to sell that as a 2-dive trip and a half-hour surface interval "half day trip" if common sense told me it was gonna take me 5 hours to accomplish all that and I wanted to work an 8-hour day and offer two trips per day. I never went to no fancy Ivy league college or nothing, but my simple high school math tells me the product of 5x2 cannot be divided into 8 successfully.
Just another example of piss-poor customer service and half-ass dive operators trying to accomplish the financially-impossible on some dream that they wanna be a dive operation.
That's akin to the maître d' walking up and telling you to hurry up and eat because they need the table the for another customer. It's just plain tacky. It's just impolite and improper and not a way to do business. If an operator needs 2 trips a day to keep the ledger in the "plus column" then he needs to examine the way he's doing business if he has to cheat customers out of what he's offering in order to do it.
During my lifetime, I've owned an operated a convenient store, a security guard company, and a Mailboxes etc. They were successful enough that I sold them all and retired and stopped work at the age of 40. I'm 51 now and haven't worked a lick since 2004. I didn't have to screw customers out of what I was offering to do it.
"I have to stay in business" does not supersede honesty in doing business. As Sam Walton said, "The customer is not always right, but he's always the customer." And today the man that said that and practiced that's corporation is worth 147 BILLION dollars. There's plenty of time I've had to refund a customer or agree with a customer when I knew he was lying or I knew my employee was right and the customer was wrong. That's where diplomacy decides if your business is successful, or decides if your dive boat sits in the slip all day because you don't have enough customers to make a trip. Crunching the numbers in the ledger is at the bottom of the list when it comes to "if a business is successful or not". I nearly run my first business into the ground (convenient store) trying to run it "by the ledger" and insisting that I was right all the time because I was the big boss. At the end of the day, the cap'n has NO authority. They guy with the credit card carries the authority, and some of you, even the one-horse-show who claims to be "running a business" won't understand that. When I finally realized it, I had to kiss a lot of rear-end to get my convenient store back to the position it was when I took it over as a dumb 28 year old kid who knew everything.
I guess the best way to explain it is when the dumb butterbar Lieutenant just out of OCS (who knows everything about everything) tells you to do something that you know is totally wrong and an idiot thing to do, you don't argue with him about how you're right and he's wrong and his idea is gonna screw up the whole platoon. You render him his salute and snap "Yes Sir, right away!" and then you go do it the way thats the right way.
Now I know and understand all the above is just my opinion, and my business advice is worth every penny you paid for it. But the thing is, I have the track record that supports my opinion. Not many people I know retired at 40 and still have a $6,000 per month residual income. Most of the people I know are in their late 50's and early 60's and are still punching the time clock for a bossman and hating every minute of it. I'm the guy that when you ask me "When do you want to go diving" I can reply, "Any day, any time. Doesn't matter."
"Price may be a temporary incentive. But business goes where it is invited and stays where it is well treated." should be carved into the wheelhouse of every dive boat in America.
I agree I would be annoyed at a 45min dive, especially if shallow. We had this in Thailand, and the price as definitely not that of a 45min dive.
Besides all the valid points already mentioned here, I thought I would give insight to SA dive ops. or atleast most of the east coast ones.
Here we generally run on a 50 bar, 50min dive profile. If it is a bit shallower and most of the guys are still on the dive, we often push to 60 (I did this recently as the dive just got incredible towards the end and I could see the sad faces when I wanted to call the dive, so I extended it) - 10mins makes all the difference in their eyes and in customer satisfaction. But as many have said the majority of divers start coming up around 40-50min so we don't want the new guys sitting on rough seas for 20min. We dive off of RIB's mainly here, so it is not the best if the sea is rough..which in saying that we more often than not, will not have calm seas. It might not be rough, but surely not calm.
Other than that it also factors into schedule. In Sodwana for instance the wind picks up in the late morning to early afternoon so most boats try to be done by 12-1pm and thus there is a bit of haste. But most dive ops will give you 50mins atleast. There is an op or two that during the busy easter weekends and such will limit dives to even less...read...way less. But most people avoid them. In their defence, the pricing is in line with the short dive time then too.
Besides all the valid points already mentioned here, I thought I would give insight to SA dive ops. or atleast most of the east coast ones.
Here we generally run on a 50 bar, 50min dive profile. If it is a bit shallower and most of the guys are still on the dive, we often push to 60 (I did this recently as the dive just got incredible towards the end and I could see the sad faces when I wanted to call the dive, so I extended it) - 10mins makes all the difference in their eyes and in customer satisfaction. But as many have said the majority of divers start coming up around 40-50min so we don't want the new guys sitting on rough seas for 20min. We dive off of RIB's mainly here, so it is not the best if the sea is rough..which in saying that we more often than not, will not have calm seas. It might not be rough, but surely not calm.
Other than that it also factors into schedule. In Sodwana for instance the wind picks up in the late morning to early afternoon so most boats try to be done by 12-1pm and thus there is a bit of haste. But most dive ops will give you 50mins atleast. There is an op or two that during the busy easter weekends and such will limit dives to even less...read...way less. But most people avoid them. In their defence, the pricing is in line with the short dive time then too.
clownfishsydney
Contributor
I would be interested to know where in Australia the OP is located. Generally no time limit is placed on divers in most of the operations here, but in some places there are quite unreasonable ones. I have also seen places where there are limits for very good reasons (night dives so that it can be certain you are not lost, where there is a dramatic tide change and you are diving at high/low).
On my private boat we set limits for some dives, but that is because we are diving in groups and need to make sure the first group is back on anchor line/hanging under boat before the second group enters the water. In these cases, where a limit of under 60 minutes is set, it will be the limit of no deco time plus a bit (we know what this is for the sites we dive). For deeper dives (45+ metres), the limit is set by the air carried.
Perhaps he needs to change to a different operator or a private club. As others have said, if you have to dive with an operator that limits dive lengths, make sure you are first in and waiting to get out as soon as the next to last buddy pair surface.
On my private boat we set limits for some dives, but that is because we are diving in groups and need to make sure the first group is back on anchor line/hanging under boat before the second group enters the water. In these cases, where a limit of under 60 minutes is set, it will be the limit of no deco time plus a bit (we know what this is for the sites we dive). For deeper dives (45+ metres), the limit is set by the air carried.
Perhaps he needs to change to a different operator or a private club. As others have said, if you have to dive with an operator that limits dive lengths, make sure you are first in and waiting to get out as soon as the next to last buddy pair surface.
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