Dive With Martin? Hmmm...

[Loco4Coz]

Sorry this is a little long but - I have been diving with DWM for about 10 years, and continued to do after Martin passed for several reasons. The memory of Martin, the people that work there that I have gotten to know over the years, and the fact that they happen to provide the type of service that I prefer which is smaller fast boats, little or no-frills, and low prices. However, an event occurred on October 25, 2008 that has changed my mind about all of the above.

DWM had picked me up at the Fiesta Americana for a 2-tank morning dive. Myself and about 6 other divers did our first dive with no problems. Prior to our second dive which was Paso de Cedral, the guy across the boat from me told the Divemaster that his tank did not have a good fill and that it was a few hundred pounds light. The Divemaster did not seem too concerned, so we all jumped into the water and descended. I could see the guy trailing bubbles from his tank and it had a pretty good leak from around the tank valve seat. After about 30 minutes I saw the guy signal our DM that he was low on air already and he headed for the surface. After the rest of us finished our dives I was again sitting across from him on the boat when he said, "Well that was a first for me." I asked him what he meant, and he said, "I ran out of air during my safety stop." He then went on to repeat to me what I have already written here, and said that the last time he had looked at his pressure gauge during his safety stop it indicated 300 pounds. Luckily he was only at 15 feet when he got his last breath. Later that day I found out that the original Divemaster scheduled to take our trip had been fired that morning because he had told the manager of the business that he had a tank with an unacceptable leak and needed another. He was told not to concern himself about it. When he continued to try to get a different tank the current manager (Martin's brother Julio) fired him on the spot. The guy had been a Divemaster for DWM for ten years. I know there have been some family squabbles over management of the company since Martin died, but if this is the attitude of the new management then I am finished diving with DWM. I had already booked for the following day so I did my 2 dives, paid my bill, and went elsewhere for the remainder of my trip.

I do not like to come on a chat board and trash someone or their business, but this lack of regard for safety could cause a drowning, and I feel I would be remiss if I did not report it. I know leaking O-rings occur sometimes, and smaller leaks just happen too, but here we had a case of a guy just trying to protect the divers he is ultimately responsible for and also his own employer, and ends up being fired for doing so. The Divemaster that got fired was Juan Pablo. I'm sure many of you know him. Signing off...

Michael

 

[mstevens]

I'm not actually disagreeing with your concerns but...

1) The diver is responsible for his gas, period. He knew he had a somewhat "light" fill, and he's responsible for monitoring his gas supply during the dive. Yes, it's very disappointing to feel "shorted" on bottom time, but unless there's an equipment failure I can't think of a good reason to breathe a tank dry during a safety stop. The usual reason is neglecting to keep track of consumption.

2) Fills are relative. I'm accustomed to a "full" AL80 running anywhere from 2600 to 3100 psi. Occasionally it's even lower. In Cozumel, it's always tended to the lower end for me. It's a fact of life, and is known before the dive. If my starting pressure is lower than 2600 I ask for a different cylinder, but since I'm often on nitrox that isn't always possible.

3) Bad O-rings happen. I travel with spares so I can replace my own, but have never had to use one of mine since the boat has always had spares. I'm deaf in one ear, but even on a loud little boat I can detect a significant O-ring leak. Checking that is my responsibility as part of my equipment check.

I think people hand over way too much responsibility to divemasters. It's better to think of them as guides. If you need that much hand-holding, it's probably best to hire a private divemaster for the dive.

 

[redacted]

I'm not actually disagreeing with your concerns but...

1) The diver is responsible for his gas, period. He knew he had a somewhat "light" fill, and he's responsible for monitoring his gas supply during the dive. Yes, it's very disappointing to feel "shorted" on bottom time, but unless there's an equipment failure I can't think of a good reason to breathe a tank dry during a safety stop. The usual reason is neglecting to keep track of consumption.

2) Fills are relative. I'm accustomed to a "full" AL80 running anywhere from 2600 to 3100 psi. Occasionally it's even lower. In Cozumel, it's always tended to the lower end for me. It's a fact of life, and is known before the dive. If my starting pressure is lower than 2600 I ask for a different cylinder, but since I'm often on nitrox that isn't always possible.

3) Bad O-rings happen. I travel with spares so I can replace my own, but have never had to use one of mine since the boat has always had spares. I'm deaf in one ear, but even on a loud little boat I can detect a significant O-ring leak. Checking that is my responsibility as part of my equipment check.

I think people hand over way too much responsibility to divemasters. It's better to think of them as guides. If you need that much hand-holding, it's probably best to hire a private divemaster for the dive.

I agree that a diver is responsible for his gas. But do you see any problem in what DWM did in this case?

 

[betsyinczm]

Hang on here----I can't speak for the "firings" but IF the diver pointed out that his tank was low, I am wondering why it wasn't replaced by a fresh one??..........OR why the DM didn't offer to use it himself, which is pretty common practice if there are low fills.....divers pay enough money to dive and should not have to suffer through a low air fill experience if it is correctable right on the boat before jumping........my little two cents but something is wrong with this picture.............Betsy

 

[Loco4Coz]

I absolutely agree that a diver is responsible for his own air consumption. That point is indisputable. However, a diver that saw his tank a little low at the start of the dive maybe didn't realize he had a leaking tank, and he certainly wasn't told about what had happened prior to departure. That is what raised my concerns about DWM. I'm sure that the DM that took over the trip chose to keep his mouth shut or risk the same treatment. This was not a simple O-ring problem though. I always carry extra O-rings myself. This was a leak that appeared to me to be coming from the place where the tank valve rests upon the tank. Certainly not something a diver or DM could repair on the boat. Betsy you make a good point as to why the DM didn't just take that tank for himself but I don't know if he even knew why he was put on the trip to begin with or was made aware of why. My concern here is if a DM with DWM was working there for 10 years and has (I'm guessing here) 5000 dives down there reports to his employer that he has an unacceptable tank, why wasn't he listened to? It is my understanding that the brother of Martin that is now running DWM is not even a diver. He may not know the possible implications of a diver running out of air because of a bad tank leak. Regarding monitoring your own air supply--- Sure those of us that are experienced divers know how to do that, but we must remember that Cozumel gets divers with all levels of experience. The guy that ran out of air had his act together. I've watched enough other divers over the years to know the difference. However, I'm quite concerned about an attitude of the new management at DWM that might prohibit another employee from speaking up and preventing an accident.

 

[betsyinczm]

Loco-------no offense but you seem to be more upset about the politics of DWM which is fine and I hear ya but know nothing about THAT aspect of your post. That said, the "leaking" from the tank valve of which you speak is probably not something that affected this guy's air.......and you said he already had a low tank fill?..........did they leave the tanks on for the whole trip out to the reefs?......I doubt it.......I see rental tanks leak in that area quite often and I always report that, but it really doesn't make any difference in available air.........as annoying as it is to see those little bubbles, I can use one of those tanks for two hours with no problem.......I'm glad your friend "had his act together", but I'd think that had more to do with his OWN air consumption or maybe that he was nervous which is not cool since he could have had a calm dive with another tank like I said before............these things are easily fixed on any boat.......but it seems like you have other issues............Betsy

 

[halocline]

If the leak was around the seat of the tank valve, where the valve meets the tank, leaving the tank valve turned off would not stop the leak.

It's possible that the leak in this guy's tank is what caused him to have less than a full tank on the boat. If the tank had been filled just before leaving, and on arrival at the dive site 400PSI or so had already leaked out, it is possible that the leak was bad enough to have a noticeable effect on his bottom time. It is true that the DM should have offered to switch tanks. When I was interning as a DM, we were taught that any time a customer complained about a tank we offered to switch it out on the spot. Of course, for a tank leak to really shorten a dive it has to be pretty bad, much worse than the typical little stream of bubbles that you often see from the o-ring.

I do find it pretty hard to believe that a DM with a ten year relationship with the shop would get fired simply by complaining about a tank. There must be more to the story. After all, leaky tanks are very common in Cozumel and this couldn't have been the first time he sent one back.

 

[Loco4Coz]

Betsy - Thanks for your response to my post. I really thought about this before writing. As I said earlier, I do not like to criticize an operator for a simple incident and I certainly realize that anyone can make a mistake. I tried to call down to Cozumel today and ask Christi (Moderator of this forum) for some advice, but got no answer. I'm not sure what to say here except that I was there to witness what happened and the guy that ran out of air was not my buddy, but simply another diver on a boat. Anyway, I'll shut up now and let the rest of you decide what is the best thing to do. This is certainly an isolated incident and you can't condemn an operator for one incident, but being there when a good diver runs out of air was not too much of a concern until I heard that it was something that had been voiced to the management and was ignored. To me this is a RED FLAG! All the best to you. If you want further details send me a PM. Later my friends...

 

[don Francisco]

Loco4Coz,
I don't dive with DVM and have no ax to grind on either side of this question, but something in your post doesn't add up (mathematically) so I feel I need to comment.

Discounting that a gracious DM would have switched tanks, which is a different issue, the low fill and the leak were probably not the cause of the safety issue you describe. Poor air/dive management on the part of the diver was the likely culprit.

Granting that the apparent short fill was the result of leakage, there's no way it could have leaked enough to endanger the diver.

Tanks are filled the night before so it was at least 4 hours - possibly much, much longer - between the time the tank was filled and the dive. In that time it leaked 400psi, or about 100psi/hour at the most.

At that rate, it would have lost another 50-100psi during the dive - certainly not enough to be significant, nor could that account for the amount of air loss between the beginning of the ascent (at 700psi or so) and the surface, a span of maybe 5-6 minutes.

If the leak somehow got more severe during the dive you wouldn't have observed a trail of bubbles, but a veritable gusher, making the problem obvious ( A blown HP hose makes an impressive underwater show yet takes over 30 minutes to empty a tank).

As I said something doesn't add up, so based on the math alone, I'd blame the diver not the tank or DVM.

 

[deeper thoughts]

This is troubling at the least and does give me some concerns about DWM. Will DWM post there version?