Mike
Contributor
I dove with Amigos del Mar. There were about 12 divers and they split us into 2 groups. There were 2 dive masters for each group. I was required to show my AOW card before we left port. The six of us dove one of the dive masters' computers (not our own). They had oxygen tanks hanging off the boat at our 7 minute decompression stop. We had a thorough pre-dive orientation. I think they did all they could do to make the dive safe. I dove with an AL100 (it is an option). One of the divers aborted the dive a minute into it( freaked out). Another diver in my group had to use a dive masters octo to get to the rest stop( they ran out of air).
Unfortunately your whole description other than someone actually having AOW, is basically a total cluster F in my opinion. No non-deco trained divers should be going on any non-deco dive with a planned 7 minute decompression stop. Nobody should ever be on a non-deco dive diving within training limits and experience, on a dive they are qualified to dive through experience and SAC rate and require 'oxygen' or what is actually just a standard al 80 tank to be hung at 30 ft. All those things you are describing are things no one needs if they dive a dive they are qualified to dive. Those items are all there as crutches for the Belize dive industry to mitigate the dangers as much as possible when they take divers on dives that they are unqualified to be going on.
Would it be cool if someone let you behind the wheel of an Indy car with no professional driving training when the fastest you've ever drove before is 100 mph in a factory car, and let you take the indy car up to 200 mph on the track, and to mitigate the danger you were being put in they put some pillows on the dash and had an extra large first aid kit standing by and gave you a fire extinguisher to hold in your lap?
Doing all they could do to make the dive safe is very simple, you only take divers with proper certification and experience on a dive they are qualified to do, that is simple and non-debatable, all the rest is rationalization and mitigation of a dangerous situation. But we've been through this all before a hundred times. It's very black and white no matter how much anyone else wants to paint the blue hole dive as having a lot of gray area about it. There are standards established and the Belize dive industry breaks and ignores them, they've done it to the point PADI has issued a letter officially stating it and the US state dept has issued a travelers warning about the state of the dive industry in Belize. I don't bring these issues up to belabor the point but to point out the obvious that no matter what any dive operation does to mitigate the risk, they are in the wrong as soon as the violate standards no matter how much they want to mitigate the risk and no matter how much any diver wants to rationalize what they are doing.