BoulderJohn, ScubaSteve & RoatanMan:
I wholeheartedly agree. But, we would probably need multiple threads.
I have to admit that I read the early posts on the original thread with the same morbid fascination that I get when I drive by a horrible car wreck. Part of me desperately wanted to look and the other part of me was ashamed of myself for responding to the sensational alure of the title and overly emotional charge/counter charges...
However, once the raw emotion burned off, it turned into one of the most interesting and informative threads on ScubaBoard. In addition to the "what really is the role of a DM", I found two of the major themes in particular to be thought provoking.
The first was the discussion about the amount of trust new divers place in their first resort dive charter operators and how widely that trust is abused. The discussion was absolutely on target. On my last trip the Blue Hole I was shocked to find out that there was a group of 8 divers on the boat that had been open water certified the day before... What in the world was the charter operator thinking? Day one as a certified diver and lets take you down to 130 feet... Talk about literally and figuratively getting in over your head! Let's face it, this type of turning a blind eye to new diver safety persists only because none of the certifying agencies want to lose market share by being the first to enforce hard and fast experience requirements for advanced diving activities... whether it is deep, drift, wreck or otherwise. It is a classic case of all or none... If one agency enforces standards they lose customers. If they all do it at the same time on a voluntary basis, they are all equal until one starts to bend the standard in order to gain an advantage... then it all crumbles. The only way I can think of to make it really work is for the RSTC and NAUI to agree to a common mandatory set of depth versus certification standards. If anyone else has a better or more practical idea, it would be great to discuss it!
The second related to the issue underlying the title and the original post. When the author accused the Caymans of being unacceptably dangerous, there was no standard to compare the 9 2008 deaths and the 4 2009 deaths to. There is a big difference between the number of deaths and the "death rate." More caucasian infants die every year in the US than minority infants... Does that mean that it is safer to be a minority infant? Absolutely not, their death rate is almost double (i.e. deaths per 1,000 births). Does anyone know what how the death rate (deaths per 1,000 dives) for the Caymans compares to other dive destinations. Without that information, any discussion about the Caymans versus other resort destinations is pure conjecture. We can all come up with annecdotal horror stories about almost anywhere. If there really is something "more wrong" with the dive operations in the Cayman Islands than elsewhere, it will show up in "mortality and serious injury rates." The total number of deaths really does not mean anything. Both the author and the early contributers acted as if they did not know or care that 9 deaths deaths out of 300,000 dives is actually twice as safe as 3 deaths out of 50,000 dives. the discussion constantly reminded me of my great grandfather's favorite saying, "Statistics never lie and liars always use statistics!"
For what it is worth, I am grateful for the thought that went into posts on this "too bad its gone for now" thread and to the staff of ScubaBoard that is slogging through the more than a thousand posts on the original thread to edit out the inappropriate parts. When it is reposted, I doubt the non sensational version will have the same appeal the original did. Perhaps the biggest benefit it will have has already begun... Stimulating individual threads that address the truly important issues that slowly began to assert themselves as the thread outlived the emotion of the original post.
I look forward to seeing the next installments to this thread and to reading and learning from the threads that spin off to address key topics!
P
*** For any who don't know, the Recreational Scuba Training Council (RSTC) was incorporated in the United States in 1986 with the mission of establishing minimum training standards at all levels of recreational scuba diving. If I remember correctly, NAUI is the only major certification agency that is not a member. ***
