I am not a shop owner, so I realize this wasn't necessarily directed at me. When we have 10 or 11 year olds come to the shop we require them to have a private divemaster. Then there are many sites where people who choose to go deeper can do so with the main divemaster, and the children (with their family if they choose) can stay shallower. That way nobody is breaking a standard or being left unsupervised, and nobody's dive is being impacted by having children on board.
I find this to be an interesting question. Every time it comes up I wonder "what about adults who simply don't wish to dive deeper than 40 feet?" We seem to have this idea that a shallow dive is a negative, and it is the responsibility of the more conservative diver to make sure they don't hold back a more aggressive diver, rather than the other way around. Why would we not consider people who wish to go to 100ft as the people who really need the private dive master, and are negatively impacting the dives of those who wish to experience a longer, more relaxed dive in a shallower depth? After all, everyone can have a great experience at a beautiful 40ft site, not everyone can be diving safely at 100ft. Just a thought.
Actually I was aiming my question at Christy in the other thread, but wanted input from other shops too. Thanks for the reply.
I like the shallower depths because there's more light and often more life to photograph, not to mention a longer and safer dive from less air consumption and nitrogen uptake. It's a similar dilemma when one buddy pair wants to go to Devil's Throat and the rest of the boat isn't keen on the dive for whatever reason. The difference is that the junior diver, and I particularly mean the 10-11 age range, is limited to 40' whereas the divers that want Devil's Throat don't have to do it.
However, Cozumel seems like a particular difficult place to solve the dilemma, even using a private DM, because many of the sites that put it on the map are deeper walls and rock formations, where the shallows, if any, are sand expanses at the top of the wall. If most of the divers on the boat had the deep wall drift dive experience in mind, I could imagine a bit of disappointment when told that the first and second dives will be shallow, not just today but every day that the junior diver is on the boat.
A larger operation running many boats could certainly work this out by switching divers around, but a single boat op would be obviously more hard-pressed to do so and possibly risks losing long-time customers who were expecting to go to some of the deeper sites. Again, this is a similar case to whenever there are newbies on the same boat or, as you mention, divers who simply prefer to dive shallower. Just more restrictive, I guess, especially in a deeper-oriented locale like Cozumel.
What about adults who don't wish to dive deeper than 40 ft? I'd ask them, "what the heck were you thinking when you booked a dive trip to Cozumel?" There are plenty of dive locales that are not known for their deep walls and therefore are less likely to attract divers who insist on deep wall diving.
