Dumbest things you've seen a newbie diver do

[blackfoothu]

It was my first training dive and even I knew better than to say this but here it goes...It was a nasty rainy day and we had tarps out on the ground so that our stuff (only the dive equipment, rest was in our cars) would at least not get muddy. And the tent overhead wasn't doing a great job at keeping the equipment completely dry. We were about an hour away of doing our first dive and someone asked should we move our DIVE stuff it's getting wet from the rain.....I had to walk away so that they didn't see me crying with laughter.......

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Recently got assigned a dive buddy by the DM.. bit of a chat.. fellow was a Rescue Diver but not a lot of dives under his weight belt. Then just as we are going to splash another diver rocks up and gets assigned to us.. not a lot of time for chatting him up to get a good background. I'm Navigator in pretty nasty viz and we have some current running.

In we go.. there was another group of 3 who seemed to know each other and dive together often. My normal buddies weren't available so...

I keep a pretty close eye on my two buddies... but the viz was awful and worse for the silt fish. I look around and check back for the late arrival... no sign of him. I signaled to the other one.. where is he... quick check to see if he is with the other three.. nope. Lost buddy proceedure kicks in.. indicate to the remaining diver.. go up!.

We locate him on the surface about 15M away. I swim over to find out what is wrong. His answer astounded me!
"I thought my inflater might not be working right so I ditched my weights and surfaced Didn't signal a buddy... try to get anybody's help just ditched his weights and surfaced!

Course he is too light to get back down and he has discovered the inflater IS working! Great.. now he wants me to find his weights... "vague wave" over there somewhere! WRONG!

He indicated he was going to exit.. looking at the waves washing and breaking over the rocks.. I got out my trusty whistle and blew it to get the attention of the surface support and watch to make sure they had things in control before we continued the dive.

 

[Tessunderwater]

Bowlofpetunias- wow! That sounds like some experience and he was a rescue diver?

 

[aquaregia]

You can be a rescue diver with 11 dives. You can still be a stupid diver with 120 dives (personal experience).

 

[Chill Diver]

You can be a rescue diver with 11 dives. You can still be a stupid diver with 120 dives (personal experience).

I agree with the second part, but please explain how anyone could be a rescue diver with only 11 dives. OW and AOW require 9 in total. Is rescue only 2 dives?

 

[DwayneJ]

I agree with the second part, but please explain how anyone could be a rescue diver with only 11 dives. OW and AOW require 9 in total. Is rescue only 2 dives?

There is pool work for skills practice but technically I believe the open water exercises can be completed in 1 dive. There is no specific logged dive requirement for rescue diver... On to Dive Master with 40 logged dives.

 

[lemondiver]

You can have wetsuits custom made with all kinds of options, zippers on the arms, legs, front, back. I have one with a front zipper and one with a back zipper. The back zipper is much easier to get on and off. The name of the company is Wet Wear out of FL.

 

[lemondiver]

How could you be experienced enough with 11 dives to actually rescue someone? open water is 4 dives.

 

[ShootinSquid]

THey "teach" you things to look out for and catch signs of trouble. That's the idea, as explained to me by a DM at a LDS.

Frankly...as with most things in life that form a hierarchy, it's a thing of prestige vs aptitude. There is respect for the badge that says you are a particular thing...and then there's respect for what you actually do and what you know.

As someone here already mentioned, there can be a RD with 11 dives (or so) and be good at it...and there could be people with 100 dives and be completely inconsiderate jerk.

Seen a lot of that in the military...and business.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Sorry I wasn't real clear. The Rescue Diver acknowledged his lack of experience .. he was a fairly young man but he is the buddy that stayed with me. The one who surfaced was probably 3 times his age! Never found out what his actual experience was.

One lesson that should come away from this is that you don't judge a book by it's cover. The one you would expect to be more mature and make better decisions is the one who didn't. The young man many would expect to be the rash one was happy to give me a fair and honest assessment of his experience in spite of his Rescue Cert. No macho attitude, followed protocols and no fuss about me leading the dive! I would happily dive with him again. Not so happy with the other one tho I would consider it in a less challenging dive site.

Everybody learns and everybody makes mistakes it is arrogance and complacency that are more likely to kill IMHO.