Experienced Divers: Will You Dive With Newbies?

[emtdan]

From my limited expierence, It seems that most dives with less expierence then I tend to not want help, and glow a sense of resentment to all above them. As well they like to argue things they know nuthing about relating to diving.
Maybe thats how I rub off on people... oh well

 

[Hoosier]

Back to the original question, I never consider myself as an expert diver, but why not? You have never been a hoover before.



Here are good words we can think over.



1. Thinks only of his being a frog and forgets his once having been a tadpole.



2. The parish priest forgets that ever he has been holy water clerk.



Best,

 

[jbd]

Just to be clear for those new to this type of calculation, I'm pretty sure lamont meant "20 psi/ata-min" not "200 psi/ata-min." 200 psi every minute is an awful lot of gas

20 is pretty typical, I think. Mine is generally a little above that, between 20 and 25. 20 psi per minute per atmosphere is just above 0.5 cf/min.

Also note that psi/min will vary for different types of tanks, but cf/min will not.

Lamont is talking about himself with a 10 minute time frame as an example.

 

[jbd]

I understand that there are many factors that reflect a diver's ability level.

What do you very experienced divers consider before diving with a newer diver as indicative of the newer diver's ability level? Number of dives? Frequency of dives? Recent dives? Attitude? What else?

Michael

As OE2X said--all of these are factors to look at as long as you take them altogether.
By itself, number of dives isn't very meaningful even if the number is fairly high for a "new diver". Frequency doesn't mean much either if the diver is poorly trained and not improving.

If you have a well trained, new diver with 10 post cert dives under their belt in the past two weeks and they have a strong desire to improve and learn more, then you'll have a good dive even if it is a little shorter.

In summary; take them altogether and take them with a grain of salt--no body likes to make themselves look bad The proof is in the pudding.

 

[OE2X]

How about this? You can have experienced divers but they're now diving in a different environment. Would you dive with them? Like, say if some northern, cold water divers came down and attempted the challenging waters of the Western Caribbean....would I want to dive with them? I'm not sure....they might get vertigo from being able to see farther than 8 feet....diving with a sunburn could cause pain and therefore distractions....the mere affect of seeing fish and coral could make them "breathless" and they'll suck a tank down in no time....It's not just about newbs you know...heh heh

LOL. Come on Hank. At least I won't silt out the bottom or have my danglies tear up your reef.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

How about this? You can have experienced divers but they're now diving in a different environment. Would you dive with them? Like, say if some northern, cold water divers came down and attempted the challenging waters of the Western Caribbean....would I want to dive with them? I'm not sure....they might get vertigo from being able to see farther than 8 feet....diving with a sunburn could cause pain and therefore distractions....the mere affect of seeing fish and coral could make them "breathless" and they'll suck a tank down in no time....It's not just about newbs you know...heh heh

Not only that ... but the canister light just screams "warm water noob" to everyone on the boat ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[JasonH20]

Not only that ... but the canister light just screams "warm water noob" to everyone on the boat ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[newb ? alert]Just curious, wouldn't a canister light still be nice in warm clear water for bringing out colors? Granted, it's not as necessary as here in the PNW, but wouldn't it still be usefull?[/newb ? alert]

As to this thread, I'm already in big time mentoree dept, and it's getting worse every week. Since being certified, diving has become a larger part of my life and I've been telling all my freinds how great it is. As it turns out, I've found several people I know that are either "out of practice/resort" divers, or our now planning to get certified (my wife!). I'm gonna wait another couple of months to improve my skills and take AOW, but I've now got several people looking to me to be their mentor of sorts... I only hope I can be as gracious as my mentors have been to me.

When the tables are turned, and I'm the "experienced" diver, I could really care less about my buddy calling a dive short, whatever the reason happens to be. It's not a diving thing so much as a life philosophy. Just try to be a glass half full type of person, at least I got to dive even if it was cut short. Heck, my first OW dive was for 25 minutes kneeling on the bottom at 25' in a flooded drysuit, and I still thought it was a blast!

 

[OE2X]

Not only that ... but the canister light just screams "warm water noob" to everyone on the boat ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

And here I thought it was getting into a drysuit when the water is 80 degress.

 

[Roz In Phx]

My local LDS does frequent SoCal boat trips and when I'm on the boat as a DM I dive with any paying customer that wants to dive - at least once anyway

When I am a paying customer on the boat, I will dive with a noobie as long as I am comfortable with their diving experience. Before committing to partner with them I discuss their training, number of dives, type of dives and the areas where they think they need to improve their skills. I discuss the dive plan and the fact that I am not a swimmer - that I enjoy looking at all the little creatures and that if they start swimming at the speed of light they better be prepared to solo dive!

Having said all that, one of my best dives in SoCal (as a paying customer) was with a 14 year old boy from Salt Lake City who had been certified one year prior, had no dives after certification and had just completed a refresher course. He was on the boat with his friend and friend's father. This was his first ocean dive. We discussed the the dive plan throughly and I was impressed with his knowledge of dive planning. He also asked about my Air2 setup before I had a chance to explain it. His awareness of my dive equipment really impressed me. I set a 45 foot limit for the dive. At about 35 feet and 20 minutes into the dive we came to a ledge were we could look down to about 60 feet and guess what - a giant black seabass. Since I had been very comfortable with his diving skills, I verified his tank pressure and asked him if he wanted to go down to the fish. We descended and spent about 5 minutes up close and personal with this wonderful fish. My dive buddy's excitement after the dive reminded me of just why I got involved in this sport in the first place.

Just my two cents worth!

Roz In Phx

 

[Rick Inman]

...yes I do, and sometimes I should buy the lunch.
The real question is, sir, would you take a noob diving on your boat??