Guided Dives your Thoughts ? and Bad Situations

[Mike]

What do you think about guided dives?

Mostly a necessary evil. About 20% of the time they are beneficial.

Do they promote bad habits if done to frequently?

I don't think it's an issue of frequency, but more about when they appear in a diver's diving history. The newer the diver the greater potential for dive mastered dives to have possible negative effect on the diver developing skills and self-sufficiency.

Have you ever had a guide suggest a bad plan/ try to push it on you and other divers. How did you deal with it. any other opinions good or bad you have?

Sure. It was dealt with by simply speaking up and making known my concerns and not letting peer pressure influence my decisions. Opinion of it good or bad? It's life, you deal with it.

(mine seem quite negative after rereading the post, but there is no dought there are good aspects of having a guide)

Sometimes.

 

[beaverdivers]

I truly believe an exceptional dive guide is worth their weight in gold. Even if I am familiar with an area, I like to work local dive guides.

 

[TSandM]

I do want to add that a good guide can be a delight. The dive guides at Kungkungan Bay Resort in Lembeh, for example, were SO good at finding the cryptic, interesting critters we were there to see and photograph. Guides in the Mexican caves can save their clients a ton of time on logistics and finding the mainline. There's nothing wrong with a guided dive, so long as the diver remains responsible for his own decisions.

 

[NorCalDM]

I think guided dives are what you make out of them and I've had some great ones. The guide is there to "guide" you not dive for you and I see too many vacation only divers that rely on the guide/DM to do everything for them. I live in California and all my local diving whether from shore or boat you are on your own unless you pay for a private DM. My wife has a friend that we call "Princess Diver" she will not dive with us in California she will only dive on vacation with a guide and thinks we're nuts for shore diving. We did convince her to go on a boat dive with us once and when we got to the dive site and started kitting up she sat there waiting for someone to help her and asked who the guide was and when we told her the DM doesn't get in the water and stays on the boat I thought she had seen a ghost! She had never been on a dive without a guide and was not confident in her own skills. I think if you only dive with a guide you don't build the skills to be self reliant or the people who only dive with a guide don't want to build the skills and be responsible for themselve.

 

[bracko]

sometimes they're a necessary evil due to the procedures of the shop and you need to cop that, sometimes it's an option.

very generally I have found where dive shops enforce (free) guides and diving in groups I've found their general skills to be pretty good, and as a photographer they generally try. where they're not mandatory and even paid for each dive (!!!) they very generally are not as good. perhaps since they're paid up front they don't care.

I've had two guides that are my favourite and they're polar opposites. one being a detail oriented OCD instructor who gave long briefings even when it was just him and I and remembered every damn piece of life we saw and could name common and some scientific names of every photo I took. and at the other end on pohnpei where the briefings were terrible but the guide had eyes like a hawk, and put the entire group to shame.

 

[rhwestfall]

I have had limited experiences with guides. The only two times I have been to warm tropical waters, there was a DM who gave a briefing of the site, and occasionally was in the water during the dive. He might point out stuff, or just watch. Those dives were what I would expect. I have a hard time understanding or giving them much more of a role.... My diving at home, even on the charters, is "plan your dive, dive your plan". The DM just gives you tidbits in the briefing....

You know, Old School Diving..........

 

[BDSC]

In all my years of diving, I can't think of a single time when I've had a bad experience with a DM/dive guide and I can't remember them doing anything I thought was unsafe. The vast majority of the time, my wife or other dive buddy are off on our own anyway. I do appreciate it when they point out something unusual. The problem is, they tend to point out everything and you hear a constant tank bang or clicker or whatever else they use to get your attention. That's why we usually are off on our own. Much more peaceful and quiet I find.

 

[freewillie]

I think it depends on the type of dive and the DM as the guide. In California the DM is on the ship and does not get in the water unless there is an emergency. As divers it is your responsibility to pay attention to the predive briefing regarding current and conditions. Once in the water you are responsible for your own dive and getting back to the anchor line yourself without a guide. The boat is only there to get you from the dock to the dive site and back.

When I've been on vacation in Hawaii or the Caribbean most dive shops don't allow you to dive on your own. You are supposed to accompany a guide and they are supposed to get you to and from the ship safely. In fact, one vacation dive operator wouldn't even allow individual compasses. While I generally don't like these particular types of "herd" dives when a group of 4-6 divers follows a guide I don't find them the evil or dangerous adventures I so often read about here.

In fact, aside from having to follow a guide and do so in a group of instabuddies I've had some of my best dives in these settings. Granted it's because I'm diving warm tropical waters with crystal clear visibility and the tropical fish and fauna to go with it. But the guides themselves have to date all been very good in their own right. We didn't really have to be within arm's reach of the guide but it's not that hard in 80+ ft. visibility to keep an eye on the guide. Even in Cancun where we were drift diving not too difficult to stay close and pay attention. The guides also point out a lot of small critters like nudibranchs and eels in cracks I would have never seen without their help. Including one cleverly hidden frogfish on a wreck. I've never personally been in a situation I though was dangerous for either myself or my daughter on a guided dive with a DM. Hopefully it stays that way.

 

[Donnah]

In all my years of diving, I can't think of a single time when I've had a bad experience with a DM/dive guide and I can't remember them doing anything I thought was unsafe. The vast majority of the time, my wife or other dive buddy are off on our own anyway. I do appreciate it when they point out something unusual. The problem is, they tend to point out everything and you hear a constant tank bang or clicker or whatever else they use to get your attention. That's why we usually are off on our own. Much more peaceful and quiet I find.

I have been on several guided dives where my buddy and I (and others in the group) ignored a dive guide who either (1) took off like a rocket and never looked back, (2) invited us to do something we thought was wrong (petting a grouper he was holding captive), or (3) was going to do something we thought was unsafe (120 ft to see a cross in a little cave). With #3, most of us stopped at a tad over 100 ft, shook our heads, ascended to 80, investigated the wall, did our safety stop and got back on the boat. The guide's "buddy," a 70+ sometimes diver, ended up with the skin bends.

Our core group is all experienced divers, all retired. We liked returning to the same places because we have favorite dive masters who know us.

 

[Lorenzoid]

As you noted in the old threads you read on this topic, in many popular dive destinations it is required that you dive with a guide. I would say 90% of my diving has been of that type. You go to a dive resort, you generally dive with a guide. The Keys and Bonaire and a handful of dives in California are the only exceptions I can think of where we had no guide.

Most of my experiences with guides have been great. Local dive guides know where to look to find things. They are usually familiar with the topography. I have only experienced a couple of instances in which the guide's decisions made things difficult for us.