TheRedHead:
I didn't mean it in a negative way and perhaps someone should offer a formal definition of a "trust me" dive. It is my understanding that if you depend on someone, particularly if they have a lot more experience, to select the site, lead the dive and navigate, you are essentially trusting them not to lead you into a dangerous situation. This is in contrast to a diver who goes to Florida and teams up with a buddy to make a dive plan on their own and navigate the site and get back to the boat safely. Perhaps someone can clarify?
I don't actually remember ever hearing the term "trust me dive" until my cave training. Since then, the useage seems to have expanded some. In that context, a good example would be a circuit or a traverse. In either case you are following a different rout out than you followed in. The way those dives are done is you dive first from one direction and mark the line if you should hit your turn pressure and exit the way you came in. Then you do another dive comming from the other way. If you reach your own marker before hitting your turn pressure and you're confident that you can find your way out the other way then, in theory, you can continue and complete the dive within the limits of your useable gas.
If I said "Hey Red, I do this dive all the time. Your SAC is as good as mine so lets go!". If you do that ciruit or traverse without setting the dive up yourself it's a trust me dive. You are trusting that my assesment is corect and that I know the way. Once you pass your turn pressure you are either headed out or you're eating up your reserves and if I'm wrong you're dead unless we can rectify the situation on the amount of gas that we have reserved.
In a recreational diving context, I would say that any time you lack the knowledge or skill to complete the dive on your own, it's a "trust me dive."
Having a guide isn't what would make it a "trust me dive".
Leaving all the gas planning or decompression planning to the guide would probably make it a trust me dive.
If you have no idea where you are or where you are going during the dive, that might make it a trust me dive, although at some places it doesn't really matter where you are.
If you are diving beyond your own limits/experience/training based on the judgement or assumed skill of the guide, that might certainly be a trust me dive.
Relating it to this thread, if the client divers are really reliant on the DM's for their safety in the water, or don't know, or can't complete the dive plan without the guide then I would call it a trust me dive. Who says that it's not going to be the guide who ends up missing or incapacitated?
