Inconsistent message to new divers

[bowlofpetunias]

Yeah we know how that goes and I don't think NetDoc wants or needs another lawsuit! Suffice it to say that goes to show the importance of standing up and saying NO when needed. I wonder what would have happened if nobody followed the DM.. how long would it take to notice and what impact would it have on the dive op when everyone went back to shore and told their story? A boat full of dissatisfied divers is not a group to be ignored!

 

[boulderjohn]

Years ago, when I was just starting to get reasonably experienced, I met a couple of other divers with decent experience while diving with the operator associated with our hotel in Cozumel. We asked the operator if we could do a specific site they did not normally dive the next day, and they said we could. The next day we set out, joined by a young couple who had just arrived the previous afternoon. We did the dive, and the young couple did just fine with it. During the surface interval, we discovered that the couple had just gotten certified, and this dive was their first one after certification.

The dive site was the Devil's Throat. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it is a swim through that starts at about 95 feet. You exit at between 125-130 feet, depending upon how close you stay to the ceiling.

They had no real idea that their dive was going to be what it was, and given their lack of experience, their performance was exemplary. I am sure the operator put them on the boat to fill it out and make more money on the trip. People should keep such things in mind when the operator tells you a dive is within your ability.

 

[Teamcasa]

As for my first 50 dives, they were solo except when practicing buddy breathing on a double hose rig, I had no BC, no SPG, and the first 20 were probably between 10 and 30'. There is no reason to rush to go deep untill you are proficient with your gear and procedures. At that time there was no 60', 100', or 130' limit on recreational diving, you just worked up to where you were comfortable.

On this we agree, depth and new divers is a problem many Instructors don't cover it enough.

I tell new divers this: What you think you know after your first 100 or so dives changes after your 500th dive significantly.
At some point you have to trust what you have been taught, realize that you will need more training and experience, then continue to learn.

 

[Quero]

Years ago, when I was just starting to get reasonably experienced, I met a couple of other divers with decent experience while diving with the operator associated with our hotel in Cozumel. We asked the operator if we could do a specific site they did not normally dive the next day, and they said we could. The next day we set out, joined by a young couple who had just arrived the previous afternoon. We did the dive, and the young couple did just fine with it. During the surface interval, we discovered that the couple had just gotten certified, and this dive was their first one after certification.

The dive site was the Devil's Throat. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it is a swim through that starts at about 95 feet. You exit at between 125-130 feet, depending upon how close you stay to the ceiling.

They had no real idea that their dive was going to be what it was, and given their lack of experience, their performance was exemplary. I am sure the operator put them on the boat to fill it out and make more money on the trip. People should keep such things in mind when the operator tells you a dive is within your ability.

John, in that instance was there a dive briefing in which the couple had the opportunity to participate? If so, was the dive profile explained? Was the fact that it was an overhead environment explained? Were any options given for these divers to remain outside the chimney? Did the couple object at all, express any worry, or even ask for a reassurance? (IOW, were they actually "told" or assured that the dive was within their capabilities by the DM?)

I don't know that this happens in Cozumel, but here it's possible for a hotel tour desk to simply book people onto a tour of any sort, and the girl doing the booking is generally not even a swimmer, let alone in any position to advise a diver of the appropriateness of a particular dive. "Oh a wreck dive? That sounds cool! Let's do it!" So we get brand-new divers booking onto dive trips to the King Cruiser wreck, which sits at 30-32 meters in sand with ascent and descent on a current-swept line tied to the top at 17-18 meters. IMO these folks have no business doing this dive without some accommodation for their inexperience (I keep them only on the top of the wreck and don't do the sides or the swim throughs). But when booked on any tour, I do think it's important for all divers to recognize their responsibility to actually participate in briefings, to ask questions, and to clarify the hazards of the dive so that they themselves are in a position to decide whether to do the dive as briefed or ask for accommodations.

 

[Abaco24]

Very well thought out post that I agree with and have seen on SB. As one who is getting back into diving after learning off the dive tables, wrist depth gauge, aqua lung tanks & gear, decor reg and a back pack only with horse-shoe collar BC, I agree with you. Great post.

 

[boulderjohn]

John, in that instance was there a dive briefing in which the couple had the opportunity to participate? If so, was the dive profile explained? Was the fact that it was an overhead environment explained? Were any options given for these divers to remain outside the chimney? Did the couple object at all, express any worry, or even ask for a reassurance? (IOW, were they actually "told" or assured that the dive was within their capabilities by the DM?)

I don't know that this happens in Cozumel, but here it's possible for a hotel tour desk to simply book people onto a tour of any sort, and the girl doing the booking is generally not even a swimmer, let alone in any position to advise a diver of the appropriateness of a particular dive. "Oh a wreck dive? That sounds cool! Let's do it!" So we get brand-new divers booking onto dive trips to the King Cruiser wreck, which sits at 30-32 meters in sand with ascent and descent on a current-swept line tied to the top at 17-18 meters. IMO these folks have no business doing this dive without some accommodation for their inexperience (I keep them only on the top of the wreck and don't do the sides or the swim throughs). But when booked on any tour, I do think it's important for all divers to recognize their responsibility to actually participate in briefings, to ask questions, and to clarify the hazards of the dive so that they themselves are in a position to decide whether to do the dive as briefed or ask for accommodations.

Since the majority of us had asked to do this dive and there was no discussion about the site on the way out, we assumed the other couple must have been briefed that this was a boat heading to a preplanned advanced site. There was very little briefing on the surface, and what there was indicated that the couple had had some advanced planning. We discussed dropping quickly, entering the swim through, etc. I don't recall if depth was mentioned, but I also assumed that this was well known, since the boat was chartered for that purpose.

In this hotel, anyone requesting to dive had to go to the on-site dive shop, where they did all the paper work and signed up for the dive directly with the dive operator. The operator had only two boats, and they certainly had to know that they had one of them dedicated to the Devil's Throat the next day. Because we were located on the far north end of the island and the Devil's Throat is on the far south, our boat left earlier than normal, so there had to have been a briefing for that as well.

No, there was no accident here.

 

[Quero]

So can we reasonably conclude that since the couple were not surprised at the little bit of discussion regarding the dive site while on the outbound journey, they were briefed at the shop and presumably chose to do the dive (informed consent)? So post-dive, did they indicate that had they understood the true nature of the dive beforehand they wouldn't have attempted it? If so, we can then also conclude that they were reassured by the shop staff rather than given enough information for informed consent, and that the reason for the reassurance might have been for profit motives. John, is this how you see it?

 

[boulderjohn]

So can we reasonably conclude that since the couple were not surprised at the little bit of discussion regarding the dive site while on the outbound journey, they were briefed at the shop and presumably chose to do the dive (informed consent)? So post-dive, did they indicate that had they understood the true nature of the dive beforehand they wouldn't have attempted it? If so, we can then also conclude that they were reassured by the shop staff rather than given enough information for informed consent, and that the reason for the reassurance might have been for profit motives. John, is this how you see it?

Pretty much.

They were clearly not at all concerned about the dive going into it, and I have to admit they did a much better job than I ever would have expected from first time divers. Of course, the personnel who signed them up for the dive, briefed them, and told them they could do it could not have known what to expect.

I will assume that the other scheduled boat was already full, so their only choices for the couple were to put them on our boat or tell them they could not dive that day, thus losing that income and potentially sending a couple planning to do a week's worth of diving to a competitor. Can you think of another reason to put brand new divers on this site?

 

[Quero]

I wasn't there, so it's hard to speculate, but based on what happens here, divers might be offered more than one itinerary, each on a different boat, and consciously choose to go on one boat over the other boat simply because of the dive site description rather than because the other boat is full. For example, if the dive shop has a couple of sentences about each dive site in a brochure or a list or something and the customers compare these, they may ultimately decide to do the more challenging dive because it somehow seems more interesting. Earlier I used the example of the local wreck here, so let me expand that. Suppose that a new diver did training dives at a reef with more benign sites for two days and now that he's finally certified he wants to try a new and different site, but the only other itinerary available is the trip visiting the wreck. Even though the dive shop personnel may explicitly explain the profile, the customer may simply opt to do the wreck dive anyway, even if there is space on the boat going to the easier site, if the easier site is a repetition of the site where training took place. I don't know whether this is a possible scenario at Cozumel, but it certainly is here.

I'm only asking because it seems to me that all of the responsibility for inexperienced divers doing dives beyond their training is laid at the fins of the DMs by many respondents in this thread, with the insinuation that DMs are routinely and negligently trying to talk masses of newbie divers into doing risky dives. While this may indeed happen sometimes, it seems to me that it could just as often be the case that the divers themselves have opted to do these dives after having been fully informed.

Here where I work we may simply be assigned a group of divers, having had no say in advising them of an appropriate itinerary. All we can do is provide a good briefing and hope that those divers who are uncomfortable with the dive will ask questions so that accommodations can be made as needed. If they say nothing, how can DMs provide alternatives for them (e.g., such as keeping them at the top of the wreck rather than going around the sides)?

If divers do not speak up, perhaps their instructors have not made this responsibility clear to them during their training. In my own briefings for training dives, I emphasize at the start of each briefing that I expect students to participate in the briefing since the briefing will inform our mutually agreed-upon dive plan--admittedly, they usually don't have much say in what is going to happen since we have prescribed skills to cover and prescribed depth ranges at which to dive, but they can ask as many questions as they like and in fact they can even decide not to go diving.

In other words, I believe that it is not just divers' right to receive a briefing with which to formulate a dive plan, but indeed it is their responsibility to gather information on which to base decisions about their own upcoming dive and to make their own decision whether or not to actually do the dive. And if we conclude that masses of newbie divers are not exercising their right or fulfilling their responsibility in this regard, we should look towards the training they receive and make the necessary adjustments so that we instill in our students the need to do so.

 

[flots am]

I'm only asking because it seems to me that all of the responsibility for inexperienced divers doing dives beyond their training is laid at the fins of the DMs by many respondents in this thread, with the insinuation that DMs are routinely and negligently trying to talk masses of newbie divers into doing risky dives. While this may indeed happen sometimes, it seems to me that it could just as often be the case that the divers themselves have opted to do these dives after having been fully informed.

They may be "fully informed" but that isn't actually saying much, given that a new diver has no idea what the risks and stresses actually are.

When I was new, I wanted to dive the Spiegel Grove because I'd heard it was "cool" and I'd never been there before. The dive op had a boat going there, but said "no, you're not ready." And he was right. It was deep (this was before it was righted) and the currents were unpredictable, and I wasn't ready for it, however being new, I had no idea what "ready" meant, since I had obviously been "ready" for all my prior dives. All ~40 of them . . .

Instead, I was put on a boat going to a shallow lump that used-to-be-a-wreck, but had turned into a reef, and had a great time. If the guys from the op at John Pennekamp are here, I'd like to say "Thanks!"

If a qualified, experienced diver wants to do a dive and really understands the risks, I'll wish them a great dive and leave it at that, but I don't buy the part about a new diver being fully informed.

flots