Missing Reel on Robert Gaskin

[The Chairman]

I would hope that this was due to ignorance and not malicious intent. I do believe it's something that I will be sure to cover in my OW classes, just to be sure that none of my students think they "found something cool".

 

[Warren_L]

Hi Warren,

No name on the reel however it may be something I do from now on. Perhaps I need to put John Reekie style "This gear is not abandonned" decals on everything.

On another note, I didn't start this thread as a means to get my reel back. I started it to point out a serious safety concern and hopefully educate some people on what not to do.

A very valid point. One would hope that as Netdoc says, it was due to ignorance and not malicious intent. Not that it makes either much of an excuse, but at least then with education, the problem can be solved.

 

[Mr Adams]

Chris

I'm sure Dan will give you another on the house.


Rick

 

[Kevin R]

No name on the reel however it may be something I do from now on. Perhaps I need to put John Reekie style "This gear is not abandonned" decals on everything.

On another note, I didn't start this thread as a means to get my reel back. I started it to point out a serious safety concern and hopefully educate some people on what not to do.

An excellent point. Almost anyone who dives cave knows the importance of never removing a line you didn't install, but why is it not taught at the basic recreational or technical levels. How many of you instructors have ever explained this to your students?

 

[The Chairman]

Guilty!

 

[Doppler]

An excellent point. Almost anyone who dives cave knows the importance of never removing a line you didn't install, but why is it not taught at the basic recreational or technical levels. How many of you instructors have ever explained this to your students?

All of them I hope... Kevin, this is pretty basic stuff... surely anyone taking a deployed reel off a wreck knows damn well they are stealing it and in doing so they are compromising another team's safety... the issue is not instructors (and I can hardly believe I'm saying this :11: ) but people who simply don't give a **** for anyone else

 

[The Chairman]

You know... it's not really discussed in OW and it should be. I even show them some of the lost gear that I have found during my class so they know that it's easy to lose stuff. That's a mixed signal at best. You can be sure that I will be discussing this very thing at length in my classes now.

 

[PatH]

All of them I hope... Kevin, this is pretty basic stuff... surely anyone taking a deployed reel off a wreck knows damn well they are stealing it and in doing so they are compromising another team's safety... the issue is not instructors (and I can hardly believe I'm saying this :11: ) but people who simply don't give a **** for anyone else

Steve, this is very basic stuff... but... I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of OW instructors don't talk about laying or taking up guidelines in the context of multiple dive teams duiring an OW course. It probably wasn't necessary 10 years ago... but times change.

 

[Kevin R]

It may seem basic to those of us who have taken or taught technical or cave courses, but I gaurentee it is not even mentioned in a PADI O/W course by 99.9% of the instructors because they don't know how to use a reel past towing a float with it. If the instructors don't know, they cannot teach it.

 

[Doppler]

Steve, this is very basic stuff... but... I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of OW instructors don't talk about laying or taking up guidelines in the context of multiple dive teams duiring an OW course. It probably wasn't necessary 10 years ago... but times change.

Well Pat and Kevin: I will admit to being out of the loop regarding the contents of most openwater currricula (?) as they stand today... as you say, times change and reels are far in more common usage today than when we learned to dive (had string been invented back then?). Given this, surely to god the community at large is aware to some extent that a piece of equipment left in place is not fair game.

Here's a scenerio... something that will happen this weekend since I am teaching a wreck penetration course... I'd like your comments. A team of three divers arrives at the engineering skylight and makes two primary ties on the exterior of the window fram and on the loop so formed stages their decompression gas. They enter and begin their overhead drills. While they are in there, a group of openwater divers swims by and see the threee 40 cubic foot bottles hanging there. What happens. And if they take anything, is that ignorance or are they simply theives?

I appreciate your point that better instruction is needed at the openwater stage, but maintain that people removing deployed gear are not ill-informed they are simply stealing.