Question Near incident. What should I have done?

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OP, I think you have a good attitude and are taking away valuable lessons from this live aboard experience.

The sooner you realize most divers suck, the sooner you will be prepared to dive around those divers.

Consider the solo course when you get enough dives and consider diving like a solo diver in both attitude and equipment prior to the course.
 
I wouldn't go that far. He did a trust-me dive. That's as much his fault as it was the leader's. Never splash if you can't finish the dive on your own. Your life and safety should not depend on the skills of another.
Disagree. We did a week long livaboard trip in Truk Lagoon diving large intact wrecks. Some of the penetrations we did under the supervision of an experienced dive master took us so deep inside the wrecks we probably would not have found our way out on our own before emptying the contents of our cylinder.

According to you we never should have entered the wreck in the first place if we didn't know the way out, and we would have therefore missed some of the most spectacular diving we have done in our entire lives, and we're just two of countless divers who have done the very same thing and lived to tell the tale.
 
Still curious as to what the vis was on this particular dive?
 
Some of the penetrations we did under the supervision of an experienced dive master took us so deep inside the wrecks we probably would not have found our way out on our own before emptying the contents of our cylinder.

According to you we never should have entered the wreck in the first place if we didn't know the way out, and we would have therefore missed some of the most spectacular diving we have done in our entire lives, and we're just two of countless divers who have done the very same thing and lived to tell the tale.
I don't think anyone could possibly come up with a better example of Normalization of Deviance. Thanks for providing this. Hope your future dives are as successful.
 
The sooner you realize most divers suck,
This made me laugh... and the last part of the sentence should read "But you don't have to!"

We're all on a learning curve somewhere. Most divers don't "suck", they're just somewhere else on that learning curve. The big take-a-way is to learn as you go. Develop new skills, and improve on old ones. Find a mentor if you can. The best though, seem to be dementors, and they'll teach you to be safe.
and we're just two of countless divers who have done the very same thing and lived to tell the tale.
The busiest part of ScubaBoard is our accidents and incidents forum. It's all about the not-so-countless divers who didn't come home alive. I've been on lots of guided tours of wrecks as well as caves. I always plan an exit strategy. In fact, I plan two or three. Always. My first dive was in 1969, and in those 55 years and thousands of dives, I've never been bent, never been seriously hurt, and have never died. Being brain dead doesn't count. I've made plenty of mistakes, plenty of trust-me dives, and way too many near misses. In those 55 years, I've learned to plan, plan, and re-plan. No, not for the dive to go as planned, but for it to go upside-down and even sideways. You can't bring too much gas, but there never seems to be enough time. A failure to plan, is a plan for failure. There, I've run out of tropes. But really, don't be complacent and never ever let your life be in the hands of another. There's nothing down there worth dying for. Whoops, there's another trope.
 
This is an indictment of the industry as a whole. I taught and guided in the Keys for 10/12 years, and this was not my experience. Fewer than half the dives were below 60FSW, and that was done for a reason.
To be fair Vis island is a "tougher" dive destination than the Keys. We are a good bit colder with the bottom temperatures going up to 15C 59F in the summer. 7mm wetsuit and a 15L steel tank mess with most divers that only used a shorty and a 11l aluminium.
I wouldn't call it a indictment, the tourist dive industry gives a lot of jobs to places that would otherwise not be on a map, most of those divers do 2-3 dives a year if that. Without quick and cheap instruction with a lot of hand holding those people would never go past the surface.
 
Without quick and cheap instruction with a lot of hand holding those people would never go past the surface.
My class took only 2 pool days, and 2 dive days. Often the second pool day would combine with the first dive day. It wasn't that hard, but I have to say it wasn't as cheap as some. Still, it just wasn't that expensive either. There are a lot of myths the industry perpetuates to accommodate lazy and/or incompetent instructors. It's my belief that we would have far more zealous divers if they learned trim, buoyancy, and a modicum of situational awareness from the start. My students did, and it paid off in spades for them, and me. No, I'm not a "super instructor": just competent and caring. @Jim Lapenta is another one who decided not to cut corners. It's just not that hard. You just have to forget the hype the industry wants you to regurgitate.
 
You are describing a complete crap show.
This is the takeway on this story. A crap show start to finish, which in many ways was foreseeable provided one has the experience/training/discipline to see and act on it.

This dive should have never happened. The instructor/guide's anger was justified, but misdirected. He should have been upset with himself for setting this whole CF in motion. Better yet, he should either commit to getting (re)trained or (preferably) seek another line of work.

Others have enumerated the many planning/execution (e.g. too many beginner divers/conflicted instructor/guide role, inappropriately complex plan) mistakes involved here. Others have offered constructive suggestions about how to identify lousy operators before booking (e.g. guide/diver ratios). Perhaps the OP will take them to heart and learn from them as he gains experience as a diver. At the end of the day we are all responsible for our own safety. That begins with avoiding problematic dives (which this obviously was) before they start. It is a mindset and only works if one constantly asks "does this make sense" and "am I comfortable with this plan (including dive group composition, conditions)" and, if the answer is no, skip the dive.
 
Still curious as to what the vis was on this particular dive?
Visibility was good, but the wreck is big and I couldn't see the anchor line from the spot we were about to surface from

If you look at a map of the wreck, the mooring lined were on the front of the bow, the incident happened after exploring the stern, on the open area where the ship was bombed. The group went through the middle level on the left side, if you're facing the bow
 

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