Newbie, Poor Diver or Jerk?

[Jim Ernst]

I don't know . . . maybe this guy is a jerk and doesn't care at all what his effect on your dive is like.

Maybe this guy is like I was as a newbie, and possessed of very poor skills and desperately trying to get the experience to improve, and maybe he's sitting at home depressed and morose and intensely guilty because he knows he ruined your dive. I still obsess about a couple of dives I did as a newbie that were awful, with people who (either by chance or by their very careful design) I have never had the opportunity to dive with again.

You know this guy and you have apparently worked with him before, so you are in a better position to judge than I am. If he's oblivious and unwilling to listen, then you should avoid diving with him again. If he's just slow on the uptake, but open to being helped, maybe you can have an influence.

What happened to you with your wife is just an example that you, too, have more to learn, and so does she. We are all on the learning curve in diving -- that is, if we are humble enough to recognize it. As Joe Talavera put it so beautifully this weekend, the great thing about diving is that each time you go down, you suck a little less. You'll improve, if you think about why your incident happened (What's ideal buddy positioning? How did your wife's habitual choice of position play into the setup for a potentially injurious situation? How does your wife's choice of position impede your ability to keep tabs on her buoyancy and her general condition? How would you respond quickly to a major emergency -- eg. OOA -- occurring in a buddy who is behind and above you?) Your newbie companion will improve if he asks himself any questions about why he kept bumping into people (Poor buoyancy control? Poor propulsion techniques? Inadequate situational awareness?)

Honesty and introspection are great tools.

yaay some nice imput and well put, and some understanding for the frustration of the original poster, it can be frustrating!!!!!

 

[pir8]

Try to get the newbee to take some classes, anything to get him in the h2o and build some experience. should be some specialty that would interest him and almost all of them stress buoyancy.

 

[Jcsgt]

Maybe one reason he's hesitant about going to the pool is because he's nervous.

 

[Darnold9999]

My 2 cents - as a new diver you are focused a bit on the more experienced diver looking for input, what they are doing, what cool thing they might have found, where they are going and making sure your extra supply of air is nearby. The other thing you are doing is always moving, hands waving, fins kicking as you are pretty much always overweight. These two things together cause you to have a tendancy to be always moving toward the other person with no way to stop.

If you face another person almost anything you do from that position pushes you toward them. Try asking this person to focus their attention somewhere else and only check you out once in a while by turning your head. Non threatening way to approach the subject, i.e. not his fault just something that happens this is how to fix it.

You also need to work on your skills a bit. Hard to get your mask kicked off or reg kicked out if you know where the people around you are. You as the more experienced diver should be able to avoid such a person fairly easily. Having said that someone above and behind you can take you by surprise particularly if you are not buddied with them.

Re air consumption. In my albeit limited experience this is something that just happens one day. One dive you are a hoover, the next some kind of light goes on and your consumption drops. Before and after there are minor improvements, but there seems to be some kind of "got it" point where your body realizes that this is something you don't have to work at quite so hard.

Is he a jerk - only if he refuses to listen to non judgmental criticism. Have patience for some people this is not easy.

 

[Cacia]

Sorry Cathrine, I meant no offense in my usage of the word

I know, sorry...I did not mean to sound self-richeous. Guess I am stuck in mommy mode with the lectures.

the kids say it and I am on them. "gay" as an insult another label they use that gets me upset.

I would say to the guy "hey man you are walking all over me down there!" "work on it, okay?" When divers crash the coral in an oblivious way, I swim over and point like I am explaining and make the "no-no sign" with my finger. Is that lame? They usually get it and seem to appreciate getting spared the lecture. (like I gave you )

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

Those stupid newbie divers. They have no business even going NEAR the water until they have perfected their bouyancy and trim.

You gotta be kidding me.

we'll see how it goes...

 

[andydiver06]

We always get divers like this. Here the Viz is normally 4-5m sometimes in mm. So on guided tours not only people keep on bumping into you but some people you have to hold hand, others tightly grab your arm . Its all fun as you help them reduce their panic. I try to keep them on my sides of behind me so that i dont get kicked around by them. Yesterday my instructor took one really panicked guy for a tour( DSD) . He could not complete as he was totally unsuitable for diving. But his girlfriend was diving and was very comfy in water so he had to try, some kind of macho thing. So after coming up the instructor told me to give him a snorkeling briefing and teach him snorkeling. I took him holding hands about 20 m from the boat he started to increase the pressure on my hand. I calmed him down and said does he wants a life vest and got a neg reply. So we continued and by the time I have taken him 50m from boat to a nice shallow rocky area, he started to climb over me as I he was climbing a tree.(Rescue Scenario). It took lot of persuation to convince him that he was ok and bring him back to the boat. Facing actual scenarios which we are trained for increases our knowledge. I had to talk loudly to him to get the mesage through as he was totally zoned out and got rebuked by my instructor for talking loudly to the customer. Its all part of the game.

 

[DiveMaven]

And I'm not sure what you tbough I meant when I said "deal with" the issue. To me, "dealing with" an issue is talking about it. And forgive me if I'm a little sensitive about the issue because my left arm hasn't been feeling right all morning, I'm going to have my self checked out by a doctor today.

Will you let us know what the doctor says?? I hope you're okay, the possibility of DCI is a very scary thing.

 

[ScubaKai]

There could be a number of reasons for the other diver bumping into you, but I believe the most obvious is probably bouyancy control. Regardless of what bad divers do, you have to learn how to adapt to just about any diver. For the most part, when things like that happen, it's simple and better to just distance yourself, go a different direction or hang back. If on a wall dive, just move away from the wall. Sure I'd like to spear gun some people at times (don't dare break any coral around me grrrrrr), but really sometimes you can't choose whom you dive with, but you can choose how you react. Even if the other diver is not aware of you, you should try to be aware of him/her. I highly recommend on any dive, to first establish the experience of the other divers, then decide how you will dive around them. The newer they are, the more attention they require. If that person isn't your buddy, keep away from them. Imagine they have a large "L" sign and drive.. err... dive accordingly.

 

[Damselfish]

Damsel, you just joined the long list of people that all have pointed out that I was being too hard on the guy and my rant was out of line. We're past that.

I realize that you are a vastly more experienced diver than I am but I'm a bit offended at your remarks. I have been training very hard every week in the crappiest conditions imaginable, both day and night to condition myself to be "aware of my surroundings and my buddies." In my opinion, and the opnions of the people I dive with, I perform those skills very well.

However, I have already admitted that I was beyond upset over what this guy was doing. When my wife grabbed my fin and yanked me to the surface, it happened almost instantly. Excuse me if I didn't glance at my dive computer as I was abruptly yanked upside down and taken on a ride to the surface.

As far as keeping tabs on my buddy (in this case my wife) goes, I constantly turn and check on my buddy regardless of who it is. As I mentioned earlier, her favorite position is above, and behind me. She does it because she is nervous that something on the bottom is going to "jump out and get her". Since I want her to be comfortable and get over her anxiety on her own, I don't push the issue although I don't like it. Incidently, I didn't notice that she was having any bouancy issues earlier when she was signalling she's "OK" and she made no attempt to let me know of any problems prior to her runaway ascent.

And I'm not sure what you tbough I meant when I said "deal with" the issue. To me, "dealing with" an issue is talking about it. And forgive me if I'm a little sensitive about the issue because my left arm hasn't been feeling right all morning, I'm going to have my self checked out by a doctor today.

Not to mention I'm a little "wound up" after asking her if she was feeling any symptoms of DCI and her response was "Why do you want to know? What's the worse that could happen? Why do you want to go to the doctor? Won't the bubbles just go away on thier own?"

There was no, "I hope everything is OK", a "I should get myself checked out", or even an "I'm sorry".

Why am I even talking about this?

Well if you don't want opinions, or have a quota of how many of a particular opinion is acceptable to you, or take offense easily, I'd suggest not posting on a public message board.