On recreational divers with pseudo-tech equipment

[Gombessa]

I wanna know what the dude is looking at... he's looking up at something. He's thinking "hey, is my light on?"

It's his boat. He has a GPS repeater module installed on a roof bar so he can direct the captain to drop him in exactly the right spot. Why he would choose to publish that picture of himself...nobody knows.

 

[micklock]

is it nereas because he has his octo clipped to a neclace

 

[ucfdiver]

Yup! I'm the divemaster. I have local knowledge, have done the dive a hundred times and it is my job to make sure he has a fun time and gets to live long enough to tell his wife about the cool dive he had over dinner that night. I'm a professional and he is a clueless recreational diver.

If someone doesn't follow MY rules, then one of us is not going to be diving. The Capt. gets to pick if it is going to be me or the customer who will be sitting on the boat.

You have to understand that this is a VERY rare occurance and any good divemaster is able to spot most disasters before they occur and it is his responsibility to attempt to prevent them. I would do the same if I guy showed up totally drunk...

Sounds like dive mastering gives you quite the feeling of empowerment.

 

[Elemental]

That's a Borg Occular implant!

Or a rectal one doing double duty.

 

[Mayor]

I remember thinking I had diving all figured out once when younger and was probably cocky about it. Now, the more I know the more I realize I don't know and I feel like I'm never going to know. But, thankfully, I've got a few really great mentors to remind me and on some days they probably think I'm a train wreck too.

Well said, I was thinking I was a good diver till I dove with you. Now I feel like I should put my cards in the trash and start over. To think my OW instructor was a SEAL.

Started on my gear set up and will be ready for your class next season.

 

[Mayor]

I have a student like this now that I'm trying to fix. He earned a NAUI open water card and IMHO he doesn't have the required skills to even possess that at the moment. The diving industry initially failed to provide my current student with a skilled instructor and the instructor failed to provide this student with proper education, training and testing. He's planning a dive trip soon and will become some warm water instructor's nightmare if I can't get him sorted out soon enough just to not be a disaster.

The next thing that my new project did was throw a bounty of money on ridiculous gear that he doesn't need and that dwarfed him. He purchased it on the internet rather than seeking guidance at a dive center. He researched equipment online and found a way over-teched BCD like that of the diver in the OP. He may have done this because he didn't feel comfortable with his open water training and trust the instructor and the dive center staff? Or, maybe it was just to save money? I'll have to ask him why he didn't buy equipment from his local dive center.

I have seen this diver in the water and you do have your work cut out. God bless you!

 

[Flightlead]

So, if you have a skills-based solution in search of a problem, is that better than an equipment-based solution in search of a problem? What if the solution is an entanglement hazard at the same time? If equipment is required to solve a skills-based problem because a skills-based solution poses a quantum-entanglement problem, does the equipment exist in two places at once as long as you don't look at it, or is the diver doomed to an indeterminate chance of survival so long as he perpetually remains in the cave?

Lets see, if the diver in question is sealed in a box with a tank of bad air and a device consisting of a Geiger counter and a single atom of radioactive substance...

I'll have to go ask my dive buddy who can't figure out how fast he's swimming and where he's at at the same time...

 

[Flightlead]

Seems to me the diver described was a jerk who needs to work on basic skills and understanding of both buoyancy skills and underwater conservation.

hmmm....he's only a jerk if he knows what he's doing is inappropriate and does it anyway...he's just a dummy if he didn't know. dummies can be fixed, jerks less so.

 

[Anti-Hero]

Hey is this the guy??

Is that a balanced rig?

 

[wreckchick]

With everything wrong with the above picture, I'm going to pick on the biggest safety hazard...

Is his gun loaded on the boat??? Seriously???



On the other topic at hand, I've seen a lot of configurations ranging from the average recreational set-up to some truly outlandish things that I could never conceive of if I *was* the thousand monkeys and a thousand typewriters. I also dive a bp/w with a long hose, bungeed back-up, etc, so I am familiar with at least that end of the spectrum. On the rare occasions that someone hands me a pandora's box of a dive bag, I usually ask them to set it up so I can see what the heck is going on. Once assembled I will ask questions about the viability of the rig because if need be, I need to be the one to use it or get the guy (and really, really it's always a guy) out of it. If the answers to my questions allow me to gently 'correct' a misconception or to display the shortcomings of said rig, I take my chances. If instead I get well-reasoned answers and it seems the rig has been thought through, then what can I do?

Any and all know-it-all/seen-it-all/done-it-all/did-it-before-you divers I tolerate because, well, that's my job, but they probably won't get the enjoyment out of the whole diving experience because they're too trapped in their own heads to look out and have the sense of awe and wonder that makes diving special. I can only hope they self-select themselves out of the sport for that reason and let the rest of us enjoy the underwater world free from their toxic attitudes.

and 20# of lead is WAY WAY WAY overweighted for a petite 5' person. I know she's said to be experienced but there is something very very wrong with something there. I might actually go so far as to refuse to put that much lead on her if she's diving a tropical suit.

I think you all just got a $1.50 of my opinions, that's in American dollars, so roughly $.02 Canadian. Do with it what you will.

Rachel