Open letter to boat dive masters

[nimoh]

I believe you even quoted the part where I said reasonable. There's a difference to them pretending to be mommy getting you dressed and making sure your equipment functions so that you can have a bit of fun. We're all human and make mistakes, that's why having someone do a check before you risk your life unreasonably is just a good practice.

so if you are ready to jump off the boat, and just as you are about to get in the water, the DM turns your gas off, your response would be "we're all human and make mistakes"

 

[Dr. Lecter]

The core of this thread reminds me a little bit, amusingly, of the solo/buddy debate going on in the Chatterton thread. At bottom and regardless of whether you, the DM, or both of you have already checked for whether your air is on... whomever last touched the valves has a chance to turn them off.

Whether you prefer that final risk-inducing person to be yourself, or someone else, is really the only question you have to answer.

 

[261311]

so if you are ready to jump off the boat, and just as you are about to get in the water, the DM turns your gas off, your response would be "we're all human and make mistakes"

Considering you're doing your very best to ignore my post about what I think should be done by the diver pair and a DM I really can't be bothered to keep arguing past this post.

 

[rjack321]

I have only read the first seven pages of this discussion(could not take it any longer) but here are my thoughts. I'm glad I live in the NE where dive charter operators treat you like a competent diver until you prove that you are not. We have deck hands not dive masters and that is just how I like it. The captain or deck hand will help you get into your rig if it looks like you need help, hook up stage bottles if it looks like you need help, fix your mask if your hood is stuck under it, they will help you to the back of the boat in rough seas. The point is they will help when needed but will stay away when not needed, They seam to have an uncanny sense of when help is needed and not. We have no DM lead dives around here unless you bring your own DM on the boat with you, is this much different than other parts of the world? The whole liability thing with the DM turning on divers valves seams to be a lot of bunk to me. The way I see it is a dive OP would have more liability if a DM screwed up and turned a valve off than if they did nothing at all.

On my personal boat I commonly check valves. I have a RIB and its pretty common for people to put the tank on the tube then start getting into the straps before turning on the valve. Some of my friends/buddies/guests can reach their valve in that half sitting contorted position, some not. If its single tank diving, I generally check their valve and turn it on if its not on. For doubles valves are easier to reach and everyone does a flow check before splashing. Everyone ends up putting their primary reg in their mouth and inflating their BC before backrolling in anyway, so gas gets personally double checked before anyone gets wet.

We trust each other to work on each other's gear and nobody's ever said "don't touch my valve". If anyone ever did come on my boat and jumped down my throat about checking their gas, they wouldn't be invited back.

 

[nimoh]

Considering you're doing your very best to ignore my post about what I think should be done by the diver pair and a DM I really can't be bothered to keep arguing past this post.

I have no idea what point I am ignoring, so I'll give up too