Scuba Schools of America/Rusty Berry

[descent]

This video is quite a horror show. It has people on their knees on the bottom: practicing skills, waving sea hares around while squeezing the ink out of them, and chopping urchins into salad to feed to fish.

It has rebreather divers with various small air leaks in the head of their rigs. A rebreather diver trying to watch an urchin show who is unable to maintain neutral buoyancy, doing huge upward "get on your feet and cheer" sweeps of his arms to scull himself deeper so he can see. A rebreather diver on the bottom beneath geysering huge columns of bubbles as high as the kelp. I always wondered how people run out of diluent so fast.

And there's Yelp. Oh my.

hidden bad reviews: "not recommended"
main page: Scuba Schools of America (multiple bad reviews here, too)

What good is a certification agency if it passively allows situations like this to fester for years?

 

[Scott]

Looks like a stellar operation [/sarcasm]

In all seriousness, it appears they should spend more time educating divers/students on buoyancy techniques instead of marine life harassment techniques.

 

[boulderjohn]

It has rebreather divers with various small air leaks in the head of their rigs. A rebreather diver trying to watch an urchin show who is unable to maintain neutral buoyancy, doing huge upward "get on your feet and cheer" sweeps of his arms to scull himself deeper so he can see. A rebreather diver on the bottom beneath geysering huge columns of bubbles as high as the kelp. I always wondered how people run out of diluent so fast.

If you read the first pages of this thread, you will see that the shop pushes hard to get new divers and even students to purchase rebreathers. The divers you see in that video might be newly OW certified.

---------- Post added June 26th, 2015 at 11:55 AM ----------

In addition, if you read through this entire very long thread with the ability to read between the lines, you will realize that it is highly unlikely that SSI will take any action against this shop.

 

[diversteve]

They all seem a little over-geared for the depths they're apparently diving. Even the dive leader - who I assume is Rusty?

Man he must make a fortune on gear, rebreathers, Petrel's with the Fischer connectors, drysuits. Each of those guys must have $10K or more on their backs to dive in 50' of water....

There's a sucker born every minute apparently even in the internet era because this thread is indexed on google.

 

[merxlin]

SSI has been made aware of these videos and as far as I know has taken no action whatsoever. To me a lack of action indicates acceptance of this type of behavior.

 

[bmlbytes]

Wow.

What's the alternative? Offer a distinctive specialty in Tearing Apart Sea Urchins So Garibaldi Can Feast On Fresh Uni?

View attachment 211302

Confession: I stopped watching in disgust at 12:30.

Wow. This IS disgusting. I've only done a few dives, but even I know better than to mess with the underwater wildlife. Our instructors and the PADI certification material made a point to inform us that we should never interfere with the wildlife. Bashing open sea urchins and squeezing sea hares is just reckless harassment of underwater life. Someone who is trained to use doubles and sidemount should know that. A dive shop definitely should know that and should not be promoting it on their website.

 

[descent]

... if you read through this entire very long thread with the ability to read between the lines, you will realize that it is highly unlikely that SSI will take any action against this shop.

Ah. Thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate the summary + editorial.

At a popular dive site in Seattle, that young man hunted and killed the divers' favorite GPO. Perfectly legal. The popular outrage was loud and long, and sustained enough to get new protections.

When I visit distant relatives in the Inland Empire, they sometimes say, "NorCal? Oh! You're all a bunch of eco-hippies up there!"

That a business like this can continue to operate in California without creating a ripple in the media says a lot about the diversity of California.

 

[boulderjohn]

According to this thread, all of this has been going on for a very long time. According to the thread, this precise behavior was reported to SSI in 2001. In those days, SSI was not quite the organization it is now. It had merged with NASDS two years before that, but in 2008 the former NASDS leadership bought out the SSI leadership and made the old NASDS operating policies the focus of the organization.

 

[marinuse]

So I sent SSI a mail (probably one of hundreds that they got), and here's what I received back:


"In good faith, SSI seeks resolution to any concern brought to our attention. However, it is and remains SSI’s policy to protect the confidentiality of all grievance resolutions. What we can confirm is that we are fully aware of the video and person in question and the inappropriate behavior. SSI has addressed the issue with the individual and they have been fully cooperative with all aspects of the Grievance Resolution Procedure. Action has and will be taken against any Dive Professional or Dive Center that violates either ethical or training standards.


Please note, SSI does not condone the inappropriate behavior seen on the video. We also do not condone the use of this video to defame another individual or business. The owner of the original content legally removed the video(s) in question from all known social media sites. It is obvious that someone has a copy of this video and keeps reposting it with intent on disparage the individual and Dive Center. The owner of the original content has demanded that the video be removed.

Thank you for sharing your concern regarding this matter.


Best Regards
Your SSI Philippines Team"


That was after the first mail I sent them.
I then responded that "No, they haven't deleted everything, because on their very own Vimeo channel there's still a load of videos with offensive content". I got no response to that, but now also the videos on Vimeo are set to private.
(I still have the copy of that one video, though...)

But I guess those who said SSI won't do anything were right...
It's all about politics in the end, it seems.

On the other hand, although that might also be politics... Scuba Schools of America's Facebook page seems to be gone.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

There are many copies of that video and the others floating around. As well as pictures. Note that SSI is now owned by HEAD via MARES. https://www.mares.com/news.php?region=eu&id=3326

It may take a while to make it up the food chain but enough publicity will speed the process.