LarsB
Contributor
Dear divers,
Torben Lønne from Dive.in magazine asked on Google+ about any bad experiences involving instructors, divemasters or dive buddys.
Here are a few stories:
I haven't experienced any nightmares yet, the stupidest thing I ever saw (January 2009 at the house reef at Punta Cana) was a group from another dive center in a very small boat, which didn't bother to anchor (maybe they didn't have one), using the anchor line of OUR boat as a descent line. Imagine we hadn't noticed and had pulled up our anchor together with a bunch of divers, like fish on the hook of a fishing line...
The "worst" thing that ever happened to me (January 2012 at the "Astron Wreck" at Punta Cana) was that I lost a weight pocket, saw it falling, grabbed it off the ground, put it back, lost it again, and so forth several times, until I lost it again, this time without noticing, and when I tried to shoot up my balloon during my safety stop, made an uncontrolled ascent. Nothing dangerous luckily, because it had been a very shallow dive, around 6 m for the last 20 minutes or so (max. depth was 12 m), so the missed safety stop wasn't actually strictly necessary. I also had very little weight in my weight pockets, just for trimming, my main weight was on the weight belt - which is the reason I didn't notice any difference, because I always fine-tune my buoyancy automatically with my lungs, over a large range.
A somewhat disturbing experience though happened in September 2012 during a quite deep drift dive (30 m) with strong current (at the dive site near Dahab named Shogyraat/Trees after the huge sea fans to be found there). We were several groups of divers, from the same boat. When our group had just reached the bottom, a woman from another group shot to the surface (for unknown reasons), and our guide went after her to assist her. There was some confusion when another guide took over our group, and he led us AGAINST the current, which I found a stupid thing to do, especially at this depth, and especially given my high rate of air consumption even under normal circumstances, which this new guide didn't know about (but our own guide did). He later explained to me that in order to avoid further confusion as to who belonged to which group, he wanted to swim away from the other groups. IMHO he could have swum in a direction perpendicular to the current, instead of against it, or better still, maintained our position, waiting for the other groups to gain a certain distance drifting with the current. As a consequence, it wasn't a very long dive (only 34 min - and we had to ascend early, average depth was 16.2 m).
Okay, another incident that happened over and over again to me:
During night dives the other divers of the group were not in the slightest concerned with me staying behind (because I was taking pictures). They didn't even notice. They wandered off so far that I could only find them back by covering my torch and looking out for the very faint glow of their lights, and swim into that direction...
Luckily we weren't deep, so my plan B in case of trouble was an emergency ascent, but still, what is even the point of having to deal with buddies when they are no use at all?!?
Another one of these useless buddies once refused to carry a marker light so that I could recognize her. There were several groups of divers in the water whirling around in a very small area, so I never knew who and where my buddy was, during the whole dive. Afterwards she told me she knew exactly where I was all the time - no surprise, since I was the only one with a fluorescence torch! It's a bit like kids who, when they cover their face with their hands, think that nobody can see them, because they can't see anybody - except it's the exact opposite in this case.
Nota bene: If you can see and identify your buddy (because he sticks out from the crowd like a lighthouse), that doesn't necessarily mean he can see and identify you, stupid!
Torben Lønne from Dive.in magazine asked on Google+ about any bad experiences involving instructors, divemasters or dive buddys.
Here are a few stories:
I haven't experienced any nightmares yet, the stupidest thing I ever saw (January 2009 at the house reef at Punta Cana) was a group from another dive center in a very small boat, which didn't bother to anchor (maybe they didn't have one), using the anchor line of OUR boat as a descent line. Imagine we hadn't noticed and had pulled up our anchor together with a bunch of divers, like fish on the hook of a fishing line...
The "worst" thing that ever happened to me (January 2012 at the "Astron Wreck" at Punta Cana) was that I lost a weight pocket, saw it falling, grabbed it off the ground, put it back, lost it again, and so forth several times, until I lost it again, this time without noticing, and when I tried to shoot up my balloon during my safety stop, made an uncontrolled ascent. Nothing dangerous luckily, because it had been a very shallow dive, around 6 m for the last 20 minutes or so (max. depth was 12 m), so the missed safety stop wasn't actually strictly necessary. I also had very little weight in my weight pockets, just for trimming, my main weight was on the weight belt - which is the reason I didn't notice any difference, because I always fine-tune my buoyancy automatically with my lungs, over a large range.
A somewhat disturbing experience though happened in September 2012 during a quite deep drift dive (30 m) with strong current (at the dive site near Dahab named Shogyraat/Trees after the huge sea fans to be found there). We were several groups of divers, from the same boat. When our group had just reached the bottom, a woman from another group shot to the surface (for unknown reasons), and our guide went after her to assist her. There was some confusion when another guide took over our group, and he led us AGAINST the current, which I found a stupid thing to do, especially at this depth, and especially given my high rate of air consumption even under normal circumstances, which this new guide didn't know about (but our own guide did). He later explained to me that in order to avoid further confusion as to who belonged to which group, he wanted to swim away from the other groups. IMHO he could have swum in a direction perpendicular to the current, instead of against it, or better still, maintained our position, waiting for the other groups to gain a certain distance drifting with the current. As a consequence, it wasn't a very long dive (only 34 min - and we had to ascend early, average depth was 16.2 m).
Okay, another incident that happened over and over again to me:
During night dives the other divers of the group were not in the slightest concerned with me staying behind (because I was taking pictures). They didn't even notice. They wandered off so far that I could only find them back by covering my torch and looking out for the very faint glow of their lights, and swim into that direction...
Luckily we weren't deep, so my plan B in case of trouble was an emergency ascent, but still, what is even the point of having to deal with buddies when they are no use at all?!?
Another one of these useless buddies once refused to carry a marker light so that I could recognize her. There were several groups of divers in the water whirling around in a very small area, so I never knew who and where my buddy was, during the whole dive. Afterwards she told me she knew exactly where I was all the time - no surprise, since I was the only one with a fluorescence torch! It's a bit like kids who, when they cover their face with their hands, think that nobody can see them, because they can't see anybody - except it's the exact opposite in this case.
Nota bene: If you can see and identify your buddy (because he sticks out from the crowd like a lighthouse), that doesn't necessarily mean he can see and identify you, stupid!
