Time to hang up my wetsuit after near death on NYE

[Jcp2]

I think the majority of occasional vacation divers in the US are also follow the leader divers. There just is too much time between trips to really get better at it. It's not a fair comparison to a diver who goes regularly to dive, whether to the quarry or lake or ocean, and even then, I'm still hearing about divers with over a hundred dives with poor buoyancy, trim, or air usage. Where do you think all the nearly new gear that shows up on local sales sites come from?

 

[outofofficebrb]

While I don’t agree with the OP/would not make that decision for myself given the circumstances , whatever happened to being able to call off a dive for any reason? How is this any different? I think it’s good to be able to deconstruct and give some feedback and advice, encourage, etc., for a new diver which some of us are doing but some posters are going about this in the wrong way.

 

[Esprise Me]

There's been a lot of discussion here about raising standards for OW certification. But I wonder if it might also make sense to promote the lesser certification (PADI calls it "scuba diver"; not sure about other agencies) more for casual vacation divers. I think a good guide without too many divers to watch can do a lot, even if everyone in the group has pretty minimal skills. And it may be too much to expect that people who only ever do a couple of dives on an annual vacation, especially with various instabuddies, actually function as independent divers. (ETA: especially if they never dive the same site twice!) And it may also be too much to expect that those occasional divers won't rely on a guide for anything more than critter-spotting; if you put a guide in the water with them, they're going to count on that person. I've gotten pretty good at navigating on my own, and have handled that task for groups of friends when diving locally without a guide, but honestly when I have a guide to follow I get lazy. There have been times I've been following someone and suddenly realized we're not where I thought we were; I was looking at fish instead of my compass. Most vacation divers don't even seem to have a compass. If the guide expects that, maybe it's OK. But if the guide is thinking the buddy pairs can take care of themselves, and the divers expect that the guide will see to it that they get back to the boat, that's a problem.

 

[lowwall]

I'm suggesting it's mindset rather than skills that is different between hemispheres. Maybe my perception is skewed because I've never dived a cattle boat locally, but in general, I think Westerners think of diving as something like driving. There are rules, but we are ultimately in control. They think of it as something like a zip-line tour or a guided whitewater raft trip, where they are participants but not in charge of anything. I've seen plenty of divers in the Caribbean with less than stellar skills, but never seen anything like the scene that is common in Thailand where the boat crew gears up the diver and leads them to the water, once in the divers follow the DM like baby ducks through the dive, then once they are on a line trailing from the boat, the DMs pull off fins, the boat crew hauls them onto the boat and to a seat and strips off the gear.

Could be I'm just bitter because my last liveaboard to the Similans never got to Richelieu Rocks as planned because the crew felt most of the divers couldn't handle what most of us would consider a fairly light swell.

 

[lowwall]

While I don’t agree with the OP/would not make that decision for myself given the circumstances , whatever happened to being able to call off a dive for any reason?

That's life with an insta-buddy.

No one was holding the OP down. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was recognizing signs of incipient panic so there was good reason for ascending. Once he communicated his desire to ascend to his buddy and DM and they ignored him, then he should have ended the dive on his own. Or at least ascended to a depth where gas consumption and anxiety was less of an issue and he could still keep an eye on the group. But to do that, you have to first realize that you can do that. Which the OP apparently didn't.

 

[Jcp2]

I'm suggesting it's mindset rather than skills that is different between hemispheres. Maybe my perception is skewed because I've never dived a cattle boat locally, but in general, I think Westerners think of diving as something like driving. There are rules, but we are ultimately in control. They think of it as something like a zip-line tour or a guided whitewater raft trip, where they are participants but not in charge of anything. I've seen plenty of divers in the Caribbean with less than stellar skills, but never seen anything like the scene that is common in Thailand where the boat crew gears up the diver and leads them to the water, once in the divers follow the DM like baby ducks through the dive, then once they are on a line trailing from the boat, the DMs pull off fins, the boat crew hauls them onto the boat and to a seat and strips off the gear.

Could be I'm just bitter because my last liveaboard to the Similans never got to Richelieu Rocks as planned because the crew felt most of the divers couldn't handle what most of us would consider a fairly light swell.

That sounds like super valet service.

 

[Bob DBF]

There's been a lot of discussion here about raising standards for OW certification

The standards are in place, however there is no mechanism in place to insure the instructor follows those standards. Only if someone dies, is injured, or complains, after the fact something might get done.

This gives the latitude for very poor instruction as long as no one complains.

But I wonder if it might also make sense to promote the lesser certification (PADI calls it "scuba diver"; not sure about other agencies) more for casual vacation divers.

It makes sense, however the diver is limited to 40’ and under the direct supervision of a DM, so it would have limited appeal and increase the cost. Basically it is a diver certified to do DSD.

 

[lowwall]

That sounds like super valet service.

No hot towels and I forgot to mention the 45 minute max dive time.

 

[eleniel]

45 minute max dive time.

That better be due to depth and repetitive diving...

 

[Edward3c]

They think of it as something like a zip-line tour or a guided whitewater raft trip, where they are participants but not in charge of anything. I've seen plenty of divers in the Caribbean with less than stellar skills, but never seen anything like the scene that is common in Thailand where the boat crew gears up the diver and leads them to the water, once in the divers follow the DM like baby ducks through the dive, then once they are on a line trailing from the boat, the DMs pull off fins, the boat crew hauls them onto the boat and to a seat and strips off the gear.

That sounds like most of the diving I’ve done in Florida.