Not easy to understand what happened. Dives in the Maldives is done as a drift dive, the surface boat following the divers. If you were unaible to go down and stayed at the surface, How come the dive boat could not take you back on bord?
Urgent advice needed please !!
- Thread starter Thomas Callachan
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Tippytoes12
Contributor
So sorry that you had this experience. We had a two week trip to the Maldives and were less than unhappy with the dive shop of the resort we stayed in for the second week. Personally I can totally understand why you want to speak to the dive shop manager.
Was it mentioned in the briefing what you should do if the DM lost you ? It sounds as if you drifted quite a way and that the boat crew may not have been watching the surface very well for their divers. If what you say is true and I'm sure it is then you did everything right.
Please don't give up diving , for super careful DM I cannot recommend the Philippines enough and the diving is also great there.
Try to enjoy your holiday ...Merry Christmas
Was it mentioned in the briefing what you should do if the DM lost you ? It sounds as if you drifted quite a way and that the boat crew may not have been watching the surface very well for their divers. If what you say is true and I'm sure it is then you did everything right.
Please don't give up diving , for super careful DM I cannot recommend the Philippines enough and the diving is also great there.
Try to enjoy your holiday ...Merry Christmas
Chris12day
Contributor
I would like to hear about the outcome of the meeting with the dive shop manager, but you must take personal responsibility for your own safety. Diving is all about risk management. What were the risks? How did you mitigate those risks?
1) You are a certified Open Water diver. Very low number of dives and long time between last dives. You took a refresher dive. Great, but you had problems that were not resolved. Equipment or bouncy. Unable to descend...
2) Requested an easy dive with no current. Did you ask where your were diving? Any questions or research on the dive sight or potential dive sights? Did you hire a personal dive guide or DM? Did you ask how many people will the boat carry? What are the skill level of the diver on the boat?
3) Safety equipment. Whistle and buoy (assuming SMB). Maldives... Did you consider a Marine Rescue Radio with GPS?
Diving is a dangerous sport.
I hope you take a refresher course and return to diving.
1) You are a certified Open Water diver. Very low number of dives and long time between last dives. You took a refresher dive. Great, but you had problems that were not resolved. Equipment or bouncy. Unable to descend...
2) Requested an easy dive with no current. Did you ask where your were diving? Any questions or research on the dive sight or potential dive sights? Did you hire a personal dive guide or DM? Did you ask how many people will the boat carry? What are the skill level of the diver on the boat?
3) Safety equipment. Whistle and buoy (assuming SMB). Maldives... Did you consider a Marine Rescue Radio with GPS?
Diving is a dangerous sport.
I hope you take a refresher course and return to diving.
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Hi Thomas,
It's a shame this didn't go better but glad you and your wife are OK. There's plenty enough blame to go around.
Though we know next to nothing about you, as you have no SB profile, I assume you traveled quite a way to dive in the Maldives. Why would you take a trip like this after being certified 4 years ago and only have 5 dives (does this include your certification dives?). It might have made more sense to dive at a location closer to home, perhaps with a full refresher course prior to a vacation like this. Was this your own gear or rental? Not that it would have made much difference, but familiarity with your gear helps. Were you appropriately weighted for whatever you were wearing and your gear? This probably should have been something you checked on your refresher dive the day before.
I assume the plan was to descend as a group to begin the dive. Seems like you and your wife should have kept the DM and group in site to begin. If you were having trouble descending, couldn't you signal the DM and/or others in the group early in the descent so that they could wait for you? That being said, I would think the DM would have checked to make sure the group was together on the way down, can't figure out why this would not happen. In Southeast Florida, I frequently take the flag for a drift dive. If I have agreed to take a group, I always make sure the group descends together and often slow up for stragglers. Since you were in the water for such a relatively short time before aborting, I can't quite figure out how the boat disappeared, but it is what it is.
It would be a shame if you gave up diving because of this experience, you could easily be better prepared for your next trip
It's a shame this didn't go better but glad you and your wife are OK. There's plenty enough blame to go around.
Though we know next to nothing about you, as you have no SB profile, I assume you traveled quite a way to dive in the Maldives. Why would you take a trip like this after being certified 4 years ago and only have 5 dives (does this include your certification dives?). It might have made more sense to dive at a location closer to home, perhaps with a full refresher course prior to a vacation like this. Was this your own gear or rental? Not that it would have made much difference, but familiarity with your gear helps. Were you appropriately weighted for whatever you were wearing and your gear? This probably should have been something you checked on your refresher dive the day before.
I assume the plan was to descend as a group to begin the dive. Seems like you and your wife should have kept the DM and group in site to begin. If you were having trouble descending, couldn't you signal the DM and/or others in the group early in the descent so that they could wait for you? That being said, I would think the DM would have checked to make sure the group was together on the way down, can't figure out why this would not happen. In Southeast Florida, I frequently take the flag for a drift dive. If I have agreed to take a group, I always make sure the group descends together and often slow up for stragglers. Since you were in the water for such a relatively short time before aborting, I can't quite figure out how the boat disappeared, but it is what it is.
It would be a shame if you gave up diving because of this experience, you could easily be better prepared for your next trip
Dear Thomas,
I am sorry to read about this terrible experience instead of fun you hoped for. According to your report, the dive operator has failed you in several ways. It seems that the information during the briefing has been inadequate, as no-current conditions were promised. The crew has failed to notice you and pick you up. Normally a DM would leave the group waiting and come up to look for you, even though in a drift dive it would not be possible. If it was a drift dive, it was irresponsible to take you to such a dive as you are not certified for it. I'm not sure, however, whether you can claim any compensation. Every time I dove with operators, I had to sing a waiver to free them from any responsibility even in case of my wrongful death due to their negligence. I assume, you signed a similar paper. There is also a difference between a course instructor and a divemaster. Every certified diver is supposed to be able to perform the dive he or she signed up for. The DM is nothing more than a guide to show you around.
If I were in your place, I would try to calm down a bit, thank God for being alive and well, inform other divers on Scuba Board, Yelp, etc. about the operator who did it to you. During the conversation with the manager I would point at he flaws in their business and try to get reimbursed for the blown dive and any unplanned expenses due to this incident.
But most importantly, I would try to extract some lessons from it. One obvious lesson is that a diver must always plan for contingecies. It is a part of routine to prepare for a dive. You must think beforehand what might go wrong and be prepared for that. In this case the contingency was the unexpected current and a careless boat crew. How to prepare for that? The first thing I would say in this context - a diver should come to the boat being prepared for the attempted dive. You were obviously not. A boat diver in open ocean should be able to descend and ascend at will. With five dives and a refresher in open ocean with an unknown operator was very... well ... brave. A great part of my dives are pure training dives in local quarries. Not much thrill, but this training allows me to feel more or less stable and confident when I come to real dive destinations. This lesson I would truly recommend. And find a really good instructor for your AOW. It would be a pity to abandon diving when you have barely tried it. What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. Peace and blessing to you!
I am sorry to read about this terrible experience instead of fun you hoped for. According to your report, the dive operator has failed you in several ways. It seems that the information during the briefing has been inadequate, as no-current conditions were promised. The crew has failed to notice you and pick you up. Normally a DM would leave the group waiting and come up to look for you, even though in a drift dive it would not be possible. If it was a drift dive, it was irresponsible to take you to such a dive as you are not certified for it. I'm not sure, however, whether you can claim any compensation. Every time I dove with operators, I had to sing a waiver to free them from any responsibility even in case of my wrongful death due to their negligence. I assume, you signed a similar paper. There is also a difference between a course instructor and a divemaster. Every certified diver is supposed to be able to perform the dive he or she signed up for. The DM is nothing more than a guide to show you around.
If I were in your place, I would try to calm down a bit, thank God for being alive and well, inform other divers on Scuba Board, Yelp, etc. about the operator who did it to you. During the conversation with the manager I would point at he flaws in their business and try to get reimbursed for the blown dive and any unplanned expenses due to this incident.
But most importantly, I would try to extract some lessons from it. One obvious lesson is that a diver must always plan for contingecies. It is a part of routine to prepare for a dive. You must think beforehand what might go wrong and be prepared for that. In this case the contingency was the unexpected current and a careless boat crew. How to prepare for that? The first thing I would say in this context - a diver should come to the boat being prepared for the attempted dive. You were obviously not. A boat diver in open ocean should be able to descend and ascend at will. With five dives and a refresher in open ocean with an unknown operator was very... well ... brave. A great part of my dives are pure training dives in local quarries. Not much thrill, but this training allows me to feel more or less stable and confident when I come to real dive destinations. This lesson I would truly recommend. And find a really good instructor for your AOW. It would be a pity to abandon diving when you have barely tried it. What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. Peace and blessing to you!
There are all different levels of service, quality and safety. Typically a highly rated dive shop probably would have noticed you didn't make it down, would have retrieved you back onto the boat where you would have sat the dive out. It's not guaranteed that the crew will notice you didn't make it down, they assumed you made it down so they weren't looking for anyone at that time and were dealing with the boat or playing grab ass or both. It can happen just like it happened to you, especially with rough conditions, it's not the ideal situation to happen and some dive operators it wouldn't have happened, but it's kind of one of those rare events where things went out of order and dominos fell over one after another resulting in you adrift. It would be interesting to know when they realized you were missing. Some boats take roll call once back on board, some are extremely lax. If they got back to the dock before anyone finally figured out you were missing that's really bad. Undoubltably there is a lot of room for improvement in their operation. Best thing to do is post publicly their name and only give concrete details not feelings, not emotions of what happened, let the rest of the diving public know how they operated and make their own decisions to do business with them or not.
Why did the divemaster descend without you - likely the divemaster was the type who either figured he had responsibility to the group that had descended with him and you weren't going to make it down so you were going to be sitting on the boat while he lead the others on the dive as planned. Or he was the type with responsibility for no one and whomever made it down next to him he would lead on the dive, anyone who didn't make it down next to him was certified and qualified to take care of themselves. There is a 3rd type of divemaster who takes responsibility for the entire group and would work with everyone to get them all down and together and then lead you all on the dive, you obviously didn't have that type on this dive. But I believe you probably think this is the only type of divemaster there is and you thought you had that one on this dive.
As for the rest, when you're a certified diver you're certified to dive without a divemaster, to plan and take care of your dive from start to end without assistance. That's the certification, reality may be much different and your hopes were on the dive master taking care of you both on the dive, this may or may not happen, much of the belief whether it will or won't would have to depend on your degree of communication and trust with the dive master and dive operation. If you chose the dive operation based on low prices or location or association with where you stayed instead of reputation then it's pretty much a crap shoot what you end up with.
Sounds like you did a lot right and with adding some additional experience since you've already got the fundamental common sense that would serve you well as a diver, you'll probably enjoy diving if you use this as a wake up call and remove the blinders and fantasy aspects of what you believe and what reality really is in the dive industry. One important lesson you should learn from all this is never being afraid to thumb a dive and not go. Better to sit on the boat if you're not 100% comfortable with getting in the water under the conditions and the dive plan as you understand it.
bullfroger
Registered
I think think this thread is an example of the state of training today. When I got certified in 1983 (YMCA) Harassment was part of the training. Our instructors would turn off our air, pull off our mask ,etc. Taught us that things can go wrong and we should be able to fix it ourselves. I thank them for that. Now you take a course where they teach you to put your regulator in your mouth and the Divemaster is responsible for you and your safety. YOU CAN DIE DIVING. Cave adverturerss sold a tee short that says if at first you don't succeed cave diving is not for you. Maybe it should say diving is not for you. Sorry to be harsh but diving is not for everyone. Granted the dive operator was negligent here In letting them drift away unnoticed. How many divers die because they were unprepaired for the environment they jumped into?
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