Wth?

[boulderjohn]

Last year I did a liveaboard trip in Australia with a couple friends, but the day before we did a day trip on a very large boat. I was quite surprised by that experience for a couple of reasons.

1. We were arbitrarily assigned to groups, and we all had to go through the same briefing. I swear they came close to repeating the entire OW course in that briefing. They told everyone how to do even the most basic skills. Many of the people in the group seemed quite attentive, indicating they needed it. I have never seen such a thorough and so extraordinarily basic briefing anywhere in my life. I assume their experiences in the past told them it was necessary.

2. I was almost the only one on the boat who had brought his own gear, and the few others that did were familiar patrons with gear almost identical to that supplied by the boat. When I set up my gear, a back plate and wing with long hose and bungeed alternate, I explained to the DM for our group that in an out of air emergency I would be donating the regulator in my mouth and taking the alternate hanging from my neck. She looked at me as if I were insane. "Why on Earth would you do that?" she asked. I showed her how my gear worked, and she shook her head in wonder. During the rest of the trip, pretty much every member of the crew dropped by during the surface intervals to look at my crazy gear configuration. They had obviously never seen or heard of anything like it. Now, I know my gear choice is in the strict minority world-wide, but I would have expected that at some time in their past, someone in a crew of dive professionals would have encountered it, even if only in an online forum.

 

[Storker]

Last year I did a liveaboard trip in Australia with a couple friends, but the day before we did a day trip on a very large boat. I was quite surprised by that experience for a couple of reasons.

[...]

OTOH, I did a couple of dives with a French op this summer, and I had brought my own BP/W and regs in addition to my mask and computer. When I went over my config with the DM, telling him I was using a LH/BO config and was going to do primary donate in case of an OOG situation, the only response I got was some good-natured ribbing about tec wannabes.

We got along quite fine

 

[archer1960]

OTOH, I did a couple of dives with a French op this summer, and I had brought my own BP/W and regs in addition to my mask and computer. When I went over my config with the DM, telling him I was using a LH/BO config and was going to do primary donate in case of an OOG situation, the only response I got was some good-natured ribbing about tec wannabes.

We got along quite fine

On my first group dive after a refresher this year, the DM wanted to be my buddy since he didn't know me and wanted to see how I did. He had the long-hose primary, necklaced secondary setup, and said if anybody needed it, to just take his primary, and he would switch to his secondary. If I hadn't already read about it here, that might have taken me a bit by surprise, but as it was, I just nodded and said OK. I did say that I would try (but couldn't guarantee) to signal that I needed it before taking it.

 

[boulderjohn]

I brought up my experience because it happened in Australia,, which is where I assume the incident that is the topic of this thread occurred.

 

[Storker]

On my first group dive after a refresher this year, the DM wanted to be my buddy since he didn't know me and wanted to see how I did. He had the long-hose primary, necklaced secondary setup, and said if anybody needed it, to just take his primary, and he would switch to his secondary. If I hadn't already read about it here, that might have taken me a bit by surprise, but as it was, I just nodded and said OK.

My first encounter with LH/BO and primary donate was quite early in my diving career. On a club outing I got buddied up with a cave diver (we both carried cameras, so I guess that was the reason for the rest of the gang to put us together...) in his standard doubles setup, and during the pre-dive discussion he told me about his config, primary donate and him carrying his weight belt under his crotch strap. I was, like, "OK, fine... If I need to dump your weights, I'll be using my knife", he said OK and that was all.

I brought up my experience because it happened in Australia,, which is where I assume the incident that is the topic of this thread occurred.

Have you ever read an SB thread without topic drift?

 

[AdivingBel]

Have you ever read an SB thread without topic drift?

This one hasn't drifted too badly. Australia, 'cause that's where it happened. Overweightedness (is that a word?), not that the OP was, but trying to understand what would cause the DM to take the action he did. Whatever Storker is talking about, 'cause he's interesting, tells good stories, and we like him.

 

[Iralub]

I was over weighed by about 1.5kg (first dive, dry gear, only 1.5kg weights on board), so I did have air in my bc on the ss, but would have remembered to release it.

People were wearing 5mm shorties provided by the boat (I had my own full wetsuit, I get cold easily, and my own full set of gear). Pretty much everyone was over weighed. I don't know if it was because people didn't realise that weights were 1.5kg rather than the 0.8kg usual everywhere except qld. There were girls of my built diving with 6×1.5kg of weight in a shorty wetsuit (I had 3 weights for first dive and 2 thereafter in full wetsuit). So they would have needed a fair bit of air in their bc, which may explain how people end up rocketing to the surface.

Boulderjohn - that was pretty much the experience I had, with very thorough briefing on basics and equipment use. There were some very new divers and some people who had not dived in a decade, so it seemed appropriate. I also carefully listened to the briefing as it is a polite thing to do. Some of the information is actually required to be provided by law (diving in qld is stupidly overegulated).

On one of the trips they actually split us up into two groups according to experience, which was good. We also had a really good DM who found interesting creatures, so having a DM there was a bonus.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Would be interesting to know where in Australia. My experience has been that in NSW and Victoria you are less likely to get the over the top controlling DM.

So many people go to tick diving the GBR off their bucket list that the dive industry there is over regulated. They get a huge number of backpackers working their way around the country on the "backpack trail" to fund their "gap year" adventure. They have limited funds to pay for the cheapest course possible and get out to do day trips and still be able to party in the evenings. Then there are the tourists who come to OZ and "just have to dive the reef" as the cheapest add on they can get. These groups tend to be low experience, high risk divers.

Next throw in a young DM who has bought into the romance of "make diving your career" and is working for virtually nothing Too many incidents so many tourist dollars at risk so the government has stepped in and started over regulating. You must surface with 50bar in your tank, you must carry a snorkel, you must have a DM leading, must record pre and post dive gas pressures, sign in and out etc... All this creates the situations the OP and boulderjohn describe.

Liveaboards, Lady Elliott, The Solitaries, Stradbrook draw the more serious divers. Regulations are still followed but DM's tend to be more experienced and less inclined to interfere with competent divers. We have even managed to convince a DM not to notice our group of 4 lag behind until we separated completely to do our own dive

I have heard the DM's joking about the idiotic antics, questions and so on they deal with on a regular basis. I understand the frustration that creates BUT if the DM's aren't able to recognize who does and who does not need help IMHO they need to get another job before they turn a benign situation into an emergency in stead of the reverse!

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Wow, PfoP... That is something to read!
A few years ago, we had a group of 16 diving off Saba (Lesser Antilles) in the western Caribbean. After a couple of dives (The next day) it was nice to hear that the DMs got together every evening to discuss the dives and the divers for the group we were with... It was decided that the experience level was qualified to dive any site off the island.

That said, the conditions were calm enough that we were diving some sites that even the DMs had never dove before due to bad conditions in the past. We felt it was partly due to the groups we formed on ScubaBoard, and partly because we were all competent and conscientious divers such that, as we all separated from the group, we all had partners who knew our intricate diving techniques.

The first time the dive op knew they had no control was when they announced on the surface, "Those of you who want to dive with a guide, meet at the bottom of the anchor... Those who want to go on their own, take note of where the boat is anchored." When the trailing dm ended up at the anchor and looked at the leading dm, they raised their arms in a "Where is everyone?"... They understood we were divers instead of diving tourists...

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

Actions speak louder than words, don't tip in these situations.