Your personal evolution in diving, and an etiquette question

[drrich2]

I can deal with current if I can just hunker down and breath calmly and get lost in the hunt for macros.

If you're a macro enthusiast, you might be in for some frustration in some settings, like what I'd call mainstream Caribbean scuba day boats that cater to a lot of occasional divers who may have a greater interest in reef topography and scanning large areas of reef for larger creatures (e.g.: green moray eel, black grouper, eagle ray or octopus). Some say slow down and you'll see more, but some of these people wouldn't be all that impressed if you did show them a tiny blenny or inch long nudibranch.

Just as you may feel ripped off by a superficial scan of a large area, imagine somebody wanting to see a whole dive site who didn't travel over 50 feet out the whole dive. Everyone comes to the boat with a personal agenda that is important to them.

Others gave a good range of suggestions; advance discussion with the boat to determine their 'dive culture/style,' finding an op. that'll let you and a compatible dive buddy dive separate from the group (or let you use a private guide, likely at an added charge), and of course a few might let you solo separately from the group though that's not as common. Independently shore diving is your friend; Bonaire and Curacao bit time, perhaps St. Croix, and with a buddy Grand Cayman is an option.

The environment you choose will also be a factor. A drift dive destination won't lend itself to prolonged hovering over a single coral head.

 

[The Chairman]

Just as you may feel ripped off by a superficial scan of a large area, imagine somebody wanting to see a whole dive site who didn't travel over 50 feet out the whole dive. Everyone comes to the boat with a personal agenda that is important to them.

I hear you, but often people are amazed at what they skimmed over. My girlfriend of many years ago was teaching OW with a kid and his uncle wanted to "tag along". Sure, why not. We were at Blue Heron Bridge and was HE a fidgety diver. Holy cow, and it was affecting the kid. So, I asked him if he wanted to see the cooler side of bridge and he went into this "I've dove here a hundred times!" routine. "What new thing am I going to see???" Elena needed him gone, so I insisted. He kept trying to go fast but I introduced him to every blenny, octopi, arrow crab, lobster, seahorse and whatever else I could find. He would start to swim away and I would come up with another critter. 45 minutes into the dive, Elena shows up and the kid is doing AWESOME! We took our time and worked our way back. First thing out of the guy's mouth was "WOW! I've never seen that much here before. It must be a New Moon or something!" Rly? RLY??? The sea hare met the neutral buoyancy turtle and had a fantastic dive because of it. He was also amazed at how little air he had used. It could have been even less!

It has been my experience that many divers have to move fast to maintain any semblance of neutral buoyancy. They haven't figured out the trim/buoyancy connection, are over weighted and have to keep kicking at an angle to maintain their level in the water column. It has also been my experience that many of these sea hares are freaked out by their innate lack of control, so they burn through air at an alarming rate. It's a big ocean, you're not going to see it all in one dive, so relax and enjoy it. Chances are, the sea hares are scaring even the big critters back in their holes. If you slow down, you'll see more big stuff too!

 

[MrBigfins]

I have the opposite problem when drift diving, I would rather just go with the flow than trying to fight the current and peek in every nook and cranny for all the macro stuff. That being said I can appreciate a slow dive spending a long time in a small area. Guess for me it depends on the day, site, conditions, heck even my mood

 

[TMHeimer]

That is another way of handling it if you don't want to dive without a guide, or it's not permitted by the dive Op. Go at your own pace and don't let anyone rush you. What are they going to do about it anyway. Just be prepared for the possibility that you may lose the group and know how to get back to the boat or your entry point.

Interesting idea. What ARE they gunna do about it? Yell at you after the dive?
I had one group led dive ever, which was a mess as someone left the "lineup" and caused a break in the group and the DM having to go look for him.
Best thing for me if with one instabuddy is to agree on a plan. My suggestion is I lead the dive on the bottom around the wreck looking for shells for half the dive, the buddy leads the second half and does what he/she wants. That always seems to work for me. Then there is diving with a regular buddy you know very well--less to discuss. Then there is solo diving--do anything you want the whole dive.

 

[WarrenZ]

I did have to have a word with our divemaster in coz for the invasion. Once I explained to him there would be no more up current swimming to see another banded whatever or empty octopus hole the whole group seemed to have better and longer dives. I did give him the option for up current swims he could tow me (he never did the lazy bugger). Once we all got into full drift mode we suddenly started to get dive log entries covering multiple dive sites and my nephews were able to get their first dive over an hour.

One dive we got the right current and dive sites where we were able to drift from Coral head to Coral head barely moving for three dive sites we saw so much life and structure no one had a chance to get bored.

 

[Charles Graves]

Eh, unfortunately, when diving with a group, your personal feelings are less important than the group functioning as a whole. I know, that kinda sucks to hear and realize, especially when you are newer to diving. Me and my wife had some awesome dives and some "meh" dives, and even a couple sucky dives, when we were newer and more inexperienced. (now things are awesome tho! Practice makes perfect)

When me and my wife had a dive where she "panicked" slightly (not full blown, thankfully), it was tempting to blame the DM or boat... but we didn't, because at the end of the day, it was us. And when my sinuses were clogged when trying to dive the Molokini crater in Hawaii.... It was tempting to blame the DM for them swimming off without me, but at the end of the day, it's my fault- I took a risk diving with kind of a cold, and it was my fault that the medicine didnt clear my nose enough for me to equalize good, so I went back up to the boat and they kept diving.

However, now that we have a couple years of practice and about a hundred dives, me and my wife are doing really good when we go diving and things are great. We have both learned our strengths, weaknesses, and limitations and improved on everything humanly possible.

My only recommendation is for you to get more practice. Learn yourself and have your husband learn himself... also, learn each other- learn to dive as a good duo. Learn to rely on both yourselves and each other. Practice things you arent good at, like buoyancy. Watch some youtube videos, then go out to the water and practice, then rinse and repeat. You can even watch Youtube on your phone real close to the lake/quarry/ocean/pool/wherever you are diving to practice, to speed the learning curve up.

Once you guys are ready, then do some boat dives! And if you know you aren't quite "ready" yet but still excited to do some boat dives any way (because we all have been there at some point), then hey, do your boat dives! But, just understand that if you mess up, or cant technically do something as good as other divers, then its your own responsibility and fault, nobody else's. Make sense?

You can always ask the boat/DM to slow things down, but chances are they arent gonna slow up everyone else's dive just for you. They would risk turning off a lot of customers that way

I remember being on a boat dive one time and this diver got really frustrated with everyone else because she wasn't able to do something cuz she got scared... It was kind of awkward and uncomfortable for everyone else, haha. Definitely dont be that diver because nobody wants to be that diver. Also one time a diver wanted to "not" do a really cool dive because he was afraid to go deep... nobody was like mad at him, but everybody like sighed and was clearly bummed about him wanting to not do a really cool dive. So again, you dont wanna be that diver if you can at all help it

 

[chillyinCanada]

A diver may not always be able to go slow because . . . current! Yes, that can be fun in say, Maldives but what's also fun, is finding the way to gently ride the current and hang with the school of fish that are face into it but not going anywhere. Ya . . .bliss

 

[The Chairman]

Remember the five "Ds" of handling currents:

 

[dianna912]

Eh, unfortunately, when diving with a group, your personal feelings are less important than the group functioning as a whole. I know, that kinda sucks to hear and realize, especially when you are newer to diving. Me and my wife had some awesome dives and some "meh" dives, and even a couple sucky dives, when we were newer and more inexperienced. (now things are awesome tho! Practice makes perfect)

When me and my wife had a dive where she "panicked" slightly (not full blown, thankfully), it was tempting to blame the DM or boat... but we didn't, because at the end of the day, it was us. And when my sinuses were clogged when trying to dive the Molokini crater in Hawaii.... It was tempting to blame the DM for them swimming off without me, but at the end of the day, it's my fault- I took a risk diving with kind of a cold, and it was my fault that the medicine didnt clear my nose enough for me to equalize good, so I went back up to the boat and they kept diving.

However, now that we have a couple years of practice and about a hundred dives, me and my wife are doing really good when we go diving and things are great. We have both learned our strengths, weaknesses, and limitations and improved on everything humanly possible.

My only recommendation is for you to get more practice. Learn yourself and have your husband learn himself... also, learn each other- learn to dive as a good duo. Learn to rely on both yourselves and each other. Practice things you arent good at, like buoyancy. Watch some youtube videos, then go out to the water and practice, then rinse and repeat. You can even watch Youtube on your phone real close to the lake/quarry/ocean/pool/wherever you are diving to practice, to speed the learning curve up.

Once you guys are ready, then do some boat dives! And if you know you aren't quite "ready" yet but still excited to do some boat dives any way (because we all have been there at some point), then hey, do your boat dives! But, just understand that if you mess up, or cant technically do something as good as other divers, then its your own responsibility and fault, nobody else's. Make sense?

You can always ask the boat/DM to slow things down, but chances are they arent gonna slow up everyone else's dive just for you. They would risk turning off a lot of customers that way

I remember being on a boat dive one time and this diver got really frustrated with everyone else because she wasn't able to do something cuz she got scared... It was kind of awkward and uncomfortable for everyone else, haha. Definitely dont be that diver because nobody wants to be that diver. Also one time a diver wanted to "not" do a really cool dive because he was afraid to go deep... nobody was like mad at him, but everybody like sighed and was clearly bummed about him wanting to not do a really cool dive. So again, you dont wanna be that diver if you can at all help it

We have 190 dives, excellent bouyancy, and a very strong idea of what we like as divers. We made this very clear to the dive instructor. Considering there was only one other person in our group (besides the DM, and he also complained about the exertion of consistently swimming agains the current) I don’t think this was any problem with our skill set. We were always the ones with more air at the end of the dives (the DM and the other diver actually ended up buddy breathing most dives) and we were the ones who spotted the amazing stuff on the dives. (And I was told for the third time that I should become a divemaster because of my skill level.)

I know I’m being defensive here, but this rubbed me the wrong way. The only issue I have with my diving is when someone puts me against a current that is so strong, you are swimming in place. There is no reason for that to ever happen. There is no sight cool enough to justify that. (And every time this happened we didn’t actually see anything so it was completely pointless.)

To summarize my original post, we had three divers on the boat. Two (us) who wanted to go slow and look in every nook and cranny. The third diver liked to hover and look when something was pointed out to him, but didn’t like to be close to the reef, searching himself. The dive master wanted to speed through several areas with no time to look, and frequently swimming against the currents.

 

[dianna912]

A diver may not always be able to go slow because . . . current! Yes, that can be fun in say, Maldives but what's also fun, is finding the way to gently ride the current and hang with the school of fish that are face into it but not going anywhere. Ya . . .bliss

I totally get that. On the “drift” dives, though, he still had us kicking. The entire dive. It was so odd.

Anyways, in this situation, my concern was if we hung back too far, that we’d end up in a “lost diver” scenario where they’d be surfacing. It’d be stupid on their part, but there were a couple of times I lost sight of bubbles. That’s one of the challenges in the Similans, some areas are not great for dinghy pickup, so I don’t know if we just work that out with the DM. We do carry our own safety sausages. Should we just work it out with the DM that if we end up behind (and out of sight) we will just swim into the blue when our air gets to 70 bar or whatever?