gcbryan
Contributor
As you are talking generalities, then so must I!
Take a Class. Dive with your buddy. Don't go to deep! Don't dive in the rain! Don't dive if it is windy! Don't dive in current! Don't dive if it's over your head! Buy low, sell high! A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! And most important, wear a hat!
Seriously, the post was so general it's hard to add constructive comments, but I for one generally don't pull a punch. And.. honestly, there are a LOT of divers out there that would benefit from taking more training.
Advice provided on the internet is also different from someone standing in front of you at a dive site. I was diving the Grove (Key Largo) a couple summers back. The current was wicked, the vis was 10~15'. This was not a casual easy Grove dive... The Capt. did his best to warn divers that the conditions were tough, and to stay on the ship.
Two newbies went down, and immediately blew off the stern... they say they saw the ship, and then it was gone. Two hours later they were spotted by helicopters... sometimes it does not matter what people say one way or another, others are going to do what they intend to do regardless... and some others react in the opposite way.
No need to pull any punches. That was my point. We need more discussion instead of patting each other on the back.
The examples were made general for a reason...if I had made them specific then people would focus on the specific and the point would have been lost as well.
There are many specific examples over the years I was thinking about as I wrote this post The advise of the majority in many cases was short sighted and has resulted in many divers today who are fairly limited in skills.
Surely you know long time divers who are still very limited in skills...can't make decisions, don't dive at night, don't dive past a certain depth, can't dive in less than perfect conditions, can't navigate, etc. and yet when a diver, newer or not, asks about a certain dive he is told don't do that dive, don't do it unless you talk to the local dive shop first, don't do it unless...
So what happens, people end up thinking doing certain dives must be hard, there must be something to it if everyone says the same thing. However, in many cases all the people commenting haven't done it!
There's a lot of local (to me) warnings that people give that is just crap for the most part and it's usually given by people who haven't done the dive or can't do it well.
And yes, sure there are a lot of divers out there that could do with more training...there's also a lot of those same divers out there that could use some more dives and maybe one's where they actually have to be in charge so that they can learn some things for themselves.