sorry...it seems we've drifted (no pun intended) off topic a little.
Agreed; a moderator could do us a favor and split the thread starting with fdogs first post.
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
sorry...it seems we've drifted (no pun intended) off topic a little.
Just curious - is there any dive op left on the island that:
- Doesn't insist you be part of the herd
- Doesn't insist you stick with the guide
- Doesn't freak out if you come back to the boat after an hour
- Doesn't make you get out because someone sucked their tank dry in 15 minutes
- Owns their own boat
- The only patrons on that boat came from the same dive op
...?
All the best, James
Weeelll...Alex had to sell his boat, what, a year ago? Maybe a bit more. So up to a year ago, at least.
Anyway, when we'd dive with him off the Elysium, the diving was exactly as described.
When we tied up to the YO, he even sketched out the YO-Pedro-Airplane-beehives layout and said go have fun doing the whole tour! I think we did two laps on the same dive.
I posed the questions because our experiences with other operators on Oahu have been exactly the opposite. Stay with the herd, rush rush rush. Right down to the incident where a different buddy pair sucked their cylinders down in 15 minutes, and the guide made everyone surface.
Based on your comments, I would have to assume there is no longer any reason for us to include Hawaii as a dive destination.
All the best, James
Thanks for the pointers about Ocean Concepts & Captain Bruce. It is nice to get unfiltered advice from the locals.
I'd disagree about the liability issue & dive guides & having to put in the time. There are lots of locations with far more difficult & brutal diving conditions where a dive guide is a nonexistent thing.
Like California. Or British Columbia. New Jersey or Scapa Flow. Get on the boat, ride to the dive site, get a quick site briefing. From that point on, you're on your own, even if the Captain has never seen you before.
So it's a local cultural thing I'm sure, driven a lot by the need to run back to the dock and get another load of paying clients. And, the overwhelming majority of divers that show up are folks that have never been diving since their cert class 10 years ago, and those folks do need herding, so it's just plain easier to treat everyone like they have no skillz.
<shrugs> Not hating on the attitude, it is what it is. We will spend our $ someplace without it, though.
Thanks again for the local knowledge - if there was a boat that dove the same way a California boat does, we'd be all over it.
All the best, James
I really think it depends on your attitude and demonstration of safety and ability. We dove nitrox so we were first down the line on all three wrecks we dove. Our DM just let us dive our own profile for the most part. He saw we knew what we were doing and knew how to use our computers. On the reefs, I welcomed the guide as they weren't the easiest to navigate especially with the low viz because of all the rain.
I think most good DM's feel out their customers before they get in the water and can assess right away how much assistance a diver might need. However, Hawaii is definately different than other places we have dove, ie the Keys, Pacific Northwest, which almost never have a DM in the water.