kdlv
Contributor
That would depend on the spot right? I.e. diving around a small island or go "left/right near the wall until 120bar and then we turn around". Those are simple navigation spots in ideal conditions: good vis, no or low current, small groups of 2-3 buddy pairs or less, etc.
Complex navigation spots that I don't know would make no sense to be in front of the guide. You won't be able to discover the spot. Even with good briefing and plan like: reach this reef, then turn right 50* NE, etc etc, I would prefer the guide to lead most of the time and I just signal if I need a pause to have a look at sth or take photos. Even on ideal night dive with bigger group (i.e. 8 people), losing sight of the lead or assuming someone else is, can screw up a perfect dive if you don't know everyone in the group and can recognize their diving style. Otherwise at night you only recognize the shape/model of the fins at a distance.
And then come the other spots like drift dives (think Maldives) where if one doesn't know the site by heart, they can easily spend some 20 min on the surface until boat comes to pick them up. This scenario is realistic even when following the guide, if you were not able to catch the boat line. Even in some very low-risk locations in Mediterranean or Aegean, I've been to island spots with very strong current around the corner that may be difficult to spot and would drag you into open sea. Have a look around you how many rec divers have SMB with them and then how many can use it, and even then, surfacing in the middle of nowhere is extremely risky with some boat traffic above.
Think also of a bigger shipwreck dive. Even if you know the vessel, disappearing into a room to explore it for 1 min might seriously scare and piss off the person who assumed responsibility for you by agreeing to lead you there and show you around.
Should we agree to not generalize and also face the reality that most of the rec divers are still on their learning curve to become somewhat reasonable divers if they ever become one. Most will always stay at the level "I pay for my dive, I'll do what I want... hey check out my shiny new 360cam, I've done amazing shots" while bumping into others, kicking the wall/floor and being completely unaware what's happening around them most of the time.
I've seen many people with hundreds of dives under their belt and years of diving experience that just are just rubbish divers with massive ego. From a rec-diver perspective: Not cool, especially if you travel around half the world to get to dive some location and then you have to deal with unmitigated ego-driven risk from others in your group. Yes, I would expect the dive op/guide to deal with that on behalf the other divers in the group. From dive guide perspective: even less cool, although they meet people with this behaviour every day.
Lack of experience and willingness to learn is easily noticeable and something to respect and support. Egocentric and risky behaviour is also easily noticeable and impossible to mitigate or correct unless strong authority levers are applied. My 5 cents to the topic.
