60 dives in a week @ Buddy Dive?

[ronscuba]

I'm kind of torn on the whole newbie diver thing.

On the one hand a certified diver should be responsible for themselves and know the basics enough to figure out 60 dives in a week involves shallow short duration dives.

On the other hand we all know how typical OW certification does not really prepare a diver and buddy to dive on their own without a guide or DM.

Not sure I agree Buddy dive is being irresponsible.

 

[SEVADiver]

"short shallow dives" equals snorkeling in my book. You'd see just as much and wouldn't have to drag around the tanks and weights!

 

[rlskill1]

I've heard about people like this. They count dives as: Make a dive to "X" depth; surface and dive to "Y" depth and that is 2 seperate dives within a very short period of time. The are sacrificing quality and safety for QUANTITY!

 

[keithdiver]

What the editor of Buddy Dive Newsletter should have done was to post a Congradulations! To the diver on achieving his 1000th dive, at the dive site "1000steps" and not go into his dive COUNT. If there is a new diver reading this, they might look at this the wrong way, and get into trouble diving.They also should have posted his dive profile, Dept, time, if he was using Air or 32%

 

[deco_martini]

One thing about Bonaire... was instead of worrying about how many dives we got, we paid attention to the quality and duration.

I'm not too worried about new divers doing something unsafe after reading that, as much as I am about people blowing a great vacation by robo-diving. If we liked a site, we might stay down well over an hour. That bucks, "plan the dive, dive the plan" but we are talking about clear/warm/low-no-current and computers.

 

[DiveMaven]

10 dives per day doesn't sound like much fun to me. Personally I'd rather have 300 hour long dives in my dive book than 1000 15 minute dives.

 

[Thalassamania]

I'd love to see his definition of a dive. Tea bag time!

This sort of stunt can be very dangerous, not because of decompression but because of bubble pumping due to inadequate surface intervals. Bubble pumping can result in AGE even on dives that are well within no-D limits. Damned stupid.

Luis (and perhaps his buddies at Gypsy Divers in North Carolina, not to mention @ Buddy Dive) need some remedial education before they hurt themselves or somebody else.

 

[dbulmer]

Ok - the story is probably not quite true.

I met Louis and dived with him before his entourage arrived and once after they arrived. I know he did his 1000 dive at a Thousand steps but while I was there he was looking after his party. He may indeed have dived a bit but I doubt it was 10 dives a day. (I think someone may have been mucking around with dive times and averaged it out somehow for publicity)

If he did do 10 dives a day then Buddy Dive should have kept quiet about it for the reasons already mentioned.

 

[Thalassamania]

And if he didn't, but they (and he) shot of their mouths as though he did ... all the more reason to condemn them.

 

[HateCheese]

Not really sure why everyone is so wound up over this. Its not what I would do or consider fun but it was his call.

There never should be anyone policing how we dive. That diver made his own decision and good or bad has to live with it. Short and shallow probably. Kind of like counting a bath or a shower as a dive most likely, but someone's dive log is their story - they can tell it how they want to.

Really don't get why everyone thinks that safety should have been discussed in the article. Reading most dive magazines, there is little written on the safety of the dive, what planning occurred, what gas was used, turn pressure agreed to by buddies, etc. What newer diver hasn't read about low viz / cold water / deep / etc dives where there is little in the way of describing the safety measures and training that went into it.

To me it is all about accountability. His accountability for his dives. And new divers accountability for reading and understanding or researching - or at least using common sense.

I can watch a tv show w/ a guy juggling swords on a unicycle while balancing a python on his head WITHOUT a 'do not try this at home' warning. And I don't even have a cert for the unicycle, much less the python...