A somewhat sad conversation last night

[Scott L]

For those that read my initial posts in this thread, here is the video I spoke of. Watch it, and then tell me what you would have done, and whether a DIR mindset might not help this guy...


In the beginning, we were just minding our own business, I was doing macro video of nudibranchs, mantis shrimp, anemonees, and was looking for the oculina coral and the life that was around it.Then, this guy litterally ran over Sandra.
Awful - YouTube

Yikes! I don't believe he needed the added task of dragging a dive flag...

 

[Crush]

For those that read my initial posts in this thread, here is the video I spoke of. Watch it, and then tell me what you would have done, and whether a DIR mindset might not help this guy...


In the beginning, we were just minding our own business, I was doing macro video of nudibranchs, mantis shrimp, anemonees, and was looking for the oculina coral and the life that was around it.Then, this guy litterally ran over Sandra.
Awful - YouTube

danvolker, I have so far only watched the first minute of your video and I am laughing at my desk. However, I think that you are mistaken. That guy is not an awful diver - he is just doing an aquacize class - he is moving from A to B expending as much energy as possible and really working the quads.

 

[danvolker]

Yikes! I don't believe he needed the added task of dragging a dive flag...

And apparently he decided that he could prevent his long guages from getting caught on anything, by walking upright on the bottom....

So is the BC part of the problem...or just the way he configured it? Thoughts?

---------- Post added April 16th, 2012 at 10:09 AM ----------

danvolker, I have so far only watched the first minute of your video and I am laughing at my desk. However, I think that you are mistaken. That guy is not an awful diver - he is just doing an aquacize class - he is moving from A to B expending as much energy as possible and really working the quads.

Crush, you may be right....and he did look really beat in the parking lot, after his 25 minute long "workout".
If the women that Sandra calls the nudi-girls ( always motionless and on the bottom shooting nudibranchs--about 10 of them) had seen this guy, I think they may have beaten him severely, or at least given him a tongue lashing

 

[danvolker]

Me...not for me...one word...spearfishing. DIR and spearfishing just dont jive very well...if at all.

I got in to diving with George Irvine and Bill Mee due to my Deep Spearfishing.....they liked diving with me, for the added adventures. George would spearfish with me sometimes, and I will say that when you are stringing a 40 pound grey grouper, that is still kicking a bit, it is nice to have your DIR buddy watching your back ( in this case, 2 DIR buddies). I would shoot several fish, George would usually shoot at least one and grab lobsters over shooting.

Watching George following a big grouper into a passageway on the RB Johnson, at around 250 feet deep....hanging in "mid air" when needed to perfectly follow the fish in a tight and silty area, was mesmerizing....watching him work the line, not bumping in to anything, as we penetrated further, was amazing...I wanted that skill level....I started copying stuff he was doing in the water collum, and switching my gear configurations to more closely match his...it all helped, and my ability to get to fish inside wrecks went up exponentially, and my skills just on the reef went up as well.
It was fun to try something that I had never done, that gave me a potentially better way to do something that was hard to do.

You don't need to be DIR to spearfish at 100 or even 200 feet deep...but it can make it more fun, and safer. I have stories

 

[nimoh]

the guy in the video seemed to be showing some improvement by the end of the dive, getting up off the bottom. I think you made the right call politely informing him that his diving could improve.

 

[danvolker]

the guy in the video seemed to be showing some improvement by the end of the dive, getting up off the bottom. I think you made the right call politely informing him that his diving could improve.

When you watch something like this unfolding, you wonder if it is appropriate to say something. I really am trying hard to be more like TS&M in discussing how a person dives. BHB does not yet have true Park protection status..but this is more of a lag in awareness by government, one that I am certain will be corrected. There is nothing else like this in the intracoastal waterway, or any reef on the ocean that we have been to.
It is an area that concentrates life that is rare everywhere else. It is a nursery ground, and it even has oculina ( deep water nursery ground coral--and what is it doing here ? )
This guy is damaging the bottom...not just for an instant, but for over 20 minutes straight! He later was amazed to hear that anything at all lived on the bottom..He thought it was all dead. Was he at risk for an accident? Maybe he could survive at the BHB Park, but what about those skills on an 80 foot reef? He told me he was using 21 pounds of lead, in the weight pockets of the BC. There was an awful lot of "very wrong" going on....

 

[Scott L]

And apparently he decided that he could prevent his long guages from getting caught on anything, by walking upright on the bottom....

So is the BC part of the problem...or just the way he configured it? Thoughts?

Not only is his console not clipped onto his BCD to avoid dangling, he has not properly routed the hose through the BCD's upper-left hose channel, which would take away a lot of extra length. Of course, I would suggest that he transitioned to a wrist mounted computer/SPG gauge configuration and attach his octo somewhere in his upper body triangle if a neck bungee was out of the question...

 

[danvolker]

Not only is his console not clipped onto his BCD to avoid dangling, he has not properly routed the hose through the BCD's upper-left hose channel, which would take away a lot of extra length. Of course, I would suggest that he transitioned to a wrist mounted computer/SPG gauge configuration and attach his octo somewhere in his upper body triangle if a neck bungee was out of the question...

Exactly....and in the scheme of things, those of us, of the "DIR Persuasion", are more likely to look at this guy and to make some kind and helpful comments to him, about what he might do to his present configuration, to make him a better and safer diver. And in the old days, one of our newcomers may well have been rude in the way they critiqued his gear config.....But this is TODAY....most of us are trying hard not to offend...even PfcAJ

When I spoke with this guy, it became apparent that no one had ever remarked about his diving before......
So here is a DIR issue.....We will help, when no one else will

 

[nimoh]

I'll preface this post that I am working towards being a DIR diver, however, there is one tenet of DIR that I don't agree with, and that is "don't dive with unsafe divers".

I would dive with this guy, and try to help him be better (not necessarily trying to convert him to DIR). If he had no interest in being better, then, yes, I wouldn't be diving with him.

Incidentally, (what appears to be) his buddy is not much better

 

[PfcAJ]

One who is unsafe in one environment (deeper, reduced vis) are might be relatively reasonable in another (shallow, clear, etc). In OW, ill dive with almost anyone. As the complexity of the dive increases, the number of folks who I'll do that dive with subsequently decreases.

I think 'don't dive with unsafe divers' is a pretty sound recommendation.