VTWarrenG
Guest
Hello everyone!
I'd like to start a discussion about experiences with the incompetency of dive operators, instructors, and other recognized authorities. I recognize that we are all beginners in our own ways -- we all mistakes, even the Big Guys, and we hopefully all learn from them. I do not intend to imply that everyone should be perfect or fear harrassment. I am not the DIR police. I understand that the line between personal choice and unsafe behavior is occassionally a thin one. I do not want to insult anyone personally, nor do I want to make anyone tense.
It is unfortunate, though, that many divers will encounter a recognized authority doing something quite contrary to the practice of safe diving. Furthermore, many new divers will be unwittingly led to imitate the poor choices of the recognized authority.
It's a touchy subject, but everyone here seems to be well-informed, well-spoken, and sensible -- I think we can handle this discussion like adults and learn from our experiences. This is a subject of extreme importance to me, as I am beginning to assume roles of leadership in the diving industry, and I wanted to discuss some of my experiences with all of you.
I had a recent dive experience on the east coast that left me speechless. My buddy and I were essentially oddballs thrown in among a large class of OW students and a single OW instructor on a boat off the coast of Myrtle Beach. All of them were on their triumphant "post-OW-certification-celebration-trip." Their instructor made more egregious diving mistakes in one two-tank boat trip than most divers fresh out of OW. His students followed suit. I was left in an unfamiliar situation -- it wasn't really my place to do anything, because I am not an instructor (yet). However, it really was my place to do something, because these students were patently unsafe.
Let's see what happened:
There were at least fifteen divers, and only one instructor. The instructor was far more interested in telling tall tales about his deep air experiences than anything else. The captain did not involve himself in the diving, so the instructor assumed all authority. There was no divemaster, nor any form of support team. Just him. And he dove.
We were diving a civil war wreck. I don't know if it was legally protected or not, I'll be honest. However, the instructor encouraged, instructed, and helped the students' efforts to dig up and collect any artifact they could. I am wholly against this, and believe diving to be a predominantly "look-but-don't-touch" type of pastime.
All of them dove nitrox. On their first boat dives. To sixty feet. As if there isn't enough new information to assimilate on a boat dive, they had to throw nitrox into the fray. I caught whiffs of "c-card fever" all over the boat. The instructor repeatedly hailed nitrox as the solution to every problem, and told exuberant tales about how one of his students once did an air dive, and came to the surface swearing he'd "never chew on air again."
They did not mark their tanks. No MOD. Not even the less-suitable mix numbers. Not even an indication that the gas was not air. They had identical, completely unmarked, aluminum 80's.
I saw hide nor hair of a dive table anywhere on the boat. Most of the divers seemed quite confident in their cheesy little yellow computers clipped weakly to their HP hoses. Many of them didn't know how to turn them on. I heard not one discussion about bottom time or depth. The instructor got everyone's attention and told them they should, and I quote, "just burn your tanks up, because we're only at 60 feet." Now, I'll agree that there's hardly any chance any new diver breathing nitrox at 60 feet will have enough gas in one 80 to expose himself to DCI -- but those assumptions are not acceptable, even if you've been diving since before the SPG and have your tables committed to memory.
In their defense, they DID use an oxygen analyzer. As I relaxed on the bench and watched them take their hour to assemble their rental kits, I paid a little attention to their analyzer. To my horror, I discovered the reasoning behind using the analyzer was not as a double-checking safety instrument. The reason was that every tank was different. Some were 38%, some were as low as 25%. The divers, somehow duped into thinking this was both normal and acceptable, scurried about swapping tanks with each other to get the mix they wanted for their first dive.
The divers wore typical rental jacket-style BCs, but oddly hung their backup reg off of a bungee necklace with some type of plastic "mouthpiece holder" dangling from it. Yes, I dive DIR. No, I don't go around calling everyone a stroke. However, it's probably more dangerous to pretend to dive DIR than to just dive normal rec gear. Their backups were on very short hoses, which turned out to be much too short. Many of their backups fell out of their mouthpiece holders on the boat because the hose pulled it out as the wrongly-sized BC slipped around them. I believe pretty much all of them fell out underwater.
Their rental gear was moth-eaten and barely functional. One person had a tank O-ring burst (yes, I know that doesn't necessarily indicate incompetence -- but it went along with the flow). Several more had problems with their regs either not breathing right, or not breathing at all.
My buddy and I made a point to jump in first to avoid the massive clouds of silt these divers were sure to produce. We hung out by the down line and watched diver after diver plummet to the sand in all sorts of interesting postures, one hand clutching the mask, the other grabbing frantically for the backup reg that already fell out. Most of them landed with a nice soft PLOP in the sand, and immediately reacted by kicking, flailing, and otherwise terrorizing the seafloor. Many of them took to lolling about, rolling on the sand, ten pounds negative, waiting for their buddy (whom they couldn't recognize anyway) to show up. While a little difficulty is normal for new divers, this went the way of indicating they had little or no concept of buoyancy, and really not enough pool practice to be ready for the ocean. A few of them felt about their left shoulders for their missing (floating) inflator.
We arrived back on the boat second-to-last. We shared some dive stories with the new divers, and discovered that two people had showed up on the boat with zero air in their tanks. One said his backup reg free-flowed on the bottom (I suspect because it was not rated for being raked across the sand for a half-hour), and he lost gas. The other mysteriously just managed to suck it all down without realizing it. Since not a single syllable about bottom time, turn points, or anything else remotely resembling gas management ever escaped the instructor's lips, this was quite believable.
As we unwound from the dive and the tension of feeling we'd momentarily be thrust into a rescue of 15 students, we prepared for the second dive. At that point, we discovered their filling station was incredibly incompetent. My buddy and I rented air cylinders from them, and to our dismay discovered that our second cylinders (which had been stowed for us before boarding in such a way that we could not check their pressures) both had less than 1500 psi in them.
We marched up to the instructor to see if there were any spare cylinders. There was not a one, of course. Eventually, two divers backed out (one seasick, the other just uncomfortable), and we took up their cylinders, did the requisite analysis and computation, and dived our second dive.
Other than someone losing a snorkel, and someone else panicking about a jellyfish, the second dive was rather uneventful. We avoided the other divers like the black plague, though.
What really pains me about this entire scenario are the thoughts of the 40-odd open water instructors who have died in northern Florida's caves -- and the many students who unwittingly followed them. Even shallow ocean diving has its share of high risks, and none of these students (nor their instructor) were even cognizant (much less wary) of any of them. They approached diving with the casual oblivion of a stroll in the park. Their instructor was absolutely incompetent. I sincerely hope he hasn't hurt anyone yet.
Does anyone have any other experiences with professional negligence? I'm curious to see what others have seen. I'm of the opinion that PADI encourages "c-card fever" a little too fervently, and I honestly think much of the behavior I saw was the result of an undereducated, underexperienced instructor trying to teach quickly, superficially, and en masse to make as much money as he could.
It just really bothered me, folks.
Comments?
- Warren
I'd like to start a discussion about experiences with the incompetency of dive operators, instructors, and other recognized authorities. I recognize that we are all beginners in our own ways -- we all mistakes, even the Big Guys, and we hopefully all learn from them. I do not intend to imply that everyone should be perfect or fear harrassment. I am not the DIR police. I understand that the line between personal choice and unsafe behavior is occassionally a thin one. I do not want to insult anyone personally, nor do I want to make anyone tense.
It is unfortunate, though, that many divers will encounter a recognized authority doing something quite contrary to the practice of safe diving. Furthermore, many new divers will be unwittingly led to imitate the poor choices of the recognized authority.
It's a touchy subject, but everyone here seems to be well-informed, well-spoken, and sensible -- I think we can handle this discussion like adults and learn from our experiences. This is a subject of extreme importance to me, as I am beginning to assume roles of leadership in the diving industry, and I wanted to discuss some of my experiences with all of you.
I had a recent dive experience on the east coast that left me speechless. My buddy and I were essentially oddballs thrown in among a large class of OW students and a single OW instructor on a boat off the coast of Myrtle Beach. All of them were on their triumphant "post-OW-certification-celebration-trip." Their instructor made more egregious diving mistakes in one two-tank boat trip than most divers fresh out of OW. His students followed suit. I was left in an unfamiliar situation -- it wasn't really my place to do anything, because I am not an instructor (yet). However, it really was my place to do something, because these students were patently unsafe.
Let's see what happened:
There were at least fifteen divers, and only one instructor. The instructor was far more interested in telling tall tales about his deep air experiences than anything else. The captain did not involve himself in the diving, so the instructor assumed all authority. There was no divemaster, nor any form of support team. Just him. And he dove.
We were diving a civil war wreck. I don't know if it was legally protected or not, I'll be honest. However, the instructor encouraged, instructed, and helped the students' efforts to dig up and collect any artifact they could. I am wholly against this, and believe diving to be a predominantly "look-but-don't-touch" type of pastime.
All of them dove nitrox. On their first boat dives. To sixty feet. As if there isn't enough new information to assimilate on a boat dive, they had to throw nitrox into the fray. I caught whiffs of "c-card fever" all over the boat. The instructor repeatedly hailed nitrox as the solution to every problem, and told exuberant tales about how one of his students once did an air dive, and came to the surface swearing he'd "never chew on air again."
They did not mark their tanks. No MOD. Not even the less-suitable mix numbers. Not even an indication that the gas was not air. They had identical, completely unmarked, aluminum 80's.
I saw hide nor hair of a dive table anywhere on the boat. Most of the divers seemed quite confident in their cheesy little yellow computers clipped weakly to their HP hoses. Many of them didn't know how to turn them on. I heard not one discussion about bottom time or depth. The instructor got everyone's attention and told them they should, and I quote, "just burn your tanks up, because we're only at 60 feet." Now, I'll agree that there's hardly any chance any new diver breathing nitrox at 60 feet will have enough gas in one 80 to expose himself to DCI -- but those assumptions are not acceptable, even if you've been diving since before the SPG and have your tables committed to memory.
In their defense, they DID use an oxygen analyzer. As I relaxed on the bench and watched them take their hour to assemble their rental kits, I paid a little attention to their analyzer. To my horror, I discovered the reasoning behind using the analyzer was not as a double-checking safety instrument. The reason was that every tank was different. Some were 38%, some were as low as 25%. The divers, somehow duped into thinking this was both normal and acceptable, scurried about swapping tanks with each other to get the mix they wanted for their first dive.
The divers wore typical rental jacket-style BCs, but oddly hung their backup reg off of a bungee necklace with some type of plastic "mouthpiece holder" dangling from it. Yes, I dive DIR. No, I don't go around calling everyone a stroke. However, it's probably more dangerous to pretend to dive DIR than to just dive normal rec gear. Their backups were on very short hoses, which turned out to be much too short. Many of their backups fell out of their mouthpiece holders on the boat because the hose pulled it out as the wrongly-sized BC slipped around them. I believe pretty much all of them fell out underwater.
Their rental gear was moth-eaten and barely functional. One person had a tank O-ring burst (yes, I know that doesn't necessarily indicate incompetence -- but it went along with the flow). Several more had problems with their regs either not breathing right, or not breathing at all.
My buddy and I made a point to jump in first to avoid the massive clouds of silt these divers were sure to produce. We hung out by the down line and watched diver after diver plummet to the sand in all sorts of interesting postures, one hand clutching the mask, the other grabbing frantically for the backup reg that already fell out. Most of them landed with a nice soft PLOP in the sand, and immediately reacted by kicking, flailing, and otherwise terrorizing the seafloor. Many of them took to lolling about, rolling on the sand, ten pounds negative, waiting for their buddy (whom they couldn't recognize anyway) to show up. While a little difficulty is normal for new divers, this went the way of indicating they had little or no concept of buoyancy, and really not enough pool practice to be ready for the ocean. A few of them felt about their left shoulders for their missing (floating) inflator.
We arrived back on the boat second-to-last. We shared some dive stories with the new divers, and discovered that two people had showed up on the boat with zero air in their tanks. One said his backup reg free-flowed on the bottom (I suspect because it was not rated for being raked across the sand for a half-hour), and he lost gas. The other mysteriously just managed to suck it all down without realizing it. Since not a single syllable about bottom time, turn points, or anything else remotely resembling gas management ever escaped the instructor's lips, this was quite believable.
As we unwound from the dive and the tension of feeling we'd momentarily be thrust into a rescue of 15 students, we prepared for the second dive. At that point, we discovered their filling station was incredibly incompetent. My buddy and I rented air cylinders from them, and to our dismay discovered that our second cylinders (which had been stowed for us before boarding in such a way that we could not check their pressures) both had less than 1500 psi in them.
We marched up to the instructor to see if there were any spare cylinders. There was not a one, of course. Eventually, two divers backed out (one seasick, the other just uncomfortable), and we took up their cylinders, did the requisite analysis and computation, and dived our second dive.
Other than someone losing a snorkel, and someone else panicking about a jellyfish, the second dive was rather uneventful. We avoided the other divers like the black plague, though.
What really pains me about this entire scenario are the thoughts of the 40-odd open water instructors who have died in northern Florida's caves -- and the many students who unwittingly followed them. Even shallow ocean diving has its share of high risks, and none of these students (nor their instructor) were even cognizant (much less wary) of any of them. They approached diving with the casual oblivion of a stroll in the park. Their instructor was absolutely incompetent. I sincerely hope he hasn't hurt anyone yet.
Does anyone have any other experiences with professional negligence? I'm curious to see what others have seen. I'm of the opinion that PADI encourages "c-card fever" a little too fervently, and I honestly think much of the behavior I saw was the result of an undereducated, underexperienced instructor trying to teach quickly, superficially, and en masse to make as much money as he could.
It just really bothered me, folks.
Comments?- Warren
