Bail-out the diveleader?

[haumana ronin]

How many of you have had to bail-out the divemaster or have had to bail out a diver who the divemaster wasn't paying attention to? How many of you have had to do either as a new-ish diver? How did you handle it back then?

This should give those pursuing trust-me dives a little pause...

I think a lot of people have seen the video of one diver video taped himself rescuing 2 new divers who went too to around 150 fsw when the dive leader was really far away on Youtube. I am too lazy, so search for it if you haven't seen it.

BTW, I have pretty good confidence in my LDS Divemasters and am pretty sure that bailing them out would not be an issue, though sometimes they forget to look around. Three minutes is a long, long time for a new diver in trouble.

 

[Doc]

You do what you know how to do.
You do what you feel competent to do.
You do what you have to do.


Then, walk away. You are ronin, yes?

 

[k ellis]

Ive had to do it a handful of times and the majority of those were not neglect on the part of the dive masters part but more so he was task loaded with several divers to tend too. On one dive I went on it was a cruise ship excursion (Just ask scuba boarders about how those go and youll get a kick out of the response usually) There was a total of 4 dive masters and 24 divers then 2 deck hands and the captain. This dive turned out to be that as so many recent dive adventures I was more towards the veteran of the group.

When we hit the water before the dive master even got in we were on the surface and one diver was panicking wildly saying his snorkle broke and was looking like a turtle being attacked by a shark underneath. I remedied the situation by grabbing his low pressure inflator hose and blasting a shot of air into it. He said thank you as he was not even to the 10 dives mark yet

While we were under on the dive another more macho diver who had been bragging up his adventures suddenly went into a panick at 80 feet and looked like a submarine launched missle to the surface. With that in mind the dive master did the best he could safely to keep up with the guy (I later confirmed my thoughts as to why he was slow to ascend to the surface as the boat crew was not nitrogen loaded and they were right there where he shot out. Luckily to my knowledge no injuries were sustained at that moment) As the dive master was attempting to surface to check on him once again it fell upon me to muster the group together and hold things tight and assure no one wondered off into the deep blue sea (I know I had no responsibility but hey I work in law enforcement so I tend to think safety)

On a dive to Hawaii believe it or not I out numbered both dive masters on the boat and all 5 of the other divers who none of them had more then 50 dives. This dive would have became the nightmare of more veteran divers but to me I was more at home. First the dive masters had a difficult time keeping the other 5 together since they were in awe of everything and attempting to go in 5 diffrent directions (I doubt intentionaly) and I had to kind of be their 2nd set of eyes When we went into a cavern (Just more of a swim through really) some of the divers opted to swim above the swim through and so one dive master went with them and the other with us. On the bottom there was some great sights but they were in the dark spots under the coral and our dive masters light died. I then more less led the illuminating sights for the other divers part.

Back on the boat things were still a little botched up and the crew was so apologetic to me saying they felt bad that I had to spend a great deal of time helping them keep the others safe and at the same time finding great sights. They even more less told me (Not so much word for word but more indirectly) that they more less did not want a tip from me (they were hinting at it guys) and when I tried to give it to them they attempted to refuse at first. Believe it or not when I convinced them I wanted to tip the fact they were not pushing the here is the bucket drop a dime routine on me I actually did my largest tip for the crew. (I did 100 dollars to them) because there was 4 dive team members on the boat and each one of them really did put every thing they had into attempting to make this work well.

Later I found out at the dock the above mentioned was a very novice crew as the more veteran crew members took the day off for some reason cant remember why and both dive masters were dive masters for less them 3 months and of that only limited out in the wild experience.

So this is just all part of being some one who trully loves diving and when you love is as much as I do and as much as a great number of ScubaBoard members do youll find sometimes the best sights that youll ever find on a dive is all of the divers back on the boat and all of them alive and kicking and telling about their adventures. Nothing is better to me then to know the dive went well with out incident!

 

[k ellis]

Oh and Roatanman I love the avatar the squirrel working the arubics cube is cute!

 

[Diver0001]

How many of you have had to bail-out the divemaster or have had to bail out a diver who the divemaster wasn't paying attention to? How many of you have had to do either as a new-ish diver? How did you handle it back then?

This is a very interesting question but there is an assumption behind it that we need to put on the table.

Namely, the assumption that the dive-guide should be responsible for the dive-profiles of all the certified divers in the water with them.

Is this so?

To my way of thinking, a dive-guide should be responsible for two primary things:

1) navigation through a site as experienced local diver
2) tempo, meaning in most cases that he chooses a 'line' through the site that works in terms of air consumption and duration that the divers with him can reach the exit with a reasonable reserve in their tanks.

Normally the dive-guide also gives a briefing in which he/she explains, among other things, max-depth, duration, entry/exit, what you'll see, some basics of the route and some emergency procedures.

These are NOT intended in most cases as parameters to ignore after which the guide is blindly followed to the tune of "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" in which you relinquish all responsibility for your own dive-plan and/or safety and put yourself in a position that the DM (despite how good they may be) is responsible for thinking FOR you.

To the contrary. If you are not planning your own dive, taking responsibility for your own dive profile and ensuring that it fits within the parameters laid out for the dive during the briefing, then YOU are the big-red-dot on the radar, and not the DM.

I'll give you two examples.

1) a dive on Elphanstone reef in Egypt (many people know it). It's a vertical wall with a hard-bottom at about 300m depth. We dove there with a guide whose instructions were "dive-time is 60 min" and "stay within visual range" (we were all experienced divers with a min of 500 dives)

One dive team (mine) decided to dive the reef shallow and look for Oceanic white-tip sharks, which are often found in the shallow range. We planned our dive as a no-deco dive and were ready to ascend to the surface after 60 min

Another team decided to look for hammerhead sharks, which are often found at 70-odd metres. They dove to 45-50 or so and spent about 15 min looking for sharks. They had a planned deco-obligation but were also ready to ascend to the surface after 60 min.... according to plan.

The dive guide did a dive of about 25m so he could see us in the shallows and see the other group in the deep and control the parameters of the dive. He communicated to all when he wanted the group to re-assemble and remained in constant visual contact with both dive-teams, in particular for tempo and navigation.

After the dive, both teams had achieved their goals and spotted their intended targets. Everyone had a safe, enjoyable dive and everyone kept themselves to the general dive plan. Isn't this *exactly* what you expect from a dive-guide?

2) A dive I did in Mexico many years ago. The dive parameters were "45 min", "dive within NDL's" and "don't forget to do a safety stop".

There were 3 or 4 buddy teams, which mostly consisted of inexperienced divers. The DM went overboard and most of the boat went overboard with her and started swimming where-ever her flippers went. The DM decided to swim at about 10m through the dive-site.

I, and my buddy,... however... decided to decend to 30m (the hard-bottom) to look for nudibranches on the sandy bottom. We were fully aware of the parameters of 45 min, no-deco and and safety-stop and followed those instructions to the letter.

The DM, however, didn't understand her own briefing and started getting spastic as soon as we got deeper than about 15 metres. She whistled us back 3 or 4 times because we went deeper than she did and started inspecting our SPG's and giving us increasingly "stern" warnings to maintain depth.

We exited the dive somewhat..... er... irritated... because the DM wouldn't accept us doing anything else besides following around behind her flippers (which is the only thing most of the divers on that dive saw).

On this dive: (a) NOBODY saw what they wanted to see...unless the objective was to look at stupid pink jet fins.... and (b) nobody enjoyed it.

However, she *did* control every variable to the point where she was diving for everyone in the group.....

...

I *do* believe that in some situations it's important to control the dive to this extent, but outside of a course format those moments are rare.

R..

 

[RJP]

Oh and Roatanman I love the avatar the squirrel working the arubics cube is cute!

That's one weird looking squirrel...

 

[ajduplessis]

My dog does a lot of squirrel hunting this time of year.

 

[Insta-Gator]

That's one weird looking squirrel...

Must have been a cat in the wood pile somewhere along the line.

 

[Baconator]

Going back to the topic...

I didn't really have to bail out the DM but he was acting as a guide so I did my own thing with respect to the briefing (dive time, etc) but going down deeper than he wanted and still respecting the dive time and safety stop. I've also had the chance of hauling up 2 new divers (less than 20 dives, inexperienced with wall diving) up from 37m which was way beyond their 20m limit. While I consider myself as a newbie myself, the DM was too far away and I couldn't just float there and do nothing. I don't really feel that the DM is responsible for our safety and that if you're going on a liveaboard you better make sure you experience a lot of different dive conditions BEFORE going on one (talking to the new divers here) just so you feel comfortable enough to know when you hit your limit. I put myself through as many different types of situations in preparation for the trip and made sure all my equipment was working properly so I'm with the group who says that the DM is not a babysitter.

As to the question of how did I handle it: No biggie, I felt it was another good experience and it was a test of how I would respond to a potential accident. During hiking trips I'm usually the tail anyway so that's what I do during fun dives as well.

 

[nolatom]

This is a very interesting question but there is an assumption behind it that we need to put on the table.

Namely, the assumption that the dive-guide should be responsible for the dive-profiles of all the certified divers in the water with them.

Is this so?

To my way of thinking, a dive-guide should be responsible for two primary things:

1) navigation through a site as experienced local diver
2) tempo, meaning in most cases that he chooses a 'line' through the site that works in terms of air consumption and duration that the divers with him can reach the exit with a reasonable reserve in their tanks.

Normally the dive-guide also gives a briefing in which he/she explains, among other things, max-depth, duration, entry/exit, what you'll see, some basics of the route and some emergency procedures.

These are NOT intended in most cases as parameters to ignore after which the guide is blindly followed to the tune of "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" in which you relinquish all responsibility for your own dive-plan and/or safety and put yourself in a position that the DM (despite how good they may be) is responsible for thinking FOR you.

To the contrary. If you are not planning your own dive, taking responsibility for your own dive profile and ensuring that it fits within the parameters laid out for the dive during the briefing, then YOU are the big-red-dot on the radar, and not the DM.

I'll give you two examples.

1) a dive on Elphanstone reef in Egypt (many people know it). It's a vertical wall with a hard-bottom at about 300m depth. We dove there with a guide whose instructions were "dive-time is 60 min" and "stay within visual range" (we were all experienced divers with a min of 500 dives)

One dive team (mine) decided to dive the reef shallow and look for Oceanic white-tip sharks, which are often found in the shallow range. We planned our dive as a no-deco dive and were ready to ascend to the surface after 60 min

Another team decided to look for hammerhead sharks, which are often found at 70-odd metres. They dove to 45-50 or so and spent about 15 min looking for sharks. They had a planned deco-obligation but were also ready to ascend to the surface after 60 min.... according to plan.

The dive guide did a dive of about 25m so he could see us in the shallows and see the other group in the deep and control the parameters of the dive. He communicated to all when he wanted the group to re-assemble and remained in constant visual contact with both dive-teams, in particular for tempo and navigation.

After the dive, both teams had achieved their goals and spotted their intended targets. Everyone had a safe, enjoyable dive and everyone kept themselves to the general dive plan. Isn't this *exactly* what you expect from a dive-guide?

2) A dive I did in Mexico many years ago. The dive parameters were "45 min", "dive within NDL's" and "don't forget to do a safety stop".

There were 3 or 4 buddy teams, which mostly consisted of inexperienced divers. The DM went overboard and most of the boat went overboard with her and started swimming where-ever her flippers went. The DM decided to swim at about 10m through the dive-site.

I, and my buddy,... however... decided to decend to 30m (the hard-bottom) to look for nudibranches on the sandy bottom. We were fully aware of the parameters of 45 min, no-deco and and safety-stop and followed those instructions to the letter.

The DM, however, didn't understand her own briefing and started getting spastic as soon as we got deeper than about 15 metres. She whistled us back 3 or 4 times because we went deeper than she did and started inspecting our SPG's and giving us increasingly "stern" warnings to maintain depth.

We exited the dive somewhat..... er... irritated... because the DM wouldn't accept us doing anything else besides following around behind her flippers (which is the only thing most of the divers on that dive saw).

On this dive: (a) NOBODY saw what they wanted to see...unless the objective was to look at stupid pink jet fins.... and (b) nobody enjoyed it.

However, she *did* control every variable to the point where she was diving for everyone in the group.....

...

I *do* believe that in some situations it's important to control the dive to this extent, but outside of a course format those moments are rare.

R..

You've posed an interesting question at the outset. Does the DM get to set parameters for the dive? I think so, if not on his own, then as a representative of the capt/boat who gets to set safety policy. Then, you accept the parameters, and plan your dive accordingly, which may be whatever you want within those limits, not necessarily following the DM unless you've been told to "stay in sight", for example. This makes the DM more of a guide and less of a 'lifeguard'

So if no depth max was given, then there isn't one I guess, but you still have to mind your gas consumption and stay NDL. Different divers do this in different ways. i agree with you that a DM doesn't 'control' how you meet the parameters, as long as you do meet them, and doesn't 'lose control' of those divers.

But I think you're talking experienced divers here. New divers are going to be much more of a concern to the DM. So helping the DM out is just good 'dive citizenship', if you can do so safely.