I'm not sure what you mean by accompany, but from you post it seems like you functioning in the capacity of a Dive Master. Tweleve seems like a lot of people to watch at night, especially with new divers unfamiliar with the dive site. I am also surprised didn't provide a way to identify the members of your group underwater, especially when you know there will be other divers in the area.
It was a shop from out of town, with instructors and a DM. Very cool people, they had heard a great deal about BHB and Palm Beach diving, and they had traveled here to find out personally. They were staying at the Hilton, and diving with Pura vida's boat for their ocean dives.. None had ever been on the West side of BHB, and I believe 2 had been on the East side once before.
Pura vida asked me to help them find the nudibranchs and decorator crabs and octopuses and batfish or frogfish, which a diver unfamiliar with BHB would have difficulty knowing where to look for. Sandra was helping as well. There were some very seasoned divers in this group and a few that were fairly new, but all were competent. They did a much better job of not silting than many of the photographers involved in this thread. None crawled around like Billy goats on top of the hydroid forest. Just Sayin. They were the perfect guests for us to have visiting here, and only good interactions ensued for each of them'
The bad blood going on is between some regulars and me.
We have regulars that get their bearings messed up, and wind up in the nav channel almost weekly. I was at BHB this night dive, to prevent that with our new guests. I was there for pointing out life, and I was there so that any who were low on air near dive end, and/ or that needed to easily find their way back in, could have my help if they wanted it. This was the concern that had me intersecting into being near Deb around 90 minutes into the night dive.
- It was a night dive, meaning you can't see people for a long distance, and when they scatter, it gets hard to track who is where.
- So many divers were in the East side and central, that their silting behaviors had dropped the 40 foot vis at dive start to more like 15 foot vis 90 minutes in. So if someone swam out of view, to re-ID them, you need to be close.....
- For people you don't really know, being sure of an ID is not really feasible much of the time....and for many divers, even ones you do know, they just don't have a distinguishing look underwater, and it is very hard to be sure who you are looking at.
- If I am concerned for the welfare of a diver from out of town, and any chance they could be low on air, and may need help finding the beach, I am going to say this will trump one minute of a photographer's time ( the scenario we are discussing) every time. I am shocked at the pettiness of this as a continuing discussion, once I made it clear what was going on. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT ONE MINUTE OF TIME, MAXIMUM, OUT OF SOMEONE'S 2 OR 3 HOUR LONG DIVE...REALLY!!!!!
- Photographers and videographers involved in shooting at the BHb, during high volume diving times, have zero business expecting not to have divers near them. That goes for Sandra and Me, and Deb, and all the others in this thread. If any of us want solitude, we need to show up on a weekday when no one is around, or go out to a macro site miles off shore, where you really are all alone.
- Diving is taught as a social sport. Divers dive with buddies and groups. They are not taught to avoid other divers. Clearly they are not supposed to trample other divers. I did not trample anyone. I also did not crawl along the bottom -- as is becoming more and more customary for the photographers that think they have rights far beyond all other divers.
- How is it not presumptuous for a photographer to feel they have some right above all other divers in the Park, regarding the area they are shooting in... This is not to say I am not willing to respect this zone of selfishness they demand. I am saying how am I supposed to know who each of the divers with a ZONE OF SELFISHNESS around them is, and how big this zone is...On some macro photographers, the ZONE is over 20 feet around! In other photographers, the many who have no vestige of this Selfish Zone in their body, their personal space needed is just so that their camera is not kicked, and their subject not scared away---and these photographers realize that when they are shooting inside an area filled with 50 people, that they are going to have subjects scared away....And this won't bother them, because they chose to be there durring a high traffic time. I think this is the majority of photographers at the park. Apparently you represent the much smaller segment that believes it has special rights.
For the record,
this is how I feel about things. Sandra does not really care about the divers around her, and she would never want me to say anything negative about any of the photographer behaviors at the BHB. I don't think she thinks about it at all. She just wants to take pictures and have fun.
Reck Diver, if you want this situation to get better, rather than just stirring the pot, get a some people together for a meeting in person at BHB, to discuss the real issues. Scubaboard and this thread is probably a very bad place for this....IT makes photographers look self interested, petty, and ultimately bad for the ecosystem. So really, this should be a private discussion. I would not have chosen to put it here, but I won't ignore something like this when posted.
And as far as divers needing special clothing for ID'ing, it is the photographers that want the huge zone of selfishness around them that should be wearing the unique or club type outfits, as they are the only people that need to be avoided at all costs. All the other divers are social, and enjoying everything about the diving.
It is NOT all photographers that want this huge exclusionary zone....Many pro level shooters at the Park like to share their finds with others, throughout the dive. Most photographers are happy sharing. We have
a few that want to find something and hide it from all others, have it to themselves, and to have all others stay far away. I guess they need their own club.
Now, I am not about not having a good time.. and I've played rocketwoman plenty of times.. on sandy ocean bottom.. C'mon guys, think about your actions, please. 
