Dan, haven't you talked before about how not all contact with the bottom is always harmful and if done properly has almost no impact?
I don't want anyone following me around with a gopro posting shaming videos anywhere. I'm a pretty good and very conscientious diver, but no one is perfect and I don't want an errant fin kick to get me banned by someone with an agenda, vendetta, etc. and if there is a process to ban people, what is the appeals process, etc? You know how slimy diving can be. Joe blow dive shop doesn't like billy bob dive shop so they hire someone to make a video showjbg billy bobs shop making mistakes and get them banned from the park, I could easily see that happening, but maybe I'm just paranoid from cave country drama where some groups control access to park diving.
JahJah,
I post stuff like this, mostly because I want to see if there are special angles or ideas that really need to be accentuated.
This is clearly one of them....To me, there is a clear enough "range" of behaviors underwater.....the borders are not so clear, but there are definite BAD behaviors where the stomping and tilling and standing is so obviously bad, and unthinking, that it is clear enough that it is harmful and the diver doing it needs to be warned or removed if this behavior is chronic with them--if they don't work on getting better.
And there is the other side of this border between the two, where you have the photographers that lie GENTLY on the bottom --and it will be clear to the many marine biologists in our midst, that this behavior does not injure the benthic life. Far from the borders, will be the sightseeing divers with perfect eco-skills that never touch the bottom and that never silt....and far from the borders in the BAD direction will be the Instructors that bring classes to kneel and stand on top of places like Nudieworld, and that really need to be placed in photos on a Hall of Shame.
We have the opportunity to avoid the nonsense that can happen when a government organization just lets non-divers make the rules...we have an awesome Park services, that works closely with ERM, and that WILL be listening to our collective ideas on what is important for the future of the BHB Marine Park....So things like you or me making an accidental and infrequent silt from an errant kick--this is NOT what the rules should be written for...if it is clear we know and act as if silting is bad, and we try not to...and don't usually silt throughout our dives, then the accidental silting is not relevant. Constantly sinking to the bottom with 20 pounds of negative buoyancy and standing and walking on hydroid patches, with no thought to the marine life, is entirely another thing.
Snorkelers can easily be taught NOT to tread water in 6 foot depths where they will silt as they do this.....and they are highly likely to be positively buoyant --so when swimming underwater, if they do silt it is more a skills mistake, than a problem that must continue...it can be a behavior that can be easily corrected--when compared to a groupon class where 20 divers were taught to dive at the BHB with 10 to 20 pounds too much lead, and with the idea that they should get comfortable standing or kneeling on the bottom--this is much harder to correct....this is the fault of Dive Instructors, and of Dive Shops, and it should not be tolerated as it destroys the sustainability of the Park Resource for the future and for the larger user group the park has in mind for Park Resources.
---------- Post added July 22nd, 2014 at 09:51 AM ----------
[video=youtube_share;dgdabfvr2B0]http://youtu.be/dgdabfvr2B0?t=44s[/video]
In this video ( start 45 seconds into it to get right to the matter at hand), we have a Posterchild Instructor for what is BAD and for what the Park needs to make rules against, with the teeth required to expel such instructors and classes that continue to engage in such behaviors after their first warning. This is absolutely destructive to the sustainability of the uw Park resources, particularly in a future where more locals and tourists are utilizing the park--meaning behaviors of all need to be more eco-friendly to avoid the larger masses of park users from destroying the resource.
If we can identify shops and instructors that belong on a Wall of shame like this video portrays....it is also clear that these shops/instructors will have Taught many students horrifically bad diving habits, and an argument exists that we should help these past students become aware that their training (by these bad instructors or shops) was defective in this way, and that remedial training is suggested---and potentially even offered for free by some of the better shops and instructors ( Free to the students that received the defective training). Shops like Force E ( known for some of the highest quality training and best instructors possible) could easily justify helping these students that are so damaged by the horrifyingly unskilled instructor--such as the one in this video!
