Buddy Dive - bad attitude?

[tridacna]

This thread has become hijacked to "How much weight does a fat diver need" from "Why resort staff should be polite and pleasant to their customers".

Rude staff - no matter why - will lead to an unpleasant experience by a customer and all of the associated and justified whining and negative recommendations.

Even if the staff thought that he was overweighted, they should first have watched him on a dive and then advised him. BTW - Don't you have to do a checkout dive when boat diving in Bonaire?

 

[Mossman]

He is not diving over-weighted, and it is not a habit. I realize that many of the posters here are not ready to accept as truth what one posts, but this particular diver IS an excellent diver. Once he descends he adds only a small amount of air to his BC and never changes it from then on - he adjusts his level in the water by his breath alone. He can hang in the water column and not move a muscle, then lower himself to hover over the reef to look at something then rise back in the water column. All without any muscular movement. Would be nice if more of us could control our buoyancy as well.

To assume that fat means more buoyant is not a correct assumption, and you obviously agree by your statement "this is coming from a big fat guy who only carries 12 lbs because he likes to be over-weighted and often sucks his tank down to 250, but really 10 is just fine". I don't know your weigh as I don't believe you stated it but if you are in fact a "big fat guy" as in your statement YOU are diving with too little weight and putting yourself at risk of shooting up at the end of the dive and getting the bends. See how a wide brush stroke of the statement doesn't work?

If only that's the way it worked. However, it is a simple fact of human physiology that lean will be less buoyant than fat, all other considerations the same. It's simply because fat tissue is more buoyant than bone or muscle tissue. A lean person has a higher ration of bone/muscle to fat, hence will be less buoyant. This is not personal preference like wetsuit color, it is hard immutable fact.

As a fat guy I am buoyant. I can float all day on my back in a fresh water pool and I only sink when I fully exhale. That's why I used myself as an example. If I can easily dive with 12 lbs, and can safely use 10 lbs if I'm willing to do my safety stop with over 500 psi, the only way someone "needs" 24 lbs is if they're over twice as fat as me, in which case they really shouldn't be instructing scuba, or they're really not as good a diver as they believe themselves to be. Take your choice.

 

[Mossman]

Even if the staff thought that he was overweighted, they should first have watched him on a dive and then advised him. BTW - Don't you have to do a checkout dive when boat diving in Bonaire?

You have to do a checkout dive before any sort of diving in the Bonaire marine park. However, the checkout is usually on the "honor" system. Dive staff don't actually monitor the dive, or at least that's always been my experience.

 

[designbysue]

Yes you do need to do a check out dive and it is on the honor system, though we do it because it is nice to test the equipment before really taking off. Perhaps that would be a good suggestion to BD - if they are concerned about the weight they could watch for a few minutes at the dock.

And BTW after the first boat dives where the staff could see our diving ability, they did relax as they could see that we were experienced divers.

 

[redacted]

I find it interesting that this post has (for a large part) fixated on the quantity of weight a person requires to dive. If all are as experienced as they state they should realize the amount of lead has little to do with physical make up. Mossman dives with 12 pounds though has admitted he is a large man. Others, of leaner body, tell that they need 20+ pounds. Perhaps a leaner person has a larger lung capacity and is simply more buoyant. Isn't it up to the individual diver to find his/her requirements to make the dives safe and comfortable for themselves and allowing them to accomplish as close to neutral buoyancy as possible? Why are so many so quick to make the assumption that the more weight a person needs, the worse diver they must be. This simply is not true. I have seen people use 12 or less pounds dive like a stone while others with 20+ pounds handle themselves like a fish. The statement that "Any instructor who "needs" 24 lbs for a 3mm and an AL80 should have his/her certification revoked because that person is in no physical condition to be instructing scuba." is ridicules. And how does the amount of lead a person's body requires him to dive safely with, affect his intellectual ability to teach?

The diver did state that that was the weight he required and that he had been diving for over 4 years with over 400 dives. That he has tried with less but this is the amount that he needs to dive safely. How much more simple was the required answer? Seems reasonable to me. What else is there to say? The problem I am trying to explain, is that the staff member would not listen to the explanation, or anything the diver was saying and instead assumed that he would be crashing into the reef. She kept giving him a hard time about the fact that it was too much weight, talking through what he was trying to say. If she would have considered his answer rather than talking though it I too would have considered it as a job well done.

I understand that you all were not witness to the event and because of that many you are doing what the staff was doing - assuming we were doing something wrong. The original post was simply to ask if others had noticed any attitude change at BD. It appears that the majority have not. I have stated therefore that maybe we hit it at a bad time, but really there was an attitude problem and as I stated I was not the only one to notice it that week.

He is not diving over-weighted, and it is not a habit. I realize that many of the posters here are not ready to accept as truth what one posts, but this particular diver IS an excellent diver. Once he descends he adds only a small amount of air to his BC and never changes it from then on - he adjusts his level in the water by his breath alone. He can hang in the water column and not move a muscle, then lower himself to hover over the reef to look at something then rise back in the water column. All without any muscular movement. Would be nice if more of us could control our buoyancy as well.

To assume that fat means more buoyant is not a correct assumption, and you obviously agree by your statement "this is coming from a big fat guy who only carries 12 lbs because he likes to be over-weighted and often sucks his tank down to 250, but really 10 is just fine". I don't know your weigh as I don't believe you stated it but if you are in fact a "big fat guy" as in your statement YOU are diving with too little weight and putting yourself at risk of shooting up at the end of the dive and getting the bends. See how a wide brush stroke of the statement doesn't work?

Still the refusal to address the question of what exposure protection was being used!!!

I'm beginning to feel sympathy for the BD staff.

 

[Mitchell Teeters]

Seems like some people (businesses) forget that w/o the customer they would not exist (some on this board seem to have decided to forget that), whether or not that same customer has character and is polite or not. It really doesn't matter. Perception is reality, and for those that don't remember the $$ comes from the CUSTOMER.

Based on the posts by the OP I have not found his comments to be out of line. With that said, I haven't read the last few comments because my eyes are crossing.

 

[Mike]

Irene was very condescending when my dive buddy asked for 24 pounds of lead. Her attitude was that he couldn't possibly take that much lead and she assumed that he would be crashing into the reef all the time.

To Irene - "You work for tips don't you?"

Irene "Yes I do."

To Irene - "Don't count on any today beotch."

 

[tridacna]

I'm beginning to feel sympathy for the BD staff.

For being rude? Because the guy asked for too much lead? It doesn't matter how much weight he asked for. It's irrelevant. Just be POLITE and pleasant to the customer. That's the POINT of this thread. People generally don't complain without a reason. And once they do, it affects the decisions of other potential customers. It doesn't matter how many people jump on to defend the resort, damage is done. And it's really hard to undo. The more posts on this thread, the greater the likelihood that a potential customer will decide against going.

Here's what I've learned from the thread: The staff at BD can be insulting and rude. Ditto for BDA.

(And no, I really don't care what size wetsuit anyone was diving in).

 

[redacted]

It doesn't matter how much weight he asked for. It's irrelevant. Just be POLITE and pleasant to the customer. .

While I agree that dive op and the customer should do their best to keep things civil and polite, I don't agree that the dive op should just provide any amount of lead without questioning unusual requirements. 24# of lead, even for a larger diver, is unusual in tropical waters. I used to be questioned regularly when I asked for 2# in tropical waters - I am a fairly large diver. I had no problem explaining that my plate was 5# and I appreciated their concern.

I get the impression that any rudeness that may have occurred was well matched and I'm still not sure where it started.

And you might want to expand your lesson learned a bit. Any dive op or other service provider may provide a less than pleasant experience if the diver does not show a reasonable amount of respect. Just because you are paying for their service does not mean they follow your rules and have to kiss your a$$. If they do it too often, their business will suffer. But if they do it when necessary, their business will be OK and may even benefit. I have seen divers on a number of occasions who earned every bit of short service they received.

 

[darook]

I have stayed there twice, most recently in September. I found the dive staff for the most part to be fine. Francesca, Augusto, and Irene were fine. There was one DM that really rubbed me the wrong way and reinforced everything I have heard about avoiding boat dives on Bonaire. If I go back to Bonaire, I will stay someplace closer to town as I enjoy that more and really enjoy the southern sites.