My goal in starting this thread is not to have a lot of people give me advice, but to glean an understanding of the wide spread of attitudes the new diver experiences when diving. Please ‘trust me’ that I am capable of assimilating a lot of information and making my own decision.
Why do various people express this kind of attitude and make these statements to new divers? For the purpose of this discussion, I am saying “new” for 100 or so dives, or AOW and below training. I don’t dive any ‘one’ place, but more likely a vacation rec diver of four trips a year. This conflicting information creates some strange divers, methinks.
DM says, Stop thinking so much and just enjoy the dive. “I’ll take care of you.”
Insta-buddy claims “I have several hundred dives. I don’t need buddy checks.” When I expressed interest in her training, she was AOW only. She didn’t think it necessary that others know she drops her weights in her BC pockets, and the quick-pull weight pockets are empty. (Scares me in a rescue scenario.)
“Just go out and dive. Don’t worry about more education, get a few hundred dives under your belt before you move on.” When recounted, this was countered by the following:
“Why wait and assimilate bad habits your instructor will have to break.”
Why do you need to practice skills? Don’t you think you were trained well enough?
You don’t need <enter equipment here – SMB, air whistle, etc.>.
Why is all your equipment (SPG, etc.) clipped to your BC?
When expressing a desire for Nitrox, “You don’t need Nitrox; all of our dives are 70 fsw and less.” (I am one of those that ‘feels less tired’ after Nitrox.)
Observed: Some divers seem to dive not for the pleasure of diving, but to do nothing but conserve their air. That way, when they came to the surface, they could brag about how much air they had left. One woman that did this had the gall to ask me about everything I saw so she could put it in her logbook, when she was nowhere near enough to see what I saw (like 15' above).
Why do various people express this kind of attitude and make these statements to new divers? For the purpose of this discussion, I am saying “new” for 100 or so dives, or AOW and below training. I don’t dive any ‘one’ place, but more likely a vacation rec diver of four trips a year. This conflicting information creates some strange divers, methinks.
DM says, Stop thinking so much and just enjoy the dive. “I’ll take care of you.”
Insta-buddy claims “I have several hundred dives. I don’t need buddy checks.” When I expressed interest in her training, she was AOW only. She didn’t think it necessary that others know she drops her weights in her BC pockets, and the quick-pull weight pockets are empty. (Scares me in a rescue scenario.)
“Just go out and dive. Don’t worry about more education, get a few hundred dives under your belt before you move on.” When recounted, this was countered by the following:
“Why wait and assimilate bad habits your instructor will have to break.”
Why do you need to practice skills? Don’t you think you were trained well enough?
You don’t need <enter equipment here – SMB, air whistle, etc.>.
Why is all your equipment (SPG, etc.) clipped to your BC?
When expressing a desire for Nitrox, “You don’t need Nitrox; all of our dives are 70 fsw and less.” (I am one of those that ‘feels less tired’ after Nitrox.)
Observed: Some divers seem to dive not for the pleasure of diving, but to do nothing but conserve their air. That way, when they came to the surface, they could brag about how much air they had left. One woman that did this had the gall to ask me about everything I saw so she could put it in her logbook, when she was nowhere near enough to see what I saw (like 15' above).
