Correct behavior of instructor?

[chinadan]

Hi y'all-

I don't know if this is the right place to post this but I'll try it anyway.

On my recent dive trip to Boracay, Philippines I encountered a situation which made me question the decision-making of the instructor. I have been to this island many times and know both the dive shop, instructor and dive sites well.

The dive: weather was perfect, no current, excellent visibility, shallow reef dive to 18 m.
The group: Instructor, myself, a couple who were just certified the other day, making this their first official dive, another duo of more experienced divers taking an AOW course, speciality UW photography.

The problem: Roughly 5 minutes into the dive, I saw the newly-cert'd couple doing a controlled ascend together. The instructor was about 20 m away from them on the bottom and it appeared as if the couple did OK. I signalled the instructor and he pretty much shrugged his shoulders and continued the dive. I looked at the AOW students and they looked confused but followed the instructor.

Me, being buddy-less from the beginning followed suit.

Upon the end of the dive, the instructor signalled low-on-air and asked us whether we wanted to come up with him or stay below to use up the remaining air (at 5 m, close to the line).

We decided to remain below and got out of the water 10 min later.

What happened: Apparently, the girl had equalization problems, got sick and vomited into her reg. They she and her buddy did the ascent, which impressed me quite a lot since it was their first dive and they handled this situation textbook-style.

There were no hard feelings on the boat so I did not want to stir up any.

Why do I feel that this situation should have been handeled differently? Obviously, for the new divers to be so far from the group (and their instructor) was bad enough. Should the instructor have aborted the dive alltogether? Should he have left the AOW students and me to continue the dive while he looks after the surfaced couple?

I have no answer, but I feel we all should have abandoned the dive right then and there. Apart from that, poor pre-dive planning, buddy formation etc. are another stroy.

What do you think?

 

[Snowbear]

Was the newly certified couple part of the AOW class under the instructor's guidance, or were they a seperate buddy team that happened to get in the water with the rest of you?

The way you've written it, it sounds like they were a buddy pair that aborted their dive and did an ascent together when one encountered a problem.

Who was your buddy?

 

[scubasean]

I have no answer, but I feel we all should have abandoned the dive right then and there. Apart from that, poor pre-dive planning, buddy formation etc. are another stroy.

What do you think?

I think it all depends, as Snowbear implies, on how the dive was setup...If you were a group of several buddy teams each operating very loosely as a group but not having a predefined group plan (such as all stick together, all ascend and decend together, etc) then it was probably okay to split up.

Sounds like the instructor had "real" students (the AOW folks) under his/her control that he needed to care for, and that the newly certified divers were there as friends.

If you were solo (er..."buddy-less") and felt you should abandon the dive, why didn't you?

I'm really jealous that you dive in water having greater than 20m vis....I'm lucky some days to have TWO meters vis, in Monterey...good days we have 5-7m vis.

 

[chinadan]

I think it all depends, as Snowbear implies, on how the dive was setup...If you were a group of several buddy teams each operating very loosely as a group but not having a predefined group plan (such as all stick together, all ascend and decend together, etc) then it was probably okay to split up.

Sounds like the instructor had "real" students (the AOW folks) under his/her control that he needed to care for, and that the newly certified divers were there as friends.

If you were solo (er..."buddy-less") and felt you should abandon the dive, why didn't you?

I'm really jealous that you dive in water having greater than 20m vis....I'm lucky some days to have TWO meters vis, in Monterey...good days we have 5-7m vis.

To be honest, the whole dive setup was a bit confusing. I believe the freshy cert's were supposed to be a buddy team, and the AOW students were with the instructor. As I said, I had no designated buddy so I tagged along with the AOW/instructor. Confusing because the whole dive, the instructor did nothing to instruct the AOW students. The only reason I suspect they were students is because I overheard them enrolling the previous day...maybe they changed their mind and it was a normal dive after all.

I guess I felt if the instructor didn't abort the dive, it was safest to stay with them rather than surfacing alone.

I guess it all boils down to the sad realities of dive operators not practicing the proper diving practices (i.e. buddy check).
We were the only customers in the dive shop and they had enough staff sitting around, quite happy to "sit this one out".
I will certainly not dive with them again w/o porper dive preparation.

Right now it is low season in the Philippines and for 7 dives I only saw 2 other dive groups. Visibility like this is quite normal and so is the water temperature of 30 C. I went there right after a typhoon passed through the area, otherwise it may have been even better...grin.

Bear in mind that I live in China, where there is NO diving at all and weekend trip to the Phils are still a 3 hour flight to Manila followed by another 1 hour flight to the island.

Small effort when you are stuck in a country where water is only a by-product in the rivers, lakes and seas...

 

[Boogie711]

I guess it all boils down to the sad realities of dive operators not practicing the proper diving practices (i.e. buddy check)....

Or - just a thought - maybe it rolls down to the sad realities that a guy who admits to NOT practising proper dive practices in the first place, and who wasn't aware of what the situation involved isn't really in a position to be pontificating on another diver's supposed shortcomings?

 

[chinadan]

Or - just a thought - maybe it rolls down to the sad realities that a guy who admits to NOT practising proper dive practices in the first place, and who wasn't aware of what the situation involved isn't really in a position to be pontificating on another diver's supposed shortcomings?

No question that the guy (a beginner himself) - you can say it was me (I can take constructive criticism)- did not practise safe diving pratices.

What I have learned from this event is that you should always insist on a clear situation and not let the desire to dive get ahead of safety. Being a regular customer made me too comfortable and a "you just come with us" from the instructor was interpreted as a buddy-agreement.

The fact that this dive operation NEVER enforces BWRAF before any dive (except when there are students on the boat and they "have to") should have been a warning from the beginning...(yep, I am guilty again of not forcing my buddy - in most cases the instructor or DM himself- to do buddy checks).

What it all boils down to is to have enough guts to stand up and, in front of seasoned divers - demand "right out of school" behavior, which IS the right thing to do.

I would be interested, however, how many divers really do that (i.e. not give in to perceived peer pressure).

Many Asia dive operations are seen by many as not safety-oriented, yet they survive because other divers make the same mistakes I made, on a continued basis.

On a side note: Hong Kong dive clubs demanded that Asian-trained divers get re-certified for diving in HK waters after 2 fatalities there...due to poor standards in Asia.

As for this particular dive - I simply tried to get an answer for a situation where I did not know whether the most senior diver made the right call. IMHO, he should have looked after the new pair in trouble...but then, he certified them the day before and probably knew they would be allright. That still leaves the question whether he was even allowed to bring me as his buddy on a scuba (AOW) class, if that was what the other pair was doing.

If my assumptions are all wrong and confused and this was a normal dive with fully certified divers (meaning the AOW pair did not do their course after all), then I am still left with the feeling that he should have kept the group closer together...after all it was me who brought the pair's trouble to his attention.

Again, I am not trying to throw guilt at anyone, just wanted to hear different opinions on this topic, even if the last post seems to have already found the culprit...

 

[Snowbear]

As I said, I had no designated buddy so I tagged along with the AOW/instructor.
...

I guess it all boils down to the sad realities of dive operators not practicing the proper diving practices (i.e. buddy check).

I'll try to make my response a bit kinder than Boogie's but I'm still gonna tell you what I think.... As a certified diver, you should have been taught that every dive you do is your responsibility. It's your responsibility as a diver to "practice the proper diving practices," not the dive operator's to do it for you. If you are not comfortable with the dive plan (or lack of it), you should ask questions until you are, or don't do the dive. If you're not comfortable not having a designated buddy, you should ask for one or don't dive. If you don't have a designated buddy, want to dive with the group anyway and want someone to do a buddy check for you, ask a DM, another diver or the instructor to check you. If you choose to do the dive anyway, you need to be aware of the extra risk you are taking - including the risk that if something goes wrong for you, you can't count on a buddy to help you.

It sounds like the 2 brand new divers did the right thing. They stuck together and when one had a problem, they surfaced together. What would you have done if you then had a problem you couldn't solve yourself and the instructor was attending to his students?

 

[divenut2001]

Why would there be hard feelings? There was no emergency. The two new divers took responsibility for their own safety and aborted the dive. and as "you" said, they did a text book ascent. So what's the big deal? If they weren't part of a class then the instructor was under "NO" obligation to them. Instructors are not baby sitters. He asesed the situation, saw no emergency and continued the dive. If they "were" in trouble I'm quite sure he would have stopped and helped them. "You" didn't think it was important enough to abort "your" dive. Oh, and don't expect the DMs on the boat to jump in the water just because you're nauseated or have clearing problems.

 

[PRL]

My post may be a little harsh, but in no way is intended as a flame.

The dive as I understood it:
3 groups of divers:
1) Instructor with two students.(can not buddy up with divers that are not part of the class or are not his assistants)
2) Buddy team
3) unasigned diver (solo diver?)

The dive:
The buddy team aborts the dive and assends to the surface. I will not call it an emergency swimming assend because that implies an emergency, and vomit is not an emergency. Loss of airway control could lead to an emergency, but the author stated that the buddy team performed the assend without any problems. There was no general recall of divers from the boat operator so on the surface everything was peachy. The AOW class continues with their dive.
It took me a while but I think I finaly found a mistake. The unasigned diver assumed that he will buddy up with the class reather than abborting the dive with the only divers he could have buddied up with in the first place, and that should have been done before the dive.
One of the reasons alot of instructors will never show their instructor card while pleasure diving is because alot of divers will assume that the instructor is responsible for every diver in the water. And at least in the US many have been sued because of that assumption

If one of the divers was not an instructor would we even have this post?

 

[Snowbear]

The fact that this dive operation NEVER enforces BWRAF before any dive...

What it all boils down to is to have enough guts to stand up and, in front of seasoned divers - demand "right out of school" behavior, which IS the right thing to do.

Yep, you got it!!!

Many divers don't do buddy checks. I do, but most of the folks I dive with don't even realize it Look over the gear, ask a couple questions (i.e. "Air's on, right?") and go over the dive plan. If a buddy wants to do the formal BWARF check (or an "equipment match" and modified S- and V-drills), I don't hesitate. I do my own checks and always do the modified S-drill to make sure my long hose is deployable.