P.S. Hurgada (Red Sea) is the only place i dove where there where no time limitations, viz is about 100 ft and there where no guided groups. Everybody was dropped with his Buddy (knowing him or not) and had to navigate back to the Ship.
I know this post was made almost a month ago, but I felt it was important to make a couple of points.
First off, the Red Sea is certainly
not the only place where there are no time limits and no guided groups. I live in Southern California, and on our local dive boats, ALL divers are on their own. You are expected to come with a buddy...they "open the gate" and you hit the water with your buddy, then find your way back to the boat when your dive is over, however long it takes. Unless you bring your own instructor or guide, you are on your own. This is standard practice throughout SoCal. Some boats occasionally have gate time cut-offs, but that's more about getting INTO the water with enough time to do the full dive you want -- gates are always open for at least an hour or longer, and as long as you get yourself into the water as soon as the gate opens, you can use up your tank.
As for time limits on guided/group dives...I have only seen this a couple of times myself, and I've been diving in many places around the world, including Costa Rica (twice), Belize, Bali, French Polynesia, Galapagos, and the Caribbean. I now make it a point to never dive with a dive op who is going to cut MY dive time because someone in the group is a hoover. I expect any hoovers in the group to have their own buddy, and when they breathe out their tank, they can leave the group and go back to the boat on their own. If the guide has to go with somebody, fine...but I expect to be left alone to finish MY dive, along with my buddy. I'm a certified diver - I don't need a babysitter.
Now, I do realize there are certain situations in which it makes sense for the group to stay together, and the dive must end when the first person reaches the agreed-upon psi. This was the case in the Galapagos, which was an exceedingly challenging dive site. But in these cases, I expect the dive op to organize very small groups, and to group people together by skill, so as to reduce the likelihood that a huge number of divers with reasonable sac rates will have their dives spoiled by one hoover.
Sometimes boat schedules and crew limitations limit the lengths of dives. If the shop has both morning and afternoon dives the morning boats need to return in sufficient time so that the boat can be turned around in time for afternoon trips. We run into this issue occasionally. We are required to hire Panamanian DMs but they are scarce (as are Panamanians interested in being trained as DMs). If we only have one DM on duty on a particular day it would be pushing his NDLs to do four one hour dives (2 morning, 2 afternoon) and often a night dive as well, which is compounded by the need to turn around the boat and the need to get divers for the afternoon trip equipped for their trip. We strive for 50-55 minutes a dive.
I would NEVER dive with a dive op that would cut MY dive times short because of NDL times for their DMs who might be going out later with other groups. Sorry but the DM's later dives are not my problem. I'm paying full price for my dives...why should I get less dive for my money, for the convenience of the dive op? If a dive op ever did this to me, that would be the last time I would ever dive with them -- and I would report this in the strongest terms possible here on Scuba Board.
If a dive op
forced me to get back on a boat with more than 700psi in my tank, that would be the last time I would use them.
We are currently in the planning stages of our third trip to Costa Rica, which is why I happened upon this thread. Now that I know that some dive ops in Costa Rica seem to feel it's acceptable to limit dive times, this will be a question I ask of any dive op that I consider using.
