Cozumel incident but lesson learned

[yle]

The OP has stated that he over-relied on the DM where he should not have. I cannot for the life of me understand why some here are insisting on moving all the responsibility to the DM.

The OP admits this in retrospect. And of course the OP sees things differently now than he did in the moment. He learned an important lesson that day on how even the people that should be the most reliable (i.e. a hired personal dive pro) can sometimes fail. But the lesson was learned after the dive.

It doesn't change the fact that the DM failed at the job he was hired to perform.

 

[yle]

Although I think that we can all say that the OP should have stood up to the guide, IMO the overwhelming responsibility lies with the guide. A couple who were not experienced and not confident hired a private guide in Cozumel because they were not experienced and not confident. They told the guide explicitly why they were hiring him. They expected him to do what he was hired to do. When he did not do that, they were confused--I believe understandably so. Who would think that someone you hired would intentionally stray so very far from the agreement? Why did they not stand up to him? Because they did not have the experience and confidence to do that, which is the reason they hired him in the first place.

It seems to me that a number of people are arguing that people who are not experienced in not confident in their diving and so hire a professional guide should be completely faulted for failing to demonstrate experience and confidence as soon as something goes wrong.

THANK YOU!!!

 

[scubadada]

The DM should have followed the plan as discussed predive

When the DM did not follow the plan, the OP should have taken control of the dive, he knows this now. I bet this same scenario would not be played out again.

 

[divezonescuba]

That incident could have come out much differently. No competent divemaster would continue leading a dive when their divers reach 500 psi at those depths.

A number of years ago, a divemaster in Jamaica went around turning off divers tank valves at depth and without warning stating that the divers should learn what to do if the divers ran out of air.

It is unknown how long that went on. It was only after a diver filed a qm complaint did the Divemaster's certification get revoked. That probably saved someone's life.

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is a Cozumel story that may shed some light on this situation.

It was maybe 15 years ago, and I was diving with Dive Paradise. Our boat headed south, and the DM asked us where we wanted to do our first dive. We were a fairly experienced group, and we quickly agreed on Palancar Caves. We dropped down and started to follow the DM, but the dive was nothing like I expected. It was a wall dive, with our group drifting along 15-20 feet outside the wall of coral the entire time, never once entering that labyrinth of formations that makes that one of the premier dive sites in the world. Back on the boat, I asked why, and he said our group was not experienced enough for a dive like that. I immediately thought it was BS--this group had plenty of ability to do that dive the way every other operator on the island does it.

The second dive was on a shallow reef called Las Palmas, and the DM went into the water by himself first to make sure the current was going in the expected direction so that we were starting our drift on the correct end of the reef. He assured us we were, and we began our descent. As we dropped, I could see from the tiny particles drifting by that we were going the wrong way. I got the DMs attention and tried to signal my confusion as to his intent, but he didn't seem to understand. We settled above the reef, and he started to lead us into the current. It was light enough that we could swim against it, but we were definitely swimming against it and having to work at it. After a while, we saw a different group heading toward us, going properly with the current. I figure that must have embarrassed him enough that he turned us around. We quickly reached the end of the reef and finished the dive drifting over sand.

I complained to the owner about the whole day's experience, and she explained that they had been short of DMs that day and had hired ours from a pool of freelance DMs that are on the island hoping to get such a call each day. She would not be hiring him again, she said, and she refunded my money for the dives.

So there is a pool of dive guides of differing levels of ability on the island, and they are on call to work at a moment's notice. I am supposing that if you ask for a private DM for a day of diving, there is a good chance your DM will come from that pool and not from the operator's regular staff. There is also a good chance you might get your money back if that DM violates the plan as badly as the one in this thread.

 

[Dogbowl]

We also got a freelance DM/instructor for our AOW/Nitrox this past week in Coz. I was concerned he was “only” a freelancer but was pleasantly surprised at how safe and attentive he was. I wanted to learn to shoot a dsmb. He made sure we got a chance to shoot it on a dive. Always telling us what we could improve on our next dive. Always asking if my ears were ok, cause I told him I sometimes have problems with my ears. And of course, we always ascended when I reached 700 psi.

 

[divezonescuba]

The pool of temporary divemaster's would explain this dive with Dive Paradise.

If you have a dive package, you don't get any choice as to which boat you get assigned to. They have a list in the morning on which boat you will be on. They put a lot of people on their two slow slow boats Aires and Paradise Diver. It takes those boats an hour or more to get to the southern sites.

If you want to go to punta sur or further south, you have to pay a large surcharge plus pay for any unused seats on the boat. We did that and they gave us a dive guide who had never done devils Throat before and couldn't find the reef let alone the hole. He went up island, down island, inshore, and offshore trying to find the reef. Eventually, he jumped over the side and was being towed in the water trying to find the reef. Are you kidding me?

This was particularly irritating as we found out just before we left on the trip that the the normal dive guide for Devils Throat would not be going. I asked Rafael, if the new guy knew what he was doing and he repeatedly insisted that he did. If we had known that the replacement dive guide had never done that dive, we would not have gone. Rafael also told us the reason why the normal guy was not on the boat was because he was on vacation. We later learned from the guise that he was actually not, but was diving on another boat that morning.

It took a lot of complaining for them to agree that we should not have to pay all that extra money because they didn't deliver. They wanted to charge us extra again the next morning for the same dive that we were not able to do the previous day. That was the last time we used them.

If you want anything other than the usual cattle boat dive package which is a good value, use somebody else.

 

[Gdog]

To the OP, with your very limited experience level, you kept your composure, and reached the surface alive. Nice job. Lesson learned. To the DM....shame on you. You were hired for a purpose, and you failed miserably, and could have cost someone his life.

 

[RayfromTX]

The DM should have followed the plan as discussed predive

When the DM did not follow the plan, the OP should have taken control of the dive, he knows this now. I bet this same scenario would not be played out again.

Scubadada,
Thanks for your spot on post. I agree that the OP is unlikely to let this play out this way in the future. Unfortunately, we know that it plays out over and over to unsuspecting new divers, which makes this thread extremely valuable. Many new divers take their open water training in preparation for an upcoming dive vacation.

To our new divers,
I can easily remember what it was like for us as we prepared for our first dive vacation after our OW. We were a little nervous about the unknown sites and dive ops in Cozumel. We read about the various sites and decided we would limit our depths to 75 feet. We talked to different ops and were told things which ranged from, "you may want to hire a private dive master" to "Let your dive master know that you are new and he/she will keep an eye on you." Nobody said what we feel is the truth. IMHO, the truth is that dive masters in Cozumel and other places make their living by presenting the best that their part of the ocean has to offer. That's it. They aren't safety officers or even safe depending on your definition of that word. They differ dramatically from one to the other but fun is their goal. They aren't instructors though they may be some of the most natural divers in the world simply due to the 1,000 hours a year they spend underwater. Laid back is a common attitude and they have seen the rules broken so often that it must be a pretty fuzzy line at this point.

Now we show up as new ow divers and we have our own dramatic range of skills and natural ability. Some of us need our hand held and some are unusually comfortable in the water from the start. There is little time to get to know a new customer and their particular emotional, medical and physical attributes. We may not even be particularly clear about our needs to someone that has some ability to speak English but may miss some of our particular dialects and subtleties of communication.

And yet, it usually works out. The most important thing that we must learn is that we are responsible for ourselves and our dive, even if we wish to hire out that responsibility and even if our training is meager and our skills are limited. As this thread has driven home, we are responsible. Even if we hire a "private dive master" it isn't a given that the dive op would promise something as specific as "your private dive master will be responsible for your safety and will focus on your dive plan and making sure that you are always supervised to keep you safe."

This is not what the OP expected and they are very wise in how they have learned from their experience, but for the thousands of new divers heading out for their first dive vacation, it is important to have your eyes wide open and your expectations in line with the reality of vacation diving in Mexico. It isn't exactly the wild west but it can in some instances border on the wild south. Dive safe and you will be fine. Welcome to paradise.

 

[MargaritaMike]

@RayfromTX

While the self-ownership of a dive is something that I learned a long time ago, your post is an excellent statement of Cozumel reality (as well as other dive locations). There should be something that can be done to make this thread (at least the original post and a couple of post which focus on learning from it rather than blame) can be "sticky-ed" as "required reading" for anyone new to exotic dive locations whether they are new divers or refreshing themselves. The hiring of a private DM may also come into play, but is not necessary for the lesson(s) learned.

I have seen DM's in Cozumel count heads splash and then back on the boat. They MAY be watching the group, but it's hard to tell. I have seen experienced divers go OOA with the expectation of sharing the DM's air. I can't help keeping tabs on the divers who are on the same dive. I saw the situation developing and went to the diver, gave them air, and took them up. On the boat they laughed about it. The DM was totally unaware (or didn't react in any way). On another dive it was only the DM, another diver (insta-buddy), and myself. It was on Columbia Deep. The other diver's inflator hose wasn't connected to his BCD and he was struggling to get the hose reconnected while kneeling at the drop point at about 45'. The DM never made a move to assist him. He and I got it reattached and the dive progressed normally after that. The point being is that either one of these situations COULD have turned out badly. Another point is that everyone diving with a dive GUIDE should not rely on them for their safety other than setting depth, time, and air limits in the on board dive planning. Even if they set 90' as a depth limit if someone goes to 100 or 110 most will not do anything to stop them. I have seen a Dive Guide use their noise maker (tank banger, etc.) to try to get their attention, but that's been the extent of it. Again, they are a guide and as you say are dedicated to showing divers "fun" and interesting marine life. The above instances may have been isolated and I probably should have been minding my own business (except for the insta-buddy). They also happened with different dive ops.

Again, I liked your post. You have eloquently and succinctly stated a fundamental of diving safely. My hat's off to you.

Cheers - M² and