Good luck with the blog Crowley... from your fellow Sharmie... looking forward to having a read 
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OP
For sure about the second part - but fortunately our house reef is actually very lovely. In terms of actual coral reef it's not so much - it doesn't even compare with the fringing reefs outside Na'ama Bay - but small though it is, it's like an underwater oasis for fish. Today some guests saw 4 eagles rays "flying" in formation - and they are common visitors to the house reef, but you don't see so many at the same time at Shark and Yolanda, which is one of the best dive sites here for fish life.
We do charge extra for the check dive, but it's not a whole lot (10 Euros, the equivalent of a packet of smokes in many European countries) and the Red Sea does have a much higher salt content than the open ocean. If you dive one week in the Caribbean and the next in Thailand, all other factors such as temperature and whatnot being equal, you will need the same amount of weight. In the Red Sea, which has a salt content around 45 parts per thousand as opposed to 35 ppt worldwide, you may need up to 2 kilograms extra. Unfamiliar rental equipment (and for some reason our newer wetsuits (5+5mm long johns and shorty combination) are super buoyant) warrants the check dive also.
But I have to qualify this and say that the check dive we ask for (or insist upon) is product of the busy resort environment in which I work. In my former job at a small dive centre in the Caribbean, the "check" dive was just a dive; if we needed more weight we stepped a few metres out of the water and got some extra. Here in Sharm, diving at Shark Reef (90 minute journey by boat) in a howling currrent with 10 other boats in the area is not the best time to realise you need a couple of extra weights. It's rare for the current to be soooo violent, but if you get pushed off into the blue, you are not coming back, and for safety reasons (such as the prevention of head/propellor interaction, for example,) the dive may have to be aborted.
For sure it is an imperfect system - but I am certain Divebunnie (check out her website, especially the ladies) who works for a similar big-name centre here in Sharm would agree, it's the only system we can use that will ensure we have the best possible holiday diving experience for all parties concerned, especially the divers themselves. Safety is paramount, of course, but enjoyment, comfort and fun are part of the dive experience also, and a check dive here sorts out many issues that could potentially, in the worst case scenario, prove fatal if not attended to.
Are dive centres making money from this? For sure we are! This means we can pay the instructors who make the check dives. Are we earning vast amounts of money by forcing people to pay 10 whole Euros extra to go through the process? Errr no.
For somebody who hasn't dived in a while, or who is diving for the first time in our peculiar body of water, it makes sense. In other parts of the world, for smaller dive centres, the process is more intimate and less structured, perhaps, but it's all done with the same goal in mind.
Cheers
C.
tacky
Contributor
For the typical holiday diver the check dive makes perfect sense. However, and I'm in danger of coming of as the wannabe ninja here, if U dived ten times in strong water currents and bring your own, balanced rig, you apreciate the dive shop that is cutting you some slack.
I'm not complaining though. I And I certainly try to avoid coming off as a know it all as I have tons of stuff to learn and practice.
The one time I was compelled to do a dive check was at a small shop in Dahab. We dived the Lighthouse to 27 m, it was a stress free and surprisingly nice dive with a super cool old laid back instructor I am actually kind of p***ed I did'nt get to repeat it, must be a really nice night dive.
As to your reaction to the lack of buddy skills, my congrats. No diver is stronger than the team and a diver witnessing their buddy wirh buoyancy problems without paying attention is certainly not O.K.
I'm not complaining though. I And I certainly try to avoid coming off as a know it all as I have tons of stuff to learn and practice.
The one time I was compelled to do a dive check was at a small shop in Dahab. We dived the Lighthouse to 27 m, it was a stress free and surprisingly nice dive with a super cool old laid back instructor
I am actually kind of p***ed I did'nt get to repeat it, must be a really nice night dive.As to your reaction to the lack of buddy skills, my congrats. No diver is stronger than the team and a diver witnessing their buddy wirh buoyancy problems without paying attention is certainly not O.K.
Vassilis Vlachopoulos
Contributor
... click my signature to be directed there, and if you have a copy of the April 2011 British DIVE magazine you'll find the back page article on a strange narcosis incident published under my real name - I asked them to put Crowley (and a link to the Equalizer) also but they forgot somewhere. My first professional commission! Woo!
By the way - if you know my real name (it's not terrible, I just hate it), please never use it!
Thanks M... (better known as Crowley) for the tips.
My copy of Dive mag (April's issue) has just arrived (with some substantial delay). I also had missed the fact that May's Equalizer was issued.
Both your articles were very interesting. Especially the "grading" system was not known to me (probably to many others too) and it explains the "attidude" of several diving centers.
I understand that the check dive / grading system is necessary for large diving business, I have however several concerns (I will soon be back on this issue)
Vassilis Vlachopoulos
Contributor
Plus an extra 2 kilos for those who use to dive with steel tanks. I did my diving in the Red Sea with all my own personal gear except the tank. In the Mediterranean Sea I need 5 kilos with steel 12 lit and in the Red Sea I need double as much (with alum S80).
Now, coming back to the "requirements" set by diving clubs in Egypt (i.e. check dives, apptitude levels etc), there are things that are done differently in other places. In Egypt, sometimes I felt compelled to employ practices that, I wouldn't use back home and which made me feel less "secure".
I will give two examples : We were asked, when coming up the boat's ladder, NOT to remove our fins or weight belts. The rationale is obvious, i.e. to avoid hitting the diver below. Yet, for me, it is more important and safe to get rid first of my weight belt (so I was tought) and, also, to remove my fins and climb like a normal human being.
When coming back to the boat after the safety stop, I was not allowed to reach for the ladder from beneath the boat. Instead I had to surface at some distance and swim to the ladder. Once again, the rationale is obvious = keeping clear from the stern, in case the propellers are running. Yet, for me (I have done so many times), it is much simpler to approach the boat at a depth of 3-4 meters and aim for the ladder than surfacing 10-15 meters away and struggling to swim, especially in a choppy sea (for simplicity, I don't take currents into consideration).
All I'm saying is that there are people who do things differently and their way may well be safer (for them) without jeopardizing the safety of the rest of the team.
What's your opinion ? Should I be allowed to do it "my way" or would I be considered as a "smart ass" and be "downgraded" to a lower level.
OP
I think both practices are a one-stop cover for all divers, and when you're a busy centre, it's easier to get everybody to follow one rule rather than letting some people do one thing and others do another. Yes, an experienced diver may feel comfortable surfacing at the back of the boat, but perhaps somebody prone to a buoyancy wobble isn't going to be so comfortable, especially if other boats in the surrounding area pass by.
As an example, just yesterday I surfaced from a dive at Shark Observatory, close to the reef, as always, and the prevailing wind and long swell is pushing the boat towards the reef. The captain keeps feathering the throttle to keep the boat in place, which means we are boarding the boat with a spinning propeller in a moderately choppy sea and being last on the line, I am hanging back, myself only ten metres from the reef plate, when I hear a horn, look up and see a boat heading directly between me and the reef. A ten metre gap for a boat with a beam of maybe 5. Now the margins for error are much slimmer. A diver swimming to the ladder would have been only a few metres from a turning screw and one breath at the wrong time or a fin kick in the wrong direction would send them straight into the meat grinder.
Now - you or I could probably handle that - I've been uncomfortably close to some propellers in my time but a novice diver (who wouldn't be there in the first place at my centre due to the leveling system) is going to see the boat heading in their direction and poop themselves. If experienced divers don't follow this rule, the inexperienced may think "hey, s/he's doing it, so why can't we" - and then accidents happen. It's much more sensible therefore to get everybody to stick to the same rule. Would you get downgraded for doing it? Not necessarily, but we'd for sure ask you not to do it again, pretty please with sugar on top...!
With regards to the fin thing - if you fall off the ladder, you can't swim without fins. In heavy seas or with a strong surface current, this might make a subsequent pick-up rather more precarious. It might be we need to exit the water rapidly in these conditions, and somebody taking stuff off just slows the process down. On the other hand, some divers must remove their equipment (particularly the disabled) so there has to be an exception.
So yes, these things might be interpreted as being inconvenient, and for many dives swimming to the boat or removing gear might be fine, but it's the dives where this is not at all appropriate where it matters and removing divers piece by piece from the water (not that I've ever had to do this) would probably be a little more inconvenient than a longer surface swim or a less-than-graceful exit from the water. BCD full, Mask on, fins on, regulator in, climb the ladder like Charlie Chaplin (my standard comedy drift-dive briefing) and you may not look too stylish, but the crew will help, and everybody gets back on the boat without too much stress.
So at my centre, no we wouldn't allow you to surface under the boat, we'd ask you to surface at the reef (or the mooring line is acceptable) and we wouldn't consider you to be a smart arse if you did it once, but if a diver kept repeatedly breaking the standard procedure, we'd have to consider whether or not that diver should be allowed to dive from our boats. For removing the weights and fins - if conditions allow I have no problem with this, but if it inconveniences other divers or creates problems for the crew, then for sure we'd have a friendly little chat.
So it's like looking at the situation in terms of what is best for the overall safety of the many, rather than the preferences of a few individuals.
Hope that helps - stay safe,
C.
As an example, just yesterday I surfaced from a dive at Shark Observatory, close to the reef, as always, and the prevailing wind and long swell is pushing the boat towards the reef. The captain keeps feathering the throttle to keep the boat in place, which means we are boarding the boat with a spinning propeller in a moderately choppy sea and being last on the line, I am hanging back, myself only ten metres from the reef plate, when I hear a horn, look up and see a boat heading directly between me and the reef. A ten metre gap for a boat with a beam of maybe 5. Now the margins for error are much slimmer. A diver swimming to the ladder would have been only a few metres from a turning screw and one breath at the wrong time or a fin kick in the wrong direction would send them straight into the meat grinder.
Now - you or I could probably handle that - I've been uncomfortably close to some propellers in my time but a novice diver (who wouldn't be there in the first place at my centre due to the leveling system) is going to see the boat heading in their direction and poop themselves. If experienced divers don't follow this rule, the inexperienced may think "hey, s/he's doing it, so why can't we" - and then accidents happen. It's much more sensible therefore to get everybody to stick to the same rule. Would you get downgraded for doing it? Not necessarily, but we'd for sure ask you not to do it again, pretty please with sugar on top...!
With regards to the fin thing - if you fall off the ladder, you can't swim without fins. In heavy seas or with a strong surface current, this might make a subsequent pick-up rather more precarious. It might be we need to exit the water rapidly in these conditions, and somebody taking stuff off just slows the process down. On the other hand, some divers must remove their equipment (particularly the disabled) so there has to be an exception.
So yes, these things might be interpreted as being inconvenient, and for many dives swimming to the boat or removing gear might be fine, but it's the dives where this is not at all appropriate where it matters and removing divers piece by piece from the water (not that I've ever had to do this) would probably be a little more inconvenient than a longer surface swim or a less-than-graceful exit from the water. BCD full, Mask on, fins on, regulator in, climb the ladder like Charlie Chaplin (my standard comedy drift-dive briefing) and you may not look too stylish, but the crew will help, and everybody gets back on the boat without too much stress.
So at my centre, no we wouldn't allow you to surface under the boat, we'd ask you to surface at the reef (or the mooring line is acceptable) and we wouldn't consider you to be a smart arse if you did it once, but if a diver kept repeatedly breaking the standard procedure, we'd have to consider whether or not that diver should be allowed to dive from our boats. For removing the weights and fins - if conditions allow I have no problem with this, but if it inconveniences other divers or creates problems for the crew, then for sure we'd have a friendly little chat.
So it's like looking at the situation in terms of what is best for the overall safety of the many, rather than the preferences of a few individuals.
Hope that helps - stay safe,
C.
OP
A free day.
Two of them actually - in a row - woohoo!
One of the questions I am most commonly asked is what I do on my days off - to which I often jokingly reply: "what day off? I just had 9 days off in a row diving and tomorrow I have one day of work cleaning my apartment, doing the laundry, and cooking dinner for my flatmates!"
But seriously - on my day off, I don't go anywhere near the water.
Do not get me wrong - some of you have dived with me and know how much I love what I do but as an instructor or guide, when you've done 16 days straight, three dives a day, you need a break because otherwise then the job really does start to become just a "job" and as soon as you are unable to offer the quality service that customers expect, you need a change of scenery.
A typical day in my current existence starts with an alarm at 6.20 (just so I can hit snooze for 10 minutes) for a pickup at 7.05 and arrival in the centre at around 7.30am. For Ras Mohamed and Tiran trips, we leave the centre around 8am, set sail about 8.30, make a first dive around 10am, a second at around 12:30pm, followed by lunch and a third dive around 3pm in order to be back at the centre between 5 and 5.30pm. A couple of deco beers and I take the staff bus to get back home around 6.30pm.
There are good days and bad days, just like every job. Some days I get a bunch of super experienced divers and then I feel a bit guilty because I am effectively getting paid money to have fun (but only a *bit* guilty!) and on the other extreme I am spending three hours underwater every day trying to ensure people don't actually die because - aha - not every diver was trained by me.
The job itself can be demanding - most people get tired after a week's worth of diving and we say goodbye, wish them safe journeys home, and pick up the next group of arrivals the following day. But we do it every day, and our bodies are accustomed to the physical demands of diving even in a relatively easy tropical blue-water environment. After a few thousand dives you tend to learn a little bit about how to do it in the most efficient manner and therefore we don't work as hard as your average open water diver, therefore we breathe less, inhale less nitrogen as a consequence and do not feel so tired after the dive as the average customer.
We do it for a living - a professional farmer is going to feel far less tired after a day's work than the farming holiday tourist. Somebody who works as a cycling tour guide is not going to be as exhausted at the end of the day as their customers, pick a job with a smiliarly demanding amount of physical exertion involved; we're not special and for sure there are a million more physically demanding jobs out there.
No - the really exhausting part of the job is the mental and emotional stress of working in a customer facing industry. And again, this is not solely limited to dive instructors - any amount of employees in jobs involving continual customer service - particularly when part of that service is ensuring that, ya know, people don't die - would understand, be that bar tenders and waiters or doctors. We all have vocational stress from time to time, it just so happens that mine is in a blue water paradise, not a small air-conditioned cube (haha!)
And we are entertainers - for 8 hours a day cracking jokes and chatting - identifying fish and assisting with buoyancy issues, shooting the shhhhheeep poop for an hour with the customers, telling the same jokes we told last week cos the new people haven't heard them before...! There are only so many jokes you can make during a dive briefing when you know that you're visiting the same site as two days before and everybody heard the one about the BMWs that never go rusty... (unless you drop them into 12 metres of water at Shark reef and then they go rusty very quickly!) I can even do that one in German these days. Like a comedian - if your first opening lines get the audience going, you will have a great show. If you don't, then get ready for the rotten tomatoes.
For those who are reading - please be assured that this is not a complaint. Come dive with me and I'll show you an idiot Crowley grinning ear to ear just from the crowd of fusiliers at Jackson Reef two days ago, or the 200-strong school of giant trevallies at Yolanda Reef yesterday. I love it, love it, LOVE IT!, but after racking up more dives per month than many divers log in a lifetime, on my day off, I have a day off.
So today I cleaned the whole apartment - the lulling drone of the vacuum cleaner; the hypnotic sway of the mop, the incessant bass churning of the washing machine. I didn't cook, I will do that tomorrow; but I am drinking a bottle of wine - I love wine, but can't afford it here so it's Omar Khayyam's chilled Rose which is palatable and doesn't sit on my head like a 2 ton rhinocerous with toothache the next morning, and letting the bubbles drift slowly out of my muscles.
Metallica is performing live in my front room with the San Francisco symphony orchestra, and my flatmate just went out to buy another bottle of wine....
And on Monday morning, when the bubbles are gone and the wine has been recycled, I'll be underwater again - sweet!
Safe Diving,
C.
Two of them actually - in a row - woohoo!
One of the questions I am most commonly asked is what I do on my days off - to which I often jokingly reply: "what day off? I just had 9 days off in a row diving and tomorrow I have one day of work cleaning my apartment, doing the laundry, and cooking dinner for my flatmates!"
But seriously - on my day off, I don't go anywhere near the water.
Do not get me wrong - some of you have dived with me and know how much I love what I do but as an instructor or guide, when you've done 16 days straight, three dives a day, you need a break because otherwise then the job really does start to become just a "job" and as soon as you are unable to offer the quality service that customers expect, you need a change of scenery.
A typical day in my current existence starts with an alarm at 6.20 (just so I can hit snooze for 10 minutes) for a pickup at 7.05 and arrival in the centre at around 7.30am. For Ras Mohamed and Tiran trips, we leave the centre around 8am, set sail about 8.30, make a first dive around 10am, a second at around 12:30pm, followed by lunch and a third dive around 3pm in order to be back at the centre between 5 and 5.30pm. A couple of deco beers and I take the staff bus to get back home around 6.30pm.
There are good days and bad days, just like every job. Some days I get a bunch of super experienced divers and then I feel a bit guilty because I am effectively getting paid money to have fun (but only a *bit* guilty!) and on the other extreme I am spending three hours underwater every day trying to ensure people don't actually die because - aha - not every diver was trained by me
. The job itself can be demanding - most people get tired after a week's worth of diving and we say goodbye, wish them safe journeys home, and pick up the next group of arrivals the following day. But we do it every day, and our bodies are accustomed to the physical demands of diving even in a relatively easy tropical blue-water environment. After a few thousand dives you tend to learn a little bit about how to do it in the most efficient manner and therefore we don't work as hard as your average open water diver, therefore we breathe less, inhale less nitrogen as a consequence and do not feel so tired after the dive as the average customer.
We do it for a living - a professional farmer is going to feel far less tired after a day's work than the farming holiday tourist. Somebody who works as a cycling tour guide is not going to be as exhausted at the end of the day as their customers, pick a job with a smiliarly demanding amount of physical exertion involved; we're not special and for sure there are a million more physically demanding jobs out there.
No - the really exhausting part of the job is the mental and emotional stress of working in a customer facing industry. And again, this is not solely limited to dive instructors - any amount of employees in jobs involving continual customer service - particularly when part of that service is ensuring that, ya know, people don't die - would understand, be that bar tenders and waiters or doctors. We all have vocational stress from time to time, it just so happens that mine is in a blue water paradise, not a small air-conditioned cube (haha!)
And we are entertainers - for 8 hours a day cracking jokes and chatting - identifying fish and assisting with buoyancy issues, shooting the shhhhheeep poop for an hour with the customers, telling the same jokes we told last week cos the new people haven't heard them before...!
There are only so many jokes you can make during a dive briefing when you know that you're visiting the same site as two days before and everybody heard the one about the BMWs that never go rusty... (unless you drop them into 12 metres of water at Shark reef and then they go rusty very quickly!) I can even do that one in German these days. Like a comedian - if your first opening lines get the audience going, you will have a great show. If you don't, then get ready for the rotten tomatoes.For those who are reading - please be assured that this is not a complaint. Come dive with me and I'll show you an idiot Crowley grinning ear to ear just from the crowd of fusiliers at Jackson Reef two days ago, or the 200-strong school of giant trevallies at Yolanda Reef yesterday. I love it, love it, LOVE IT!, but after racking up more dives per month than many divers log in a lifetime, on my day off, I have a day off.
So today I cleaned the whole apartment - the lulling drone of the vacuum cleaner; the hypnotic sway of the mop, the incessant bass churning of the washing machine. I didn't cook, I will do that tomorrow; but I am drinking a bottle of wine - I love wine, but can't afford it here so it's Omar Khayyam's chilled Rose which is palatable and doesn't sit on my head like a 2 ton rhinocerous with toothache the next morning, and letting the bubbles drift slowly out of my muscles.
Metallica is performing live in my front room with the San Francisco symphony orchestra, and my flatmate just went out to buy another bottle of wine....
And on Monday morning, when the bubbles are gone and the wine has been recycled, I'll be underwater again - sweet!
Safe Diving,
C.
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OP
Now I like you even more
Shokran Habibi!
I often credit the fact that I never need to equalise (really, I don't, unless I have the after-effects of a cold in which case I have to equalise once at about 10 metres and please don't yakyak me about whether or not I should dive with a cold - I don't - but me having an excessive amount of snot leaking out of my mask does not present a risk of death or injury to my customers) er and anyway I often credit the fact that I never need to equalise to 12 years of diving and 25 years of h.e.a.v.y. metal. But heavy metal with a tune - not the shouting loud noise crap. I also like Pink Floyd. Anything with quality guitar.
Well my ears are broken. But if I meet you in the mosh pit, you're going down, my friend... and then I'll pick you up and hopefully you'll return the favour!
Mosh safe,
C.
OP
There are times when I wonder why people go diving. Many times, in fact, given the number of people who want to try it, fail spectacularly; later admit to being afraid of the water (or fish, in several cases) and then go on to take up less hazardous sports, such as watching diving on TV - but although those valiant souls might heroically fall (albeit at the first hurdle), there are divers who seem to do it for only one reason - attention.
There are certain sections of the diving population for whom diving is somewhat and somehow akin to an underwater fashion show. They wear the most stylish gear, hung with more bling that your average hip-hop (and hope, aha) "artist"; own the most expensive cameras and the trickest regulators on the market - and also dive with all the grace and technical expertise of an elephant who has just discovered ice-skating.
They wade through the soft coral as if it were prairie grass, and utilise those sturdy table corals as ideal platforms on which to rest cameras that are so large and pointy I wonder sometimes if I should telephone the Russian Embassy and ask if they have lost a Sputnik recently. But one thing is for sure: they couldn't give a monkey's left testicle about the environment in which they dive, as long as they can strike the most becoming poses and think they look cool existing within it.
The underwater camera gave diving to the masses - and it also brought the masses to diving. In general I have no problem with this because ( a) if everybody loved diving as much as I did then the world would be a better place and ( b) I like
to earn money doing it and therefore be able to pay my rent and feed the cat (and myself, occasionally), so it's kind of a win-win situation for me - but a small sector of the the amateur, waterproof camera-wielding diver has become the bane of the dive guide's existence.
Not all photographers and, it has to be said, not all dive guides either because the vast majority of photographers respect the environment they are seeking to capture on film/memory card, and there are also a minority of dive guides who let their customers do absolutely anything they want to, in the hope that larger tips are forthcoming.
Today (well, yesterday, by the time I've actually posted this) at Thomas Reef in the Straits of Tiran, I encountered a group of divers from an unidentified dive centre who were finning rather heavily as we drifted gently by in the other direction (I will proselytise on the merits of checking the current before you get everybody to jump - just in case it's at full speed in the opposite direction - at a later time) and whose divers were quite literally wading and platforming as previously mentioned. The group leader, resting his fins on a convenient coral head, posed for a photo whilst holding onto the outer edges of a large gorgonian fan coral - after which he pushed it out of his way and swam off. Literally, as if he was holding a curtain from which he then had to extricate himself.
I pulled on his fin and attempted to explain to him through hand signals that he and his group should not be holding the corals, that my dive team has taken photos of him, and we will be reporting his group to the National Parks Authority later. He of course replied with that universal signal - spread arms, look innocent, "it wasn't me that farted in church, your honour, honest, I know nothing"
In return of course I gave him the universal finger signal which can only ever be interpreted (at least in certain censored in-flight movies) as: "Swivel on this, you monkey-funster".
Did it have any effect? No, of course not. This is because these people don't dive because they love it, they dive because they love to look better than the next door neighbours. I was rather annoyed when I surfaced and saw three other dive boats waiting to pick up their divers from what must have been an exhausting swim against the current (yes, they all went the wrong way), because this meant I could not identify the culprit and make a complaint.
In a separate incident (the day before) yesterday, a friend and colleague had a formal complaint made against him because he pulled the fin of a diver from another centre's group because he wanted to point out that the diver was lying in the coral and this is actually forbidden in the Red Sea, and also the dive guide, who was watching this, should be doing something about it. The complaint made against my friend was that he put another diver's life in danger by pulling on his fin. Right.
I was, however, rather more than mildly gratified to see the (un-gloved) coral-fondling photographer leaving the area rubbing his hands together and clearly, at least from the expression I could see behind his mask, thinking "ouch!"
Mother Nature and her oceans are not to be trifled with - fortunately, in the end, she will exact Her revenge.
There is nothing wrong with taking underwater photos - nothing at all, but when the camera becomes more important than the coral then please, get out of the water and take your hairstyle someplace else.
Cheers
C.
There are certain sections of the diving population for whom diving is somewhat and somehow akin to an underwater fashion show. They wear the most stylish gear, hung with more bling that your average hip-hop (and hope, aha) "artist"; own the most expensive cameras and the trickest regulators on the market - and also dive with all the grace and technical expertise of an elephant who has just discovered ice-skating.
They wade through the soft coral as if it were prairie grass, and utilise those sturdy table corals as ideal platforms on which to rest cameras that are so large and pointy I wonder sometimes if I should telephone the Russian Embassy and ask if they have lost a Sputnik recently. But one thing is for sure: they couldn't give a monkey's left testicle about the environment in which they dive, as long as they can strike the most becoming poses and think they look cool existing within it.
The underwater camera gave diving to the masses - and it also brought the masses to diving. In general I have no problem with this because ( a) if everybody loved diving as much as I did then the world would be a better place and ( b) I like
to earn money doing it and therefore be able to pay my rent and feed the cat (and myself, occasionally), so it's kind of a win-win situation for me - but a small sector of the the amateur, waterproof camera-wielding diver has become the bane of the dive guide's existence.
Not all photographers and, it has to be said, not all dive guides either because the vast majority of photographers respect the environment they are seeking to capture on film/memory card, and there are also a minority of dive guides who let their customers do absolutely anything they want to, in the hope that larger tips are forthcoming.
Today (well, yesterday, by the time I've actually posted this) at Thomas Reef in the Straits of Tiran, I encountered a group of divers from an unidentified dive centre who were finning rather heavily as we drifted gently by in the other direction (I will proselytise on the merits of checking the current before you get everybody to jump - just in case it's at full speed in the opposite direction - at a later time) and whose divers were quite literally wading and platforming as previously mentioned. The group leader, resting his fins on a convenient coral head, posed for a photo whilst holding onto the outer edges of a large gorgonian fan coral - after which he pushed it out of his way and swam off. Literally, as if he was holding a curtain from which he then had to extricate himself.
I pulled on his fin and attempted to explain to him through hand signals that he and his group should not be holding the corals, that my dive team has taken photos of him, and we will be reporting his group to the National Parks Authority later. He of course replied with that universal signal - spread arms, look innocent, "it wasn't me that farted in church, your honour, honest, I know nothing"
In return of course I gave him the universal finger signal which can only ever be interpreted (at least in certain censored in-flight movies) as: "Swivel on this, you monkey-funster".
Did it have any effect? No, of course not. This is because these people don't dive because they love it, they dive because they love to look better than the next door neighbours. I was rather annoyed when I surfaced and saw three other dive boats waiting to pick up their divers from what must have been an exhausting swim against the current (yes, they all went the wrong way), because this meant I could not identify the culprit and make a complaint.
In a separate incident (the day before) yesterday, a friend and colleague had a formal complaint made against him because he pulled the fin of a diver from another centre's group because he wanted to point out that the diver was lying in the coral and this is actually forbidden in the Red Sea, and also the dive guide, who was watching this, should be doing something about it. The complaint made against my friend was that he put another diver's life in danger by pulling on his fin. Right.
I was, however, rather more than mildly gratified to see the (un-gloved) coral-fondling photographer leaving the area rubbing his hands together and clearly, at least from the expression I could see behind his mask, thinking "ouch!"
Mother Nature and her oceans are not to be trifled with - fortunately, in the end, she will exact Her revenge.
There is nothing wrong with taking underwater photos - nothing at all, but when the camera becomes more important than the coral then please, get out of the water and take your hairstyle someplace else.
Cheers
C.
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