K
KeithG
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Dear DM: Hi! We will NOT be following you. Have a great dive!
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Dear Divers,
The person responsible for your safety in the first instance is you. Never forget that.
Dear Bill
Please do not lump all DM in the one basket, some are very good and conscientious and others not so much. Would it be fair to say all OW divers are useless, I suggest not and yet your post suggests by its title that ALL WORLD WIDE DM's are less than competent. Note I say suggests or perhaps implies.
I understand what you are probably trying to say and agree in general terms. I have witnessed it as well, but far be it for me to imply that all DM are bad. I am one and I am very aware of keeping visual contact with those I dive with, also with helping new divers or inexperienced divers who stay silent. I however find offense that your post implies DM world wide dont make the grade.
I would also differentiate between dive guides and dive masters. Also how a Dive Guide/Master in say Bali operates can be different to one in USA or OZ. Based simply on the local business expectation and how they run their business and team. It should be based on a standard but sometimes its based on cost and simplification, which is not the way its supposed to be run, but thats different countries and local standards.
Still my disappointment with your post is not that some DM are sub standard, but that by implication you lump us all down to the lowest common denominator.
Reading is so hard, isn't it?its title that ALL WORLD WIDE DM's
Reading is so hard, isn't it?
I assume you warn them ahead of time? Otherwise that behaviour may be considered a little passive aggressive?My response to such a DM/Guide is to simply let them go. I find that they usually eventually figure out I am no longer with them and they return and from that point on things usually get better. Not always, but trying to keep up just reinforces the behaviour.
The ONE TIME I was in a guided tropical dive (Panama), one of the divers in the "line" screwed things up by breaking the line and disappearing, so I can also understand the predicament DMs can be in guiding dives. Too bad all these places can't be like the US and Canada--dive by yourself (with buddy?) and be responsible for yourselves. I can only imagine the situations that arise with guided dives, particularly if the divers are vaction divers once/twice a year.Almost all my recreational dives are guided dive and the only exceptions were in GBR. I can fully understand the DM predicament when some divers insist to do their own things!
Interestingly most of my tec dives are non-guided.