Dive Boat "pros"~ what is their role?
- Thread starter Doc
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Most of the charters I've worked for here set your gear up for you before you get on the boat, which would mean you could leave your wallet in your car. :depressed:
Out of the thousands of divers I've gone through this with only a couple have demanded not to let anybody else set up their gear, and that was just a symptom IMHO.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/229291-cheap-bastard-divers.html
Most of the regular posters (posers) on SB have more than one thread worth of interaction to make judgments based on, and some of us just laugh at the hornets swarm we can create while contributing to the discussion
I am not looking for a tip. Keep your tip.
People set up gear, turn air on, and quite often turn the air back off. This leaves enough air in the lines to give a couple puffs from the inflator and a breath or two from the reg before making the entry. I only hope they are positively buoyant by then.
How often does that happen? All the time. Every week. Repeatedly.
Doing rescues for real sucks. So does cleaning up the vomit that comes up from doing CPR.
Knocking on the family's hotel room door and saying "There's been an accident. Please come with me." is pretty bad too. Watching the color drain out of the face of the husband/wife/significant other is heart wrenching. Hearing that deep gutteral wail that comes with bad news is enough to bring me to my knees.
So keep the tip. I'll check the valves.
halemano:
I hope that is made clear in advance and that you back off when a diver asks you not to do it. If so, there's no issue. It's when charters load your gear (Not necessary, but I don't have an issue with the crew loading my gear if they want) and then set up your gear without telling you that weas their plan that really ticks me off. Fortunately, that is extremely rare. When it has happened, I break it down and start from scratch.
I'm a dive boat owner and captain, we put an insured dm in the water on every dive because the boats insurance stops when the diver enters the water. We don't assemble your gear because I want to quietly watch everone assemble thier own gear as part of my evaluation of the diver. We will check your air because I have seen divers at all levels of experiance enter the water with the valve closed. Unless we see a new or weak diver the dm just does a fun dive divers can follow or not as they want.
Randy
Randy
<shrugs> That's cool.
Please don't be offended when I check it after you do.
Please note, I understand what you have to deal with 95% of the time! And I appreciate it when a knowledgeable DM recognizes that I don't fall into that 95% when I quietly come on board, easily set up my gear, shuts up and stays out of the boat crews way.
All the best, James
If you ask the right questions, you will find out things like this when you make your reservation. Otherwise when you bring your gear bag to the boat ramp/dock you will see it happening and/or be informed of the procedure. I'd like to point out that the crew very rarely does what they want; we do what the owner/operator requires us to do.
MY most recent employer loads guest gear while the boat is still on the trailer. The Guides duty at that time includes asking the guest to hand up reg and BC; our employer does not want us rummaging through strangers gear bags. As stated before, there have been a couple guests who refused when I was working. We handed down a tank so he could do it and then the Captain handed it back up.
We turn the air on to check fill/gauges/computers, then we turn it off and purge lines. After guests board they are encoraged to check their gear, but if you leave the air on at that time we will turn it off again; there is a 45 minute boat ride to the site and losing air underway is not a professional boat ride.
After the first dive you will be asked to sit at the rear of the boat and get out of your rig. A crew member (Captain or Guide) will turn your air off, disconnect 1st stage and BC from tank, carry tank and gear to fresh tank/empty tank slot, put empty tank in and secure it, remove fresh tank and assemble your gear on it, check fill, turn air off, purge lines.
At the end of the dive you again take a seat at the back of the boat and get out of your BC. We turn your air off, disconnect 1st stage, dry and secure cap, remove BC from tank, dunk entire rig in rinse water and hand it to you to stow. On a typical trip the crew turns guest tank valves off a minimum of 4 times.
If we are asked by a guest not to do any of these duties we will try to remember, but we are a pretty efficient team and things happen pretty fast.
Last edited:
Granted I have only limited experience with diving as a paying customer; Key Largo, Cave Country, Oahu, Maui, Hawaii (Big Island). I was raised to have compassion and empathy for my fellow human. When I chose to dive with an operator I am agreeing to abide by their way of doing things. There has been one operator who's ways I decided not to abide with, so I didn't dive with them.
I WANT seems to be a too frequent phrase on many keyboards IMHO. Often that is a sign of a spoiled brat!
I WANT seems to be a too frequent phrase on many keyboards IMHO. Often that is a sign of a spoiled brat!
Similar threads
