Dive Guide too Fast?

[JohnN]

My bitch about dive guides is when they go deep and swim against the current. Anything to shorten the time they need to be underwater with “those” tourists

 

[CWK]

You should be able to keep up with other guests. If not, you are in the wrong group and should ask to be moved to a more sedentary group.

If there is no one else diving as slow as you, then get a private guide because you are an outlier who has special needs and will be an impediment to whichever group that you are placed in.

Also, there is no need to keep up with a guide. Get solo certified and dive at your own pace.

Age is not an excuse. I’m 67 and I cannot keep up with guides when the guide goes flat out. This is only to be expected as guides are professional divers and are extremely fit. However. I can keep up with probably about 95% of other guests. I’d go as far as to say that I can keep up with 100% of other guest over 50. And I am quite happy to go solo.

 

[Kendall Raine]

A conversation with the guide is in order. You are the customer, but the guide might have a legitimate (versus specious) reason for going at that pace. For example, if the current is picking up mid dive, the guide might want to hustle to get to a more protected area of the reef-very possible at Rangi. The big attraction at Rangi is the sharks. If the guide feels the sharks are someplace else, they might try to move quickly in that direction to maximize face time with the sharks. A polite conversation should smoke that out. Besides, it gives the guide the benefit of the doubt. They may not realize you're not happy with the pace. If after that point you're not comfortable with the answers/attitude, switching guides/groups (or a private guide) is a smart move. It's your money and your vacation. You should get what you paid for, within reason.

As to what's reasonable, it depends on what you mean by your question about "inherently faster" sites. I doubt one can legitimately generalize about the attitude/pace of guides in different locations. Currents/conditions; however, can make sites a lot faster and more challenging. In my opinion the dive tourism industry is all too happy to sell trips without consideration of whether a location is appropriate for the client (in terms of skills and preferences). Dive guides try to plan around currents with the skills of the group in mind, but the ocean doesn't care about dive plans. Some divers like currents and pick their trips with that in mind. Rangi can have very strong currents-particularly Tiputa or other passes. Be an educated consumer and do your homework before booking, or go with a reputable group/shop which has experience taking tourists to different places and be open with them about what you like/dislike. It blows me away when I see posts on SB from novices all strung out about currents in various places (Komodo, Peleliu, Cozumel). If currents worry you go elsewhere first and work up to it. Diving is supposed to be fun/thrilling, not scary/exhausting.

Bottom line: I've encountered very few jerk guides and usually polite communication solves any problems. I think the vast majority want you to have a good time and feel comfortable. You might also speak with the other members of your group. Some may feel as you but are afraid to speak up.

 

[tursiops]

You should be able to keep up with other guests. If not, you are in the wrong group and should ask to be moved to a more sedentary group.

If there is no one else diving as slow as you, then get a private guide because you are an outlier who has special needs and will be an impediment to whichever group that you are placed in.

Also, there is no need to keep up with a guide. Get solo certified and dive at your own pace.

Age is not an excuse. I’m 67 and I cannot keep up with guides when the guide goes flat out. This is only to be expected as guides are professional divers and are extremely fit. However. I can keep up with probably about 95% of other guests. I’d go as far as to say that I can keep up with 100% of other guest over 50. And I am quite happy to go solo.

i usually agree with CWK (we've been on a liveaboard together) but I'll have to disagree on this one. This is not a question of "keeping up with" the faster swimmers. The guide needs to match the entire group, not just the fastest swimmers. Inexperienced divers often go much too fast; they are not there to see things, but rather to swim and cover a lot of ground. The more experience you have, the more you see, and want to see, and the slower you tend to go. CWK says let the slow person hire a private guide. Why not the fast people hire a private guide? Better yet, the fast people can just swim around a lot, and just circle a slowly moving guide. CWK is a photographer, and happy to go solo. Other photographers may not want to go solo. Also, solo is not an option on all liveaboards/countries.

 

[CWK]

i usually agree with CWK (we've been on a liveaboard together) but I'll have to disagree on this one. This is not a question of "keeping up with" the faster swimmers. The guide needs to match the entire group, not just the fastest swimmers. Inexperienced divers often go much too fast; they are not there to see things, but rather to swim and cover a lot of ground. The more experience you have, the more you see, and want to see, and the slower you tend to go. CWK says let the slow person hire a private guide. Why not the fast people hire a private guide? Better yet, the fast people can just swim around a lot, and just circle a slowly moving guide. CWK is a photographer, and happy to go solo. Other photographers may not want to go solo. Also, solo is not an option on all liveaboards/countries.

I had this experience in Komodo when I was put in a group of 3. The other 2 were a doctor and lawyer couple who were probably in their 50s. The wife (doctor) had suffered skin bends before and dived on nitrox with her computer set on air and as a rule refused to dive below 20m. The husband was an air hog who would run out of air if he dived deeper than 20m.

There was one other group of 3 divers on the boat but they were on air, not nitrox so they were diving a different profile from me as I was on nitrox. (It was a small boat called the Adelaar.)

I ended up diving mostly solo since the dive guide stuck with the other 2 divers in my group. But I was happy to go solo.

To me, the other 2 divers were outliers who were sufficiently wealthy enough to hire private guides. There are people with special needs. They should engage private guides to attend to their special needs.

If the OP does not have special needs, she should be able to find a group that dives at her speed. Age is not an excuse.

 

[CWK]

If you look at the group dynamics of my Adelaar cruise, I could be said to be the outlier as there was no group whose dive profile suited me. And as I recommended for the OP, I went solo.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Age is not an issue for me, it's weight. The weight of my camera housing, to be exact. I can't keep up with divers who are there to swim from one rock to the next. I'm there to take photos. On a recent trip, our guide was flying through the water. We asked for a different guide, so they switched after the first dive. The second guide was just as fast, but he finally realized we wouldn't keep up, so he allowed us to dive without him.

 

[Howard Baker]

I'm currently diving in Rangiroa, French Polynesia and the dives here are wearing me out. I'm female, 60, fit with 300+ dives and have started swimming at home between dive trips. I've never been good on air but over the years have learned to minimize my movement, dive slowly and slow down my breath. Then I get in situations like here where the guide speeds along and I can barely keep up without breathing hard. The other divers, usually younger, don't seem to have a problem. Are some dive locations and situations inherently faster dives? How do you choose ones that are slower paced?

I had the same problem on a recent trip to the Maldives and resolved the issue by talking directly with the guide and updating the Cruise Director. The main problems were two fold:
1. First time we hit unexpected head currents, which can happen. It was a relatively short period but I was "out the back" and traveling solo didn't have a dive buddy near me from the group of 4.
2. The second time was a negative entry and we got dropped slightly out of position and had to work hard to get to the pinnacle we should have been on. I happened to be last into the water and had a last minute issue when my SMB unraveled so was even further away. The guide did not wait at the bottom till I was down and I ended up too far from another tank of air if anything went wrong with mine. I got close to aborting my dive. After this we agreed he would be my buddy and I would be first in the water after him.

I think at times guides assume too much but communication is key - and ensuring you always have a dive buddy. On 2 different liveaboard trips this has been the guide. Discuss speed before the first dive and how concerns will be communicated underwater. If the guide is not checking where all group members are, escalate the problem. I don't like to dive solo in unfamiliar territory and they should know where the best chances are to find things!

 

[baidanbi]

Thank you everyone for your feedback. For my last dive today in Rangiroa I did say something at the dive briefing. We were just 4 divers and one guide. Another couple agreed that they liked to dive more slowly and the guide assured us that he was a lazy diver and liked to take his time. This turned out not to be the case. He was way out it front occasionally looking back but later in the dive not much. The other couple, however, took their time even though they could clearly go much faster. I stayed with them and the guide was forced to slow down a little but still stayed further in front that he should have. The 4th person stayed somewhere between. We still got to the end point in plenty of time, 55 minutes and I still had 1000psi after the safety stop. For me it was a much more relaxed and fun dive. So after today I don't think it is the dive site, all the dives have been at Tiputa pass, these guides just like to go faster.

 

[LI-er]

these guides just like to go faster.

It's not their dive, it's yours. You are the paying customer.

If I was in your position I'd get the guides attention and adamantly and vigorously give the slow the freak down gesture.

But if it was me, and not in your position I'd just do my own thing. Unless having a guide was a real advantage to seeing particular things that I would otherwise miss, in which case I'd make them well aware that I was not at all happy with my earlier request being ignored.