Dive op with great rental equipment, small boats, gear storage?

[cvchief]

Wow. Surely this is satirical. Buy a small dry bag, stick your wetsuit in it and stop being a ***** (small, helpless kitten).

He is being Dr. Tinycat????




Hey, it's the internet. Cat pics right?

 

[Mossman]

Wow. Surely this is satirical. Buy a small dry bag, stick your wetsuit in it and stop being a ***** (small, helpless kitten).

I already bring one dry bag and have to lug my 40 lbs of camera. Now you want me to somehow carry (and pack) another dry bag, not to mention store my stinking wetsuit in the room? The helpless kitten is the one who sheepishly trudges with his own gear and wetsuit because he's afraid to demand better service.

What's next, bring my own utensils and glassware to restaurants and carry the soiled stuff back to my hotel so I can wash it in the hotel sink? Heck no. I take my business to restaurants that wash my margarita glass for me, even though I may have contaminated it with yucky and potentially deadly saliva.

 

[Dave Dillehay]

Look, when air sharing with divers getting low on air, our DMs only do that when one of the small bunch gets to 1000 PSI quickly, which is not normally an emergency situation. ONce others get to 1000 psi, that ends and a slow ascent to a safety stop (hopefully over shallow coral) begins. WE only share air with the DM to extend the dive for all in the small group of 6 divers. In 20 years of this procedure we have had (ZERO) problems and all divers have averaged over 1 hour 10 minutes per tank including deep and shallow dives.

I can't swear to the statistical numbers now but when I started these procedures in 1992 the major cause of accidents was lone divers being hit by oncoming boats. But by segregating dive groups according to skills, and the air sharing as described, we do keep the divers in a group and ascend together with a SMB and our boat acting as a foil for oncoming boats. AS for surfacing without a DM and SMB...how many divers do you know who actually have a SMB. How many go up with one? I'd bet not many as we pick them up all the time and mostly they don't even know what boat they were on. Normally we figure it out but they were NOT safe.


Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[Skittl1321]

and mostly they don't even know what boat they were on. Normally we figure it out but they were NOT safe.

This is baffling to me. How could you not know what boat you were on!

 

[Dave Dillehay]

We pull them out every week, some don't even know the dive shop they are with, but the name of the dive boat is even less well known. That is the truth, as baffling as it may seem. Ask Christi if you don't believe me.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[Skittl1321]

O , I believe you. I just can't understand how people have such poor situational awareness. I haven't even been to cozumel to dive yet and I know my ops boat name.

not knowing the dive shop name? Are these people drunk?

I am curious do that many people get lost that you fish them out so often? Is it typically the same ops or do I need to worry about this?

 

[cvchief]

I am curious do that many people get lost that you fish them out so often? Is it typically the same ops or do I need to worry about this?

That ain't happening to you. You will be delivered with SMB from the group to the boat at the surface.

Now there are divers out there that go out and do their own thing. They get separated from the group and if you have a DM who isn't counting his chicks, you could have a diver surface away from the group and by himself. There are occasionally stories of floaters on here. Sometimes you can read into them that the diver was 'doing his own thing' and sometimes it reads like the crew let them down.

 

[Okie Mike]

A diver on a group trip who did not book the diving might not be committing the dive shop name to long term memory (perhaps there is a lesson there). I once dove on a cruise excursion and I doubt I remembered or even knew the dive shop or boat name. Certainly something to think about when you are not booking for yourself.

Last time in Cozumel, the dive briefing would include a number that identified either the boat or the radio frequency (I can't even remember which) and I remember thinking that there was no way I would remember that.

 

[Mossman]

That ain't happening to you. You will be delivered with SMB from the group to the boat at the surface.

Now there are divers out there that go out and do their own thing. They get separated from the group and if you have a DM who isn't counting his chicks, you could have a diver surface away from the group and by himself. There are occasionally stories of floaters on here. Sometimes you can read into them that the diver was 'doing his own thing' and sometimes it reads like the crew let them down.

I intentionally ditched a DM in Cozumel once. A $10 afternoon dive with Dive Paradise and the poor guy had his hands full with two newbies that had cameras. One would be heading toward the surface while the other was crashing into the reef. And they were both kicking with the current so our group of 5 (DM + 4) was going way too fast. I was sticking with my buddy trying to enjoy the crest of the reef at 50' or so, when the DM who had his hands full starting policing us by motioning that we needed to get shallower. Screw that. So buddy and I stopped in the sand behind a coral head and waiting a minute or two until they flew out of sight, then continued our dive without the DM and newbie nuisance. Much better.

On my last trip, we were a loose bunch of 8 following Jeremy when 4 of the divers (two buddy pairs who were traveling together) got way ahead of the group. They later claimed that we got ahead of them and they couldn't follow us even though we all saw them fade into the distance while we were plodding along. It took a while to find them on the surface. They really did go far. When one of the ladies proclaimed her computer broken, it turned out she had gotten into deco. Apparently the group had gotten a little deeper than planned too. Lucky for us, they got their own boat the following day because they wanted to do Devil's Throat and the rest of us declined.

 

[cvchief]

I intentionally ditched a DM in Cozumel once. A $10 afternoon dive with Dive Paradise and the poor guy had his hands full with two newbies that had cameras. One would be heading toward the surface while the other was crashing into the reef. And they were both kicking with the current so our group of 5 (DM + 4) was going way too fast. I was sticking with my buddy trying to enjoy the crest of the reef at 50' or so, when the DM who had his hands full starting policing us by motioning that we needed to get shallower. Screw that. So buddy and I stopped in the sand behind a coral head and waiting a minute or two until they flew out of sight, then continued our dive without the DM and newbie nuisance. Much better.

On my last trip, we were a loose bunch of 8 following Jeremy when 4 of the divers (two buddy pairs who were traveling together) got way ahead of the group. They later claimed that we got ahead of them and they couldn't follow us even though we all saw them fade into the distance while we were plodding along. It took a while to find them on the surface. They really did go far. When one of the ladies proclaimed her computer broken, it turned out she had gotten into deco. Apparently the group had gotten a little deeper than planned too. Lucky for us, they got their own boat the following day because they wanted to do Devil's Throat and the rest of us declined.

Proving the part about it often being the diver's fault....

I did think of another reason for confusion: Op Swap. Last trip for instance we picked up a diver because his booked op only had one diver that day, so his DM worked it out for that diver to go with us since he would have lost money to take out one diver. He just met us and the boat that morning, so maybe he might forget who he was with?