I do believe that the more knowledge a diver has about a dive site that they haven't been to during their class, the more comfortable they will be.
True. I haven't had to deal with your local conditions, but that statement is broadly true. After certification, doing 'dive tourist' 2-tank trips at popular Caribbean destinations such as on cruise ship stops, I learned a few things over time:
1.) I don't know where the boat will go until it's headed there. Weather, sea conditions & other dive boats there first make planning tentative at best.
2.) So there's often no way to research the site in advance.
3.) A staff will give a good briefing, often with a diagram.
4.) Boat environments are often noisy, I may be farther back in the crowd, and I may not hear part of it.
5.) I'm not a good listener; I mull over something he said & miss the next thing, my attention wanders, etc...
6.) I'd have lousy recall at splash for what I
did learn from the briefing. So, we're gonna follow the guide & keep him appraised of our remaining gas supply. They deal with vacation diver tourists often, I'm not the worst, I should be okay.
7.) Some people are 'one time & done' learners from spontaneous oral presentations and retain a working knowledge of what was covered long enough to use it on their dive. I tend to think of these people as a different species.
8.) Because boats don't always moor/anchor at the same place, or boat position may differ with wind, there are limits to what can be done about this.
Over the years I've gotten somewhat better, but what I just described, however contrary to the ideology of some, is pretty common on dive boats in popular high-viz., low current, reliably (mostly) benign condition water water dive locations.
Independently wade into more adverse conditions with no guide from shore with that mindset, and things may not go so well. If you give people site info. to study and mentally rehearse in advance, that's powerful.
Richard.