Divemaster Responsibilities

[Storker]

The short answer is that the DM is there to provide broad planning and logistical support (emergency equipment, spare weights, food and water etc.) within an environment appropriate to the dive team; act as a guide when necessary and a supervisor when not. All divers in the water are certified divers and therefore should be able to look after their own safety and follow the plan as laid out by the DM.

I was totally on board with you up to this:

If a diver gets separated from the group, that's their problem, not the inattentiveness of the DM.

Where I don't agree. Buddies and DMs/guides alike are totally able to paddle on like a stemboat, leaving anyone who stops to look at something behind. It's primarily the responsibility of the diver, but ALSO the responsibility of the DM or buddy to prevent separation.

And just FTR: that doesn't mean I believe that it's OK to hold up a group for half the dive just because you've found something cool to photograph.


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[boulderjohn]

I did my first diving after certification in Cozumel, diving there a couple years before diving anywhere else. I learned what DMs do and don't do there. then I finally went somewhere else and learned that Cozumel was quite different from most other places. Because Cozumel is so easily accessed from much of North America, many people have gained their understanding of how diving is done "in the real world" there.

In Cozumel, many of the operators have their Dms do almost everything for you except breathe from your regulator. Most importantly, because almost all of the diving is drift diving in fairly strong currents with a reef structure too tall and complex to allow pulling a dive flag, it is very important for the DM to keep the group together. The boat is following the collected bubbles of the group. A diver that separates from the group and goes up alone or even with a buddy is likely to surface unnoticed in the middle of heavy boat traffic, with strong surface currents. Some have drifted away after reaching the surface, never to be seen again. Most of the rest of the diving world does not have that situation, and DMs can behave differently.

 

[Crowley]

Hi Storker - the diver separation thing was meant as a semi-cynical, technically accurate description of the DM's responsibilities, and a lot of people would agree. Me personally, however, I make sure that I keep my groups together - it's part of the art of guiding. Swimming super slow so everybody can keep up, not pedalling off into the distance just because you want to get to the end of the dive, etc. etc.

So - I agree with your point - because I was making the point that a diver should know to stay with his buddy and stick with the group because that's the standards of recreational diving, and not the responsibility of the guide - but - many divers do this, so where do you blur the line between your conduct as a DM or guide and what divers have been trained to accept as basic recreational dive practice. Technically, it's not my responsibility at all - but realistically, I accept that responsibility as part of my job. Apart from group safety, it makes the group enjoy the dive more if we don't have to continually stop to wait for somebody else to catch up!!

Like I say - it's a fine art!

Cheers

C.

 

[KevinG58]

Here in Cali, there's no dive master, but a safety swimmer (who may be certified as a DM) who only gets in the water to help someone already in trouble. On the boats I use the briefings are like this: You are planning your dive, tracking profiles, etc. It's what I "grew up with" from day 1.

When I started dive traveling I experienced in water "DMs" with duties or styles ranging from mother hen (Mexico) to much more a guide (Truk & Roatan). To the best of my recollection, what I could expect from them has always been covered in pre-dive briefings though sometimes language is a barrier. Keep asking until you know.

 

[Storker]

Hi Storker - the diver separation thing was meant as a semi-cynical, technically accurate description of the DM's responsibilities, and a lot of people would agree. Me personally, however, I make sure that I keep my groups together - it's part of the art of guiding. Swimming super slow so everybody can keep up, not pedalling off into the distance just because you want to get to the end of the dive, etc. etc.

So - I agree with your point - because I was making the point that a diver should know to stay with his buddy and stick with the group because that's the standards of recreational diving, and not the responsibility of the guide - but - many divers do this, so where do you blur the line between your conduct as a DM or guide and what divers have been trained to accept as basic recreational dive practice. Technically, it's not my responsibility at all - but realistically, I accept that responsibility as part of my job. Apart from group safety, it makes the group enjoy the dive more if we don't have to continually stop to wait for somebody else to catch up!!

I can see that point. My reaction to the somewhat exaggerated point you made was because I'm used to a quite different practice: Buddy diving, either from shore or from a boat whose crew provides a taxi ride, a site briefing and a safe return. Period. Hot drinks if you're lucky, but you might just as well be expected to bring your own thermos bottle A diver expecting someone to "do almost everything for you except breathe from your regulator", as boulderjohn put it, will be sorely disappointed. And with that background, I'm used to that people who go in the water together are equally responsible for keeping contact. On a drift dive, that of course means that you're not supposed to hang on to a rock and make the group/your buddy try to wait while you take you precious photos. And if you do, you'll probably get some... "feedback" on that behavior after surfacing...

 

[mridude]

Thanks to everyone for their input. This has made me want to be a better diver and more aware of where the DM and the rest of the group is. However, this discussion also has made me go back and review the video I took of the turtle. My apologies for not reviewing the video more closely earlier to see the length, but the truth is that in light of some of the comments I was feeling a bit guilty about my conduct and abilities as a diver. The video was 1 minute 12 seconds long and at the end of the video the turtle swam away, so that would have been when I looked up to see where the group was (minus the two others that were still with me). So, say it took me another few seconds, heck maybe almost another minute, to get in position and start filming (doubtful). I don't think that stopping for two minutes to film a turtle on a one hour dive is out of bounds. On a dive where there is little current and mostly sand and small coral outcroppings? Is it really too much to ask of a DM in Cozumel to maybe stay within eyesight distance for one minute and 12 seconds? And if there is an urgent need to move on, OK he carries a "noisemaker". He can let me know he is moving on, but in reality there was no urgent need here.

 

[redacted]

Thanks to everyone for their input. This has made me want to be a better diver and more aware of where the DM and the rest of the group is. However, this discussion also has made me go back and review the video I took of the turtle. My apologies for not reviewing the video more closely earlier to see the length, but the truth is that in light of some of the comments I was feeling a bit guilty about my conduct and abilities as a diver. The video was 1 minute 12 seconds long and at the end of the video the turtle swam away, so that would have been when I looked up to see where the group was (minus the two others that were still with me). So, say it took me another few seconds, heck maybe almost another minute, to get in position and start filming (doubtful). I don't think that stopping for two minutes to film a turtle on a one hour dive is out of bounds. On a dive where there is little current and mostly sand and small coral outcroppings? Is it really too much to ask of a DM in Cozumel to maybe stay within eyesight distance for one minute and 12 seconds? And if there is an urgent need to move on, OK he carries a "noisemaker". He can let me know he is moving on, but in reality there was no urgent need here.

Yes, it is too much to expect of the DM to interrupt his and others dive to watch you take pictures that only you seemed to think were important. But I do agree that they should not have disappeared in under 2 minutes. So, the question is, how long before you started recording the turtle did you lose awareness of the location of the DM and the rest of the group?

If you knew where they were when you started recording, it should not have been difficult to head of to catch up with them less than 2 minuted later.

 

[mridude]

As far as I can recall I did not "lose awareness" of their location at all prior to starting to film. Not sure how they managed to get so far away from the three of us in so short a time. We did find them and catch up fairly easily. The biggest difficulty was differentiating our group of 4 (basically by their bubbles) versus the group of 5 others that had dropped into the same area that were not part of our group.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Which is why you need to be responsible for yourself. Unless you are paying the DM to stay with you I don't see where he has any obligation to do so. Especially if there are others divers in the water expecting him to show them stuff. I choose ops that do not put a DM in the water. Or if they do it's with the understanding that I am not obligated to follow him/her.

 

[TSandM]

In cave diving, we estimate about 50 feet a minute as normal swimming speed. In current, I think you could move a lot faster than that. So almost a minute and a half of unawareness can open up quite a separation between a photographer and the group.

I honestly don't have a "right" answer here. In Cozumel, the law says you have to dive with a guide, so legally, the guide has to keep the group together. The guide is also charged by his employer with seeing to it that the divers have a good time. If you have one or two photographers who want to camp in one spot for a long time, and four divers who don't, what is the right thing for the guide to do? If you are the photographer, you feel you have paid for your dive and should be able to do what you want, which is spend long periods of time taking photos or video. If you are the other divers, you feel you should be able to cover ground and see more reef. Everybody has a legitimate viewpoint, but they're incompatible.

The ways to solve the problem are to segregate divers into more compatible groups, or for the divers to be willing to compromise their own goals in the interests of keeping the group together. I personally do not like diving in mandatory guided groups for this reason, but where it is required, I comply with what is requested.