I have a question for everyone that thinks you are completly responsible for yourself and the DM is not. Most agencies NAUI, PADI Certify children for OW(and I am not sure if they can only go to a certain depth or if they are certified to 60 ft as well) at 10 years old now. Is it in agreement that most of you feel that a 10 year old should also be fully responsible for him/herself? Or does this only pertain to 18 and over?
The standards in regard to minors are in place for two reasons:
1) Most minors don't exhibit good judgement when left to their own devices and therefore should be monitored by an adult. There are many laws and regulations illustrating this outside of diving.
2) There has been some debate regarding the possible effects of diving on bodies that are still developing, so "acceptable" limitations are imposed.
The "Wall" as everyone is calling it and I might have called it a "Wall" as well in my previous posts, I don't know and I am not going back 500 and something posts to see, was not a "Wall" it was a sloping bottom that kept sloping in depth down and down. So it was not like a "Wall" you would descend to and dive horizontally and see an abyss if you looked down like I would call a "Wall". There was a solid bottom from where I was looking at all times, mostly sandy with reef out crops that you could swim through. Pam and I were above them at 60ft. The bottom was about 140ft. were we were diving. The other divers, meaning the DM, my husband, a couple from San Diego, Brendan and the Minor.
Riger,
The only people that were buddied up were Pam and I because we did that ourselves. So no the other 6 divers were NOT buddied up they went as a group.
There were no buddy checks except Pam and I did ours.
My husband has the same experience as I have over 200 dives, however, he does get a little more anxious than I do sometimes ( I am completely comfortable in any condition where he is not) I think that is because I am a mouth breather and he is a nose breather. During the dive he came up to about 80 ft because he was feeling a little uncomfortable at 100 ft and having a hard time breathing, he just wanted to get control of his breathing which he did and then he descended back down to the 100 ft with the rest of the group and this was during the time the DM was asking me "where is your buddy"?
The couple from San Diego, were mixed, the husband had more experience than his wife, however, I did a dive with them previous and she did incredibly well. The husband had been diving for about 4 or 5 years and quite a bit in San Diego. The wife only about a year or so in San Diego but like I said did very well with everything I noted.
Terry,
The DM said the bottom was at 140 ft. Interesting enough my husband had rented gear and there wasno max depth indicater needle on his guage. He did stay with the group and he feels he didn't go below 100 ft but he doesn't know. I think that is pretty shoddy for a dive op to give out gear that doesn't have that feature. And the only reason he didn't have his own gear was because he was working in the Cayman's and was not going to be diving I convinced him to do a dive with me and just rent gear for that day.
Things I've just learned:
1) There WAS a hard bottom more or less within recreational depth.
2) Out of a group of divers that had both experienced divers and brand new, with only two dives, only two seemed to recall the concept of buddying up and doing checks themselves.
3) A diver in the deeper group had a problem, possibly splitting the DM attention between 3 groups, one at 60', one at 80' and one diving over a hard bottom. Presumably during this time is when the diver went missing.
4) One diver wasn't monitoring his gauges close enough to know what depth they hit
during the dive and was relying on the max depth indicator to tell them what it was later.
I would think that if a group of people who knew each other came in to a shop and wanted to dive, that group would generally buddy themselves up since they know each other. I wouldnt expect the DM or shop to be responsible for naming the buddy pairs unless it was a boat full of strangers.
I would think that divers with only two dives post cert would still have the whole "buddy concept" fresh in their minds. Usually people don't start disregarding that until they've gotten a bit more experience and feeling confident in their abilities as individual divers.
With the new information regarding the bottom terrain, it would seem the missing diver had to work to get to 346'. He didnt just pass out and drift down the wall.
Another diver has a problem and started ascending. The DM now has 3 groups to keep track of and I would expect that his attention would be on the diver who had a problem and started an unplanned ascent.
There are 3 divers who are at a minimum 20' - 40' above the rest of the group, who would have been looking down to see the coral, fish and terrain on the bottom, yet none of them noticed the other diver go missing.
At least one other diver in the group failed to track their own depth
during the dive, because they had no idea how deep they'd been since the max depth indicator needle didnt work.
IMO, a LOT of things went wrong on this dive and I have a hard time laying them all at the feet of the DM.
