Divers Down watch out!

[Tim Ingersoll]

The lesson to take from this thread is that, once again, every diver is responsible for their own safety on every dive. Unfortunately confidence and self-awareness come from experience. If you are inexperienced, rusty or just plain nervous about a dive speak up before you get in the water. The DM is not a mind reader. Just let them know your experience level, your confidence level, etc. I have never met a DM are another diver who is not willing to accommodate a newbie or a nervous diver.

 

[ScubaRafiki]

So, let me get this right - you are a newly certified diver, you should have done 4 dives to get this certification, so we are talking about what happened on your 5th dive. You know the recommended maximum depth for open water divers is 60ft, yes you can dive deeper with an instructor - which all boat captains on Grand Cayman are. But why would you want to go that deep on your first dive post certification, especially if you are in a new environment.

I always tell my students that I strongly recommend them to complete several guided shallow dives, ideally as soon as they can post certification, so they can build on their confidence whilst diving without having to worry about doing skills.

There is nothing wrong with being a newly certified diver going on a guided deep dive but it seems that perhaps you were lacking confidence and skills so you should have asked for a double shallow dive. I guess you were just so keen to see the wall that this was more important than your safety.

I strongly agree with skynscuba that next time you plan to go away, stay at a resort for a week. you will find that if you are diving with the same DM every day they will be able to give you tips on how you can improve your diving skills and communication underwater.

As far as the dive brief is concerned - depth, time, safety stop, dive site (name and topographical features), entry and exit procedures, communications (air and creature signals - all others are standard and you should know then from your OW course) this is what I generally do if I am guiding the dive - if not, I will talk more about how to navigate a site and emphasise buddy communication.

The other point you made about her not checking your air, first of all she doesn't have to - she would have probably told you to let her know when you get to 1500psi. The other thing is quite often, DM's will check your air without you even knowing it - with newer divers, I am always checking their air because I will make sure that their gauge is tucked under the front clip of their BCD and facing outward so all I have to do is glance at it. I will ask them to check their air as well, though it depends on the group and conditions. If I have been diving with a group for several days I get to know how good they are with their air, but with one off cruiseship divers this is not possible. Because you are herded off a ship, have a couple of hours here then herded back on again you really don't get any consistency when diving with different ops every day. I don't wish to generalise, but because of this, cruise ship divers can be terrible in the water - I have seen people standing on brain coral, riding on turtles and suck their air so fast that 20 minutes is far too long for the dive profile. If I am only doing one dive with them, I can't help them to develop their skills as I would like - and me telling them not to stand on coral or ride turtles will be forgotten by the time they get to their next destination.

Could you let me know which dive sites you went to?

 

[Web Monkey]

Said with perhaps more tact

Thanks! I've been working on my tact.

Terry

 

[Web Monkey]

The lesson to take from this thread is that, once again, every diver is responsible for their own safety on every dive. Unfortunately confidence and self-awareness come from experience. If you are inexperienced, rusty or just plain nervous about a dive speak up before you get in the water. The DM is not a mind reader. Just let them know your experience level, your confidence level, etc. I have never met a DM are another diver who is not willing to accommodate a newbie or a nervous diver.

That's another good point.

When we were there in January, I asked about the dives and was told, one was a wall dive with a maximum of 120-something feet and the other was a reef dive around 60'-80'. I told the DM that one of our divers was new and wasn't comfortable or certified for 120', and asked for two reef dives instead, he was fine with it.

Dive ops are generally pretty agreeable about this sort of thing, since they don't want the stress of dropping divers in where they don't belong.

Terry

 

[scubajenny]

There are several items on this post that I would like to address:

1) Your excursion DID depart 1 hour later than scheduled, unfortunately when I went to collect the boat that morning it would not start as a bildge pump had stuck and the battery was completely flat. The staff worked as quickly as we could to replace the battery. We were unable to use another boat as all 5 boats were in service that morning. I remember apologizing on behalf of the company before we left the dock and several times throughout the trip.

2) I recall asking your group (who all knew eachother) what kind of dive/profiles would you be interested in making and several made a request for a wall dive. Nobody mentioned to me that there were a number of new divers in the group and therefore a dive profile of 100' for 20 minutes bottom time was planned and agreed. I picked a site called Eagles Nest which is a 10 minute ride from our dock in Georgetown but is not the closest site.

3) A pre-dive briefing is just that-brief. Although it should include certain criteria, including site location, depth, time, and air limitations, proper entry and exit from boat, description of dive itself, potential marine life expected and of course safety.
As I was also guiding the dive I requested that divers let me know when they hit 1000psi and also that a safety stop was required at the end of the dive.

4) Once all divers entered the water I gave the signal to start descent. I was also in the water within one minute. My delay in reaching the group at the bottom of the line was because one of the divers experienced ear trouble and was unable to equalize. I tried every technique possible to help her get down; in the end I requested that she go back to the boat. During the dive one member in the group indicated that there was a diver missing; I could see that he was concerned but I let him know that the diver had experience ear problems and was back on the boat.

I have never received a negative comment before regarding my pace that I swim, only compliments on my steady-slow pace. Like all instructors I do spend some time on my back to make sure the group was OK, especially at the turn-around point heading back to the boat. Towards the end of this particular dive I noticed 2 divers on the surface swimming towards the boat. I and the other divers began our ascent and then safety stop. Once on the boat you informed me that you had run low/out of air and had therefore made a rapid ascent to the surface with your buddy. You were concerned of your chances of DCS. You then mentioned you had some tingling in your toes. At that point I informed our operations department of the situation and it was clear to me that you should not make a second dive. In my opinion it was in your best interest to be removed from the boat in case you developed further symptoms of decompression sickness.

5) I have been employed by Divers Down as a dive instructor for 2 years and before that my occupation was a Vice-President of a community bank in the Mortgage Lending Department. At no time during my working career have I ever been described as unprofessional and I believe that if I was ever unprofessional at Divers Down they would discontinue my employment with them. I have in the past received many compliments regarding my teaching skills and diving knowledge and I'm sorry that you do not have the same view. However, I would like to thank you very much for guessing my age status as that of being only 23, I will be 35 in July.

Jenny
Scuba Instructor

 

[deco_martini]

However, I would like to thank you very much for guessing my age status as that of being only 23, I will be 35 in July.

Man, I wish my complaint letters had errors like those in them.

 

[tiggrr]

Man, I wish my complaint letters had errors like those in them.

No joke. I'm half tempted to ask for pics.

 

[Docc]

Well, I know who I'm gonna book with when I plan a trip to the Caymans.









.

 

[Thalassamania]

I think this entire tale points up two things:

The first is that in a vacation environment, especially activities for cruise ship excursionists, there is zero room for error, they are on tight schedules that do not mesh well with the more laid back view of life that most all island based operators have.

The second is that people really don't get sufficient training so that they have the skills and confidence that they need to perform even a rather routine dive. But it's not really their fault, that point is not driven home in their course, likely because there's not enough time to mention it more than once in passing. I suspect that the operator did everything they could to make things go right, but the OP had mainland expectations that were not met and that created tension that made comfort during the dive problematical at best.

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

Nice response. As expected. So glad to hear your side Jenny.

ITS WIERD HOW THE DIVERS WHO POST RANTS ALL IN CAPS TEND TO BE PART OF THE PROBLEM AND NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION.