Has Your Dive Guide Ever Gotten Lost?

[Trace Malinowski]

We often use the term "dive guides" when referring to the instructors and divemasters who work at resorts because a big part of their job description is to lead underwater tours. After all, the local reefs are their neighborhood. They know where to find interesting marine life, the resident denizens of the deep, and the way back to the boat.

Having been a dive guide myself in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands, I highly recommend buddying with the guide unless the guide is going to be dealing with a group of novice divers. We really do know where the big moray eel might be hiding or when conditions might mean seeing something exciting. I could almost always find our large green moray on the Benwood or locate sharks on Molasses Reef.

But we are not infallible. I once got lost leading a tech dive off the stern of the Ash Island Barge in the St. Lawrence River in Canada - a site I knew quite well. Nothing is more embarrassing than getting lost when you are there so no one gets lost.

I remember one day when I got a dive guide lost when diving with Stuart Cove's operation in New Providence Island (Nassau) Bahamas. I was elected by my small group of insta-buddies to lead us on a wall dive at 130 feet while on vacation myself. Our dive guide, a young man from the United Kingdom, would be taking a group of divers on a more shallow tour of the wall. Three divers and I would be doing our own dive. We entered the water first.

On the return trip, I spotted a shiny thing glinting in the sun atop a gorgeous purple tube sponge. It was a 3/16" bolt. I imagined the bolt damaging the beauty of the sponge over time so I picked it up and tucked it into my wetsuit sleeve.

Back onboard, we waited for the second group. We saw their bubbles approach the boat about 30 - 40 yards away, but instead of making a perpendicular or angular turn to leave the wall and return to the boat, the bubbles just kept on going along the wall... and going... and going.

Once we picked up the guide and the group, the embarrassed guide explained, "I missed my marker." As we secured everything to move to our second site, I unzipped the torso section of my wetsuit to put on a T-shirt to not lose body heat. I pulled the shiny 3/16" bolt out of the sleeve and asked the crew, "Can you guys use this for something?"

"Hey! That's my marker!" the dive guide exclaimed. We all had a good laugh about me being responsible for his navigational error.

Has your dive get ever gotten lost? If so, what were the circumstances?

 

[GDHLEWIS]

Dive guides get lost all the time, Qatars waters are very very murky at the best of times. Most the shore reefs are a good swim from the shore so unless you nail the navigation it can very easy to miss your point. I lead dives on a regular basis and have missed my mark on a couple of occasions. It happens from time to time, as long as everyone comes out safely that's all that really matters

 

[Doc]

Maybe they do get lost, but we’re just depending on the boat captain‘s amazing abilities to find and track our bubble trail.. … .. .…___[:]@

 

[Vicko]

The weirdest, and most embarrassing loss of orientation of all time.
We have been doing a night dive off of a beach in front of my house, I have been diving here since i was 8, i know every rock, fish and blade of grass, I literally have over 1000 dives just on that position be it freediving/spearfishing or scuba diving.
The problem is that at a certain part there are no rocks, just 50 meters of poseidonia meadows, but the problems is minimal as you can always follow the depth and reach shore.
The team was me, 4 instructors and a instructor trainer, the guys with me each had 4 times more experience than I did and a few dives on the same location but the instructors were out of shape and haven't been diving in months or even years.
So we start off, go over the poseidonia (full of tiny shrimp, conger eels and stuff) and reach a wall we are aiming for. We all go trough a narrow swim trough/cavern, find some octopus, mess around and decide to go back. I hit my marker, a toilet bowl, start the swim and 15 minutes later we are... lost. How I don't know but it takes me usually 3-5 minutes to swim over the poseidonia and now after 15 minutes I had no idea where we were. The depth was wrong, the direction of the poseidonia was wrong, the small rocks were wrong.
And then it hits me, we are almost 500 meters away in the opposite direction. The instructors are looking at their spgs worryingly, me and the it are still over 120 bars.
So I take compass direction and start the swim back, after 5 minutes we hit a wall and not the one I expected. My digital compass was last calibrated when it left the store as I normally don't use it.
So there we are, during the night now 600m away from the exit point with a current pushing us the wrong way and in the boat lane.
Oh, and the instructor team is bellow 30 bars each.
Dangit.
It was a interesting surface swim back filled with expressions of adoration for my underwater navigation skills.

 

[Alekseolsen]

Not as funny as Vicko, but quite recently had it happen. While on holiday with Girlfriend, I was lucky enough to book myself 2 days of diving. Turns out last dive boat days is the same site.
Drive number 1 at the site was uneventful, an~8 minute swim to the wreck, look around for some time, swim back when someone approached X bars in their tank.

Day two, we have a divemaster (instructor in training, I believe) guiding us. For him to lead was announced to him already at the divesite.

We jump in the water, swim in roughly the same direction as the previous day, and swim, swim, swim and swim. I really felt sorry for the DM as he took compass courses more and more frequent, I'm various headings.
We eventually found the wreck, and all was all good, but I can imagine the DM felt horrible!

 

[Damselfish]

I can think of at least 3 times in the Caribbean where viz wasn’t an issue. 2 rather new DMs who didn’t really didn’t have any business “guiding” dives - in both cases the problem was more then needing more familiarity with the area. The third guide seemed experienced and good in general, but apparently not familar enough to find Mary’s Place in Roatan. (He was clearly embarrassed, those other 2 didn’t seem clueful enough to know they should be.)

 

[Doctorfish]

I've seen DMs get lost in clear conditions several times. On Cayman, I experienced a guide unable to find Ghost Mountain and then claiming we just didn't see it on account of visibility. Another time, a DM insisted that NW Point was a shallow dive even though several of us on the boat told him it was a wall. We ended up on a sparse miniwall. On Roatan, I had a new DM get lost twice in the same week and also put himself and another diver into deco on a night dive. I guess if you dive enough, stuff is bound to happen.

My concern/problem, is whether to leave the group mid dive when you know the DM is going the wrong way and he/she continues after divers in the group have already pointed it out. If I'm in an area I'm familiar with and have a buddy, we just wave goodby and head our own direction. On a drift, poor vis or unfamiliar site, I would stay with the group.

 

[ibj40]

I hope this story is appropriate for this thread.

When I was doing my Divemaster certification course, we were diving in Squaw Creek Lake near Glen Rose, Texas. Squaw Creek is the cooling lake for the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant. Visibility, since it is a small, Texas freshwater lake is usually around 5 to seven feet.

On this particular day, we dropped down to a wooden platform (that is marked by a buoy) to do some orientation dives. Each one of us was to take a compass reading and lead the group out X number of fin kicks, turn around, and head back. The object, of course, was to get back to the platform, or as closely as possible.

On this one particular dive, I was bringing up the rear, and my point of reference was the bottom of the tank of the student in front of me, which fortunately was solid white. On the way out, I turned to view a fish (an unusual site in that lake), and when I turned back forward, no white tank bottom! Oh, crap!

So, I did the obligatory look around for a minute, and then head to the surface. Took a reading, and sure enough, there was a trail of bubbles heading away from me. I figured I'd just wait on the surface for them to come back my way, then drop down and follow the group back to the platform.

While I was up there, another diver surfaced. We made eye contact, and he asks me if I have seen a group of divers. I pointed in the direction of my bubble trail and told him that was my group. We both scan the surface, and sure enough, there's another bubble trail. He says that must be his group, and thanks me for the assistance.

I ask him, as he's preparing to descend, if he's a student diver. He says, "No, I'm the instructor!"

 

[boulderjohn]

I was with a group diving in Yap, which is famous for wall dives. We did one dive to Yap Caverns, which was reached by entering a small opening in the wall. It was spectacular, so a couple days later, we asked for a repeat. The DM could not find it, even though he was the one who had successfully taken us there the first time.

 

[jadairiii]

Not sure how I didn't get lost. I was vacationing on Oahu, on the 3rd day of diving with the same dive shop, we went diving on the North Shore. DM knew I was a DM/AI so he asked me to lead the group on the second dive while he finished a class dive. Brand new reef in a brand new ocean for me. Got everyone back but I dont know how! What I found funny was, did the divers who paid for a DM to lead their dive, ever except some guy from Florida to be the DM?