In Coz: You, Your Buddy, Your Group and Your DM. Who should do what?

[boulderjohn]

I am on lunch at work, so do not have time right now to do a search, but if I recall the incident the DM did try to execute a rescue but the diver refused her help, and even may have physically resisted her assistance. The diver then descended to extremely depth, where a rescue attempt would have possibly or almost certainly been suicidal.

That's pretty much what I said. You can do a search to confirm it if you want, though.

No scenario requires a diver or DM to throw their life away to do a rescue, which is I believe the single most important rule a diver learns in a rescue class, and certainly such extreme risk is not required when it becomes apparent that the diver is bent on self destruction.

The argument was that she should have been able to stop it before it got that far.

At some point in a rescue attempt every person has to evaluate their own risks, and weight them against what ever other factors they feel they need to. Chance of success. Is this a personal loved one, whom you will go to real extremes for, beyond the normal you would for a fellow diver? Are you trying to save a customer, a friend and/or protect your job? And is rescue in this situation even possible? ETC.

Every one of us has our own value system, and may draw the line at differing levels of risk, but in the end two victims should never be the result of a rescue attempt..

That's all true. When you are a DM in a professional role, the bar is simply higher.

 

[Ron Lee]

Being a complete newbie (or maybe less than noob, since I am just now working on classroom work), this thread has me doubting my plans....... Now I'm thinking Grand Cayman will be good but Cozumel sounds like a little much, especially after reading the cruise description about diving Palancar Reef at 70-80 feet. Comments? Suggestions?

Marc, get certified. Make other dives locally to gain experience. Use a private DM in Cozumel. There are plenty of great sites. You can dive Palancar at 40'-50' if that floats your boat. Right now you don't know enough to know what is safe or not. Don't let the recent currents or missing diver cause irrational fear of Cozumel diving.

Reality is that many (thousands annually???) new divers make plenty of dives safely.

 

[MMM]

I have been reading all the comments here. As someone who lives in, and regularly dives in, Cozumel my advice to newer divers is that the smaller a group you can find to dive with, the better. That may range from an individual DM assigned to you and/or your buddy to a small group of 4 or so divers. So ask about that possibility. DMs will do what they can to mitigate risk, but often too, DMs are herding cats (and especially in strong current) and they can't be all-seeing, everywhere at all times (often when people are strung out over a fair distance) and all things to everyone on the boat. It is so very, very true that you don't know what you don't know. Novices don't often even know the questions they ought to be asking. Some of it comes with or from training (or lack thereof) and some of it comes with experience. I have made it very clear to my husband that if I am in a diving accident, the first person he should blame is me, however.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I think she tried hard and failed. In my book, she did OK. Others looked at the same evidence and saw it differently. A DM, they argued, should have the strength, stamina, and skill to overcome that diver's evasive actions.

And some of us believe that if someone wants out that bad who are we to stop them?

 

[Mike]

Or perhaps it makes you complacent regarding the things that could happen on a drift dive in Cozumel. The fact that everything goes smoothly and you never have a problem makes you lower your guard and think there is no situation in which you might need a DM saving your tookus. If you worry about taking your own SMB, mirror, sea dye, whistle, PLB, and prep and then say I would be happy to dive with out an expert in the local conditions and such, how does that reconcile except in a chest thumping, "me super diver "thing?

Again, and no insult to you Fin, it strikes me as this recurring superman theme. If you agree you should have a good DM along who is ready to assist, then you aren't a REAL diver. REAL divers have a good buddy and all the crap stashed in their BCD and the rest doesn't matter. If you can't clip it to you or your buddies BCD it is superfluous equipment, DM included. If you think a DM who can save your butt is a good idea, then you are lacking in skills. You also have to be able to pee the furthest standing up..... Isn't that the precise thinking that gets people hurt??

I don't think so.

Someone following their dive training isn't playing superman.

I don't know if you've never dived without a dive master or not, it sounds like you haven't. It's a lot different when you're about to dunk your head underwater and every decision you are going to make is up to you. That's a lot different then following head to tail a dive master for an hour. Without a dive master you have to plan your dive, and especially if you're in a group, you've got to verbalize the plan pre-dive. Work out turn around if that applies, work out hand signals, work out lost buddy procedures, work out when the dive is going to be called, work out navigation with a compass, work out everything. That's a much different exercise then just follow the leader. It doesn't make you superman, it simply makes you fully responsible and aware of your responsibility. One rule of scuba is to never dive past your training. So if you aren't ready to dive without a dive master you shouldn't. If you're ready then you are. No superman, just following the guidelines and training level you are at. When you dive without a DM, you in short are becoming that DM that you're use to following around. I don't know how diving without a dive master would make you complacent, it should be the exact opposite effect on you.

 

[Mossman]

What checkout dive on Bonaire? I had read that it was required, but when we were there last month, we were not required to do it. We didn't ask, of course, but guessed that it may have been due to my boyfriend's credentials (MSDT). I had warned him that we would have do one, but we were free to go dive as soon as we showed our cards.

You're on your own for the "checkout" dive in Bonaire, which is why I didn't consider it equivalent to a real checkout dive. No, you both could have been course directors and they'd still make you sit through orientation and do the pseudo-checkout.

Being a complete newbie (or maybe less than noob, since I am just now working on classroom work), this thread has me doubting my plans. I am working on OW so I can dive during cruise shore excursions. Cruising is something my spouse loves to do and I have recently fallen in love with diving after a discovery dive in Grand Turk. We are planning a Western Carib cruise in Dec '12 and I am working towards having my OW for diving in Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Now I'm thinking Grand Cayman will be good but Cozumel sounds like a little much, especially after reading the cruise description about diving Palancar Reef at 70-80 feet. Comments? Suggestions?

If you were planning on spending a week of diving, I'd strongly suggest going to Grand Cayman instead. Off a cruise, it's a different calculation. You're only going to be doing 4 dives total, so giving up on Cozumel would mean missing half your planned dives. Also, the operators that service cruise ships, assuming you're doing the cruise excursion and not making plans on your own, tend to cater to the lowest common denominator and will not be taking you to advanced sites. You'll be just fine, but stick close to the DM anyway.

Marc, get certified. Make other dives locally to gain experience. Use a private DM in Cozumel. There are plenty of great sites. You can dive Palancar at 40'-50' if that floats your boat. Right now you don't know enough to know what is safe or not. Don't let the recent currents or missing diver cause irrational fear of Cozumel diving.
Reality is that many (thousands annually???) new divers make plenty of dives safely.

That thousands of new divers make plenty of dives in Cozumel safely doesn't necessarily mean that Cozumel is safe for new divers. It really isn't, relative to so many other much safer places. Also, if Marc is doing a cruise ship dive excursion, hiring a private DM may not be possible or may be horrendously expensive.

And some of us believe that if someone wants out that bad who are we to stop them?

Suicide is against the law. If you fail to help when you could, you may be abetting a crime. You're also subject to wrongful death lawsuits from the family. Also, one would want to stop them because of the investigation that will result - it's a real hassle not only for the DM but for any bystanders (i.e. the rest of the divers) as well.

 

[Laurie S.]

You're on your own for the "checkout" dive in Bonaire, which is why I didn't consider it equivalent to a real checkout dive. No, you both could have been course directors and they'd still make you sit through orientation and do the pseudo-checkout.


There was no orientation other than "get the tanks here and dive off the dock over there" and there was no pseudo-checkout. We geared up, stepped off, and dived. And we loved it!

 

[Mossman]

There was no orientation other than "get the tanks here and dive off the dock over there" and there was no pseudo-checkout. We geared up, stepped off, and dived. And we loved it!

Can I ask who you dove with? The only way Bonaire Dive & Adventure (house op at Sand Dollar/Den Laman) lets you out of the ultra-long orientation is if you've been through it within the past year, and even then we still had to undergo a "brief" orientation that took a half-hour

Buddy dive has a video to watch and it's much shorter than BD&A's, but it's still mandatory unless things have changed since my last time on the island. My instructor rating didn't get me out of it and it shouldn't, since much of the orientation deals with stuff about which a non-Bonaire instructor would have no clue, i.e. the conditions at the various sites, process for checking out tanks and checking nitrox, process for signing up for boat dives and getting one's tank on the boat, and stuff like the dangerous wind surfers at the southern sites that can take your head off if you're not careful ascending. But, having gone through 4 grueling orientations there to date, I'd happily skip it the next time if I could.

 

[flots am]

Being a complete newbie (or maybe less than noob, since I am just now working on classroom work), this thread has me doubting my plans. I am working on OW so I can dive during cruise shore excursions. Cruising is something my spouse loves to do and I have recently fallen in love with diving after a discovery dive in Grand Turk. We are planning a Western Carib cruise in Dec '12 and I am working towards having my OW for diving in Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Now I'm thinking Grand Cayman will be good but Cozumel sounds like a little much, especially after reading the cruise description about diving Palancar Reef at 70-80 feet. Comments? Suggestions?

What islands are you doing?

flots.

 

[Mike]

There was no orientation other than "get the tanks here and dive off the dock over there" and there was no pseudo-checkout. We geared up, stepped off, and dived. And we loved it!

Whomever you dived with was violating the Bonaire Marine Park (STINAPA) rules. The orientation is mandatory, it has what they call a 'dry' and a 'wet' part. Dry being a verbal briefing or video of the marine park rules and wet of course being the check out dive. STINAPA requires any dive op you are diving with to put you through it, they usually issue you your marine park tag during the dry part, (that souvenir you paid $25.00 for). The briefing is definitely worth hearing at least once, so you're sure of all the rules and being a good steward of the reef. Sounds like your dive op said screw it. I've experienced the lax attention to details in regard to the check out dive, they basically pointed us to the water and made sure we got in but never seen a dive op totally skip everything.