Key Largo-Rainbow Reef dives

[JesperS]

Most likely this behaviour was due to the OP opting IN to the provided guide. Once you decide go with the dm, they likely are required to try to keep the group together.

The time to opt out of the guide is prior to the dive commencing, not after it has begun.

If being led by a guide, I think it is perfectly reasonable to assume they will get you to where you are supposed to go. Avoiding having to concentrate on navigation is a specific reason I have opted for a guide on occasion.

 

[T.C.]

Absolutely they give you an option..but perhaps they felt the skill level of the divers was such that being guided is a safety concern. Running so low on air on such shallow dives reinforces why they had to stay with a DM on such a simple dive .

Absolutely wrong. If they'd been by themselves, they'd have been able to turn their dive at a set air pressure. It was the DM leading them that got them lost, that didn't turn when he should have, and gave them the impression they needed to stay with him. agesilaus informed him of his air levels to facilitate when to turn the dive. The DM failed to do so. It was the DM's fault they surfaced so far from the boat, since he had responsibility for navigation.

The sole saving grace was that agesilaus acted correctly, followed his training and ascended when he was low on air. Far too many divers would have continued to trust this untrustworthy guide, and stayed down, and alongside him till they ran out of air; prompting a genuine emergency.

There is only one skill level that needs a guide in the Keys; OW Student. agesilaus is a certified diver, and he knew to come up when his air said too. He knew to wait on the surface for the boat with his safety sausage inflated. He acted correctly, and he made only two mistakes that I can see. The first was not keeping his mask on at the surface (on your forehead is a great way to have it knocked off and lose it, and it can't protect you from waves when it's not on-you won't always dive in such great conditions, friend) and the (slight) mistake was not in tracking navigation, but he gets a pass because of the difficult path followed.

agesilaus acted correctly; the guide did not. This is why I refuse to trust any DM trying to guide a dive.

 

[agesilaus]

Good tip on the mask, I'll remember that. I noticed some of the others pulled their mask down around their necks.

BK

 

[ZombieZombie]

Wow!

I think my wife & I were sitting beside you on Friday morning's dives to Molasses.
Glad you made it back out of this safely.

We had out last dives for this trip to Key Largo today and we are sad to leave. We did all our dives with Rainbow Reefs and we are quite satisfied. Funnily enough, I was thinking today about the relative youth of the dive guides. No matter how well trained, there must be a point where a dive guide is not so sure of the sites. When they are all young there must be a relatively high staff turnover. Our guides on our 8 dives since Friday brought us back to the boat with pinpoint precision.

We did have a comms snafu today when the guide and the other 2 divers on our trip surfaced and got on the boat while my wife and I were still down. We looked around for a few minutes and then surfaced. We're all certified divers so no big deal about us being on our own for a few minutes. Just the communication broke down. The guide made a hand symbol that I now guess is for "3 of us will surface. You guys are ok on your own?"

Overall I am very happy with Rainbow Reef. Like you I didn't like the idea of going to Molasses several times, but there are 23 separate dive sites on that reef (or so I am told).
Diving the Spiegel Grove and the Benwood were sensational dives.

Today Molasses was great despite the surf picking up. Reef sharks were plentiful and this was the first time I have seen sharks in open water.

 

[Jrussick]

As someone who was on the boat, and IN the party in question. There is much more to this story than the original poster claims. I am not going to get into a tick for tack argument with him, but lets just say there is more guilt with the divers than the dive guide. Granted it was his first time, but the poster, was very much guilty as well. As for the rest of the group, we were not low, the other gentlemen and lady, as myself were well above 1000psi. Also, I would like to state that you were the worst dive companions that I have ever had the had the misfortune to dive with. In short, don't push off other divers, don't swim between dive buddies, and don't treat the dive staff with gross disrespect.

 

[JesperS]

 

[agesilaus]

Sorry about that, I guess you were the two people tagging along behind the group. It seemed like you two kept swimming over me since I was close to the bottom, but I'm by no means an expert diver and haven't claimed to be anything but a newbie. Sorry you had to devote your one and only post for this.

I'm at a loss to explain your claim that we insulted the boat crew tho.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

Absolutely I would surface and keep an eye on the boat if diving with our group alone. Especially since vis was maybe 50 ft max and I would not trust my navigation in those conditions. But Rainbow Reef doesn't give you the option to dive without their DM tho I guess they may call them guides. Popping up to the surface would lose the group.

Rainbow Reef does give you the option, unless they've changed their policy recently. You can use them at no extra charge

---------- Post added April 29th, 2014 at 02:25 PM ----------

Well on the first dive after we entered the water and while we were waiting for the group to form up, I dropped down to about 10 feet and was looking around. The guide/dm quickly came down and ordered me up until the group was formed. I guess I could have told her no, but since my wife was nervous this being her first ocean dive (we live in spring country) I went along. My only other ocean dives were a couple off a West Palm boat where the dm is non-optional unless you want to try to link up with the moving dive boat yourself.

BK

Did you drop down with your buddy, did you let anyone know you were dropping down? you should always stick with your buddy/group, how would they know you didn't have a problem?

 

[Jrussick]

No, we never swam over you, you swam between us several times. Twice you grabbed me and pushed me away. You grabbed the lady as well. When the group briefed, you obviously did not pay attention as we specifically agreed to stay at the back as we are both rescue certified and the rest of the group were OW. Your group was was erratic on both dives, so swam in front of others for no reason, and most telling was your lack of attention to your surroundings. However, in speaking with the dive operator, they mentioned that you were very rude to them, and I witnessed your rudeness in listening to how you spoke to rest of your group. If that is how you treat people, then I hope I never cross paths with you again. The only fault that I have the guide is that when your grouphit 700-800 psi, he should have circled the group, knowing he was lost and surfaced the group as a whole, calling an out of air situation. However, as an certified diver, ONLY YOU are responsible for yourself.

 

[oly5050user]

No, we never swam over you, you swam between us several times. Twice you grabbed me and pushed me away. You grabbed the lady as well. When the group briefed, you obviously did not pay attention as we specifically agreed to stay at the back as we are both rescue certified and the rest of the group were OW. Your group was was erratic on both dives, so swam in front of others for no reason, and most telling was your lack of attention to your surroundings. However, in speaking with the dive operator, they mentioned that you were very rude to them, and I witnessed your rudeness in listening to how you spoke to rest of your group. If that is how you treat people, then I hope I never cross paths with you again. The only fault that I have the guide is that when your grouphit 700-800 psi, he should have circled the group, knowing he was lost and surfaced the group as a whole, calling an out of air situation. However, as an certified diver, ONLY YOU are responsible for yourself.

As I wrote there are usually 3 sides to a story