Miss Scuba Manners....What's your unwritten dive etiquette rule?

[Altamira]

And it is not just fellow divers. I get particularly annoyed by DMs that try to insist on setting up my gear or make changes to my gear without me asking or knowing. On a recent trip to Maui, a DM told me that his boss insisted that he set up all the gear and treat every diver to valet service whether or not it was requested. I told him that since I was going to be the one tipping him or not, he should pay attention to what I want him to do. Another DM in Fiji changed a setting on my camera without my knowledge or permission because he thought his settings would give me a better photo product. As a result, he switched me from RAW/Aperture setting to the underwater setting, and I did not notice the change until I loaded the pictures in my computer only to find I had only JPEG files and no RAW. Maybe if I was a more competent photographer I might have caught the change, but that was the last thing I expected from a DM with an expensive camera.

 

[lemke]

No more than two divers in a group... three tops.

 

[Keith.M]

3) Once you pick a spot, stay with it. When I get out of the water after the first dive, I don't appreciate having to hunt for a place to remove my gear and then have to move everything to my newly (forced) re-assigned spot.

YES! Absolutely. You get on the boat, set up your gear and all is great. You jump in and do your dive. Then when you reboard, someone has taken your spot. WTF? What was wrong with your spot? All my stuff is under the seat right where you are. Why would you not go back to where you geared up?

 

[Dr. Lecter]

YES! Absolutely. You get on the boat, set up your gear and all is great. You jump in and do your dive. Then when you reboard, someone has taken your spot. WTF? What was wrong with your spot? All my stuff is under the seat right where you are. Why would you not go back to where you geared up?

Just sit on them. Bonus points if you're wearing double steel 130s.

 

[mikeb21072]

If the boat is scheduled to leave at 8:30, don't show up with your party of eight at 8:25 to fill out forms and get a complete set of rental gear.
If you have a 45 minute ride out to the reef, don't wait to the last minute to gear up. When it is time to get off the boat, don't hold up the rest of us.
If you dive an Uwatec/Scubapro computer like me, go into the software and turn off the alarms. I prefer not to hear it beep every time you raise your arm.
I film with a GoPro and like to shoot macro critters, so I am usually searching near and staying just off the bottom. That does not mean I want you to swim over the top of me and kick me in the head and ruin my shot. I am 6'2, 240 lbs, I should be pretty easy to miss.

 

[radtype]

The person who takes forever to put their gear on and doesn't start putting their gear on until every one is ready to enter the water.

 

[Ana]

The "pee" subject has been covered already, I'd like to extend the suggestion to "all matter coming off your body" liquids or semi-solids.

I'm referring to blood and vomit. I may have a little more tolerance with blood because it is difficult to prepare in advance to get cut, but still ...once the skin has been compromised it the person responsibility to manage where the blood goes. Now getting seasick is 100% predictable, get your behind to the side of the boat, any side. It is never ever acceptable to throw up in someone else's gear bag.

 

[Heg]

I call the second pet peeve "the tormentor", these are divers that happily terrorize animals underwater and won't stop. For example, we were doing a night from on a liveaboard in the Bahamas one time when I found an Octopus out in the open. I enjoyed watching it for a short while and then showed it to my fellow divers - that was a mistake.

A group of divers circled and trapped the poor creature and bombarded it with bright lights and photo flashes. It was desperately trying to get away and it even "inked" in an attempt to escape - but they just kept playing with it, pulling it back, and tormenting the poor little thing. I felt guilty because I had showed it to them.

I finally had enough and I broke into the circle, wagged my finger at them and went around turning off all their lights while the octopus made good with an escape! I could hear my husband laughing underwater but my fellow divers were rather upset with me when we got back on the boat - I didn't care, they were tormenting jerks IMO! I usually try to mind my own business, but not when I see an animal being stressed or harmed.

I love this. I saw the same thing on a night dive on the GBR with a cuttlefish. 5 divers chased the poor thing down the reef. I was so upset. Next time I'm doing your torch trick

 

[drrich2]

...and went around turning off all their lights...

Uh, guys, I don't like the behavior witnessed, either, but word of advice; do not accost strangers underwater and try to shut off any of their gear.

Most people will just be shocked & irate; a few will administer an attitude adjustment. It'd be pretty easy to reach out & snatch your mask off, and that's probably one of the tamer things that could happen.

Richard.

 

[Laurie S.]

YES! Absolutely. You get on the boat, set up your gear and all is great. You jump in and do your dive. Then when you reboard, someone has taken your spot. WTF? What was wrong with your spot? All my stuff is under the seat right where you are. Why would you not go back to where you geared up?

We were in Barbados when a clueless newbie not only took our seats, she sat on our gear. She was sitting on my regulator bag and had her feet on my friend's fins. It was a large boat and only about six divers so there was lots of room. We had boarded first and selected our seats and set up. We got off the boat for a few minutes and this twit settled in on our gear because she wanted to flirt with the captain.

On the first dive, she committed another flagrant error when we went to enter a wreck. I was positioned to go in, and she pushed me aside to go in ahead of me. Yes, she was just certified and had no business doing a wreck entry. On the same dive, another supposedly experienced diver came up between my legs while I was taking a photo and got caught on the retractor for my compass. He was so close I thought I was giving birth when his head popped up between my legs. I was less than 10 feet from the bottom when this happened. To top it off, when we got back onboard, he complained that I had something dangling from my BC. No, it wasn't dangling, you practically assaulted me.