caydiver
Contributor
Perhaps there is more flexibility when there are less people on the boat— Unless there are enough people to split the groups. If there is only one group and you have a junior or someone who isn’t yet comfortable and not understanding that on a guided dive they can go deeper, the group is not going to go deep. That can happen with any op. No one turns down guests because they are catering to specific skill sets not including tech obviously. We have seen many times when someone goes and has a quiet word with the DM and the dive is planned from there discreetly. I remember years ago on RSS we would be split in 3 groups. Divers with computers (which was sometimes just us) were the first group in, last group out and were not given depth restrictions. We have Seasports and we don’t limit people unless we have juniors which is often a family charter because we are small. We know most of our customers and if we have people we know are finicky we will put a separate DM in the water for them so the others don’t have to be limited whenever we can. Truthfully we are not the only ones that do that. Most ops will especially for long term guests. There are only a handful of ops that I think are all about the money. Some of them may have lower pricing but we all operate on a tight budget so the question is why are they cheaper. I think a big indicator is a place where you see DMs come and go every six months or a year and why they have that turn over. If you see a number of instructors go to a competitor in the same role the minute their permit expires, you know there is something going on that they are just not comfy with. When you see the same smiling faces and/or managers who are not owners, you know it’s a good shop. I too have to say that for me and many of our guests that are really good divers they don’t care about going deeper unless there is a special reason. Most like to mosey along at their own speed and have a chance to explore. I even jump on the boat with some of them - poor souls!