pennypue:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=1165138&postcount=22
From what Christi indicates here, I understand it to be a rescue/defensive technique that is taught to divers to be used as a "last resort" type of thing. Scary but under the right circumstances, I imagine quite effective.
Hey You!
Yes, last, last resort if I felt it was me or him and there was nothing else I could do. But I also wouldn't let it escalate to that point.
Steve, I wouldn't say that he got off scott-free, although I would have been happy to see his diving come to a halt for this trip. Hopefully he feels like a real jerk and realizes how wrong he was. That can often be punishment enough. Rehabilitation rather than vengeance.
Here are some other thoughts to clarify questions some of you may have. I posted this (below) in response to another message.
I know some of this sounds really ridiculous to some, particularly people (probably like him) who don't dive often and do not understand the impact these types of things have on the marine environment.
I am not condoning physical violence or having a "pissing match" underwater.
I agree there could have been a better way to handle it and I agree that her writing on the slate was unprofessional. However, it IS difficult for any of us to say what we would have done, we weren't there. There were several comments yesterday about turning his air off, cutting his hoses, etc. These were all made in jest and are fun to joke about when talking about a jerk in the water, but of course are not realistic.
She is not a full-time employee, she was filling in for Javier who had an accident the previous day. Nevertheless, when I polled my clients about it, they all agreed that other than the writing on the slate, she handled it well and was not agressive towards him. None of them felt she was out of line. The "push" was demonstrated to me like holding out her arm as to keep him back...not a violent shove. She also said she was not proud of writing that on her slate, but she was so angry after he kicked her in the face, that she wrote it. She even said she let him go after that because she didn't want it to escalate...instead, we would find out who he was and deal with the situation accordingly.
I am not defending, just telling the story as I know it and as honestly as I can. Trust me, I know of other DM's here that would have handled it much more aggressively...I've seen much worse...again, not defending...just being realistic.
To answer your question about what could have happened to him...his marine park priveleges would have been revoked, and that is what the dive shop was prepared to do if we ID'd him while there was still an opportunity to do that.
Hopefully what HAS happened is that he understands now how serious we are about protecting the marine environment.
I'll be the first to admit that I am very anal when it comes to reef preservation, but I am not ashamed of that. I also realize that while people touching/harrassing the reef and marine life is only one very small piece of the bigger picture, it is one part that we as divers can help by educating others. Every little bit counts.
