SoccerJeni
Scuba Baby
Please bear with me, this is going to be a pretty long review since I want to talk about the Mine, my challanges as a new diver and the overall experience. Unfortunately I did not have an overall positive experience, though there were brief moments that were good.
I went to the mine with 2 friends. All three of us are relatively new divers. Friend A has been certified for maybe only 7 months and done 8 dives before this past Saturday (2 of the past dives were at Bonne Terre though). Friend B has been certified for several years, but has only done warm water dives on vacations. I personally had 12 dives before, 3 of which were dives in low 60's water.
We were scheduled to arrive at 8am. There were 10 people diving in our group, Group C. There were 5 groups diving last Saturday, so I would assume there were about 50 people diving that day (just a guess). We were waiting for 4 of the 10 divers until 8:45 in order to start the video that's required to watch. Our main group leader decided to wait for these 4 men. Once they showed up and got everything together, we watched the 20 min video that is required by their insurance company. I understand that requirement and didn't mind it. After the video we discussed the dive plan for Trail 1 and how it would go.
Dive #1 - Trail 1
Once on Trail 1 we all did weight checks and descended to the bottom where we were to flood our mask and clear it, and do an air share exercise. I did this exercise with Friend A. After a little confusion as to what we were doing, we started to proceed with the dive. I constantly felt like we were all too crowded, and often was putting up my arms to block potential kicks to the face from other divers. Within the first 20 minutes of the dive we came to an overhead that was about 15-20 feet long. It was difficult to see exactly how long the overhead was because the lights on the other side of the overhead were out. I was a little surprised about this overhead, because I thought as an OW diver I was never supposed to go in an overhead environment. I wasn't scared or nervous, though I didn't really like the overhead, but Friend A was very nervous. Friend A experienced panic at Bonne Terre before too. But once Friend A came to this overhead, she decided to go to the surface and not do the dive. However, I had no idea she was gone. I myself was in the overhead with about 11 other divers within a 15 diameter area. It was ridiculously crowded and I felt very nervous someone would kick my mask or regulator so I continued to put up my arms blocking people. We got through that okay and the rest of my dive was pretty much the same, continuing to block for potiental kicks. Now, they do 2 air checks on each dive and they have you actually show them your PSI. They separate you into 2 groups from that, the group that goes on and the group that goes back to the dock. I made it through the first air check, but was sent back on the 2nd one. It probably didn't help that they gave me a tank that had only 2700 PSI to start. When I mentioned that I was short on my tank they said, "oh, you little air hog, you're going to be fine" Well, I probably would have been fine had I not been breathing hard from feeling nervous that people were going to kick me.
Dive #2 - Trail 2
By the end of Dive #1 I found out that Friend A had panicked. She said that she was very nervous about the overhead and that she couldn't tell how long it is. I was concerned because I know she's had some bad dive experiences in the past and I really wanted to plan for our 2nd dive. We talked to 1 of the safetys (an employee of the mind who stays in the back of the group) about what the next dive was like and if he would help us. I made a plan with Friend A that we would buddy up. You see this environment in Bonne Terre is so different than any other dive I've done. It is basically like a big herd moving through the water. You can't tell who anyone is and people move up & down, back and forth and it's really hard to keep track of who's who and which person is a guide/safety and who's another diver like you. I had a very hard time keeping track of both friends on Dive #1, but I decided to stick right next to Friend A so I could help her through the overhead areas that we would be going through in Dive #2. The safety said he would be right there with us and help during the time where we would approach the overhead. Now, I have to mention that while speaking to the safety before the dive he mentioned that our guide was trying to get us in the water early and push us ahead of 2 groups so that he could get home early to see his daughter who was home for the weekend from college. So, back to the dive and we descend. Friend B has adjusted his weight because he was underweighted on Dive #1. Never being in this environment he starts to struggle with the weights, his weight belt starts sliding around on his body, and he is starting to sink since he hadn't put enough air in his BCD. I see him (at the time I couldn't tell who it was) and I see him struggling for a while. I keep thinking to myself, is that person okay? I know he's about 20 feet below me, and below the dive profile. I considered going down there to help him, but I don't want to leave Friend A's side. I also know that I don't have the training to help, but no one was going down there to help him out. Finally after a while the safety who we talked to went down there and grabbed Friend B, and ended up taking him to the surface (but I didn't know this at the time). After that the safety returns to the group. At some point our guide takes us around a corner then has us stop and wait. Pretty soon he decides to have us do a 180 and go back where we had come from, then we make a turn to the left having us go into the overhead area, and this is the spot we so carefully discussed in our predive planning. This is the critical point. And remember how I said our guide put us ahead of 2 other groups? Well, right at this point, the critical point we collide with another group. This isn't the typical group 1 is going west and group 2 is going east, this is a group 1 goes around a large corner and enters an area were they can do a turn to the right or a turn to the left. My plan with Friend A was to stay to the back of the group to avoid the potential kicks to the face. Therefore we couldn't see where our guide was and if he went left or right. It was very confusing and I was looking back and forth to see if I could recognize anyone. About that time I look to my right where Friend A had been and she's gone! She's no where to be found. I'm looking frantically around and I see about a dozen people who look really confused. I see guides signally each other, but no one is getting what the other one is saying. Finally I spot the safety who we talked to before the dive and he seems to be going to the left. I head that way, and go through a small key hole space that is smaller than a regular size door. Once we get through there the guide thumbs up the dive. As soon as my face hit the water I say, "Where's my Friend!!!!!" All 3 of the employees were there, but somehow we've seemed to have lost 4 people! We had no idea where they were. At first the guide wanted to say, oh, I bet they went with the other group and just blow it off. Then he decides to send a safety to go check the other group, and to catch back up with us while we continue the dive. He looks at me and asks if that's okay. I immediately started crying. We've lost my friend! Right at the critical part that we discussed that she could panic at! And my other friend is gone to! The guide then decides to have us all wait until we have confirmation one where the 4 missing divers were. About 5 minutes later a man in a small boat comes by and says the 4 missing divers are at the dock and they are all okay. Of course I was relieved, and we all decided to continue the dive. This part of the dive is where I actually was able to relax and enjoy myself for about 10 minutes. I did end up finding out that Friend A did not panic, but she just had trouble with buoyancy and accidentally ended up surfacing and didn't think she could find us if she went back down. But, when those 4 divers were missing it was a horrible feeling. To top off that experience, they will not let you go to the surface without someone that works there escorting you, and they completely forgot we were waiting to be taken up, even though they rounded us up. After about 20 minutes of waiting I decided to go ask someone and they said "Oh shoot, we thought so and so was taking you".
Dive #3 - Trail 4
I was exhausted at this point. I was beyond stressed, tired of people almost kicking me, it being too crowded and the scare of my friends being missing. I decided to do the final dive. They did the dive brief without me & my 2 friends. I decided to have the guide (a different person from the first 2 dives) come and give us 3 a run down of the dive plan. Friend A was about to back out of the dive until one of the other guides came up and said he was going to be her personal guide. And that was excellent! I was so thankful he did that! I said I wanted to go with them, because I knew there was no way I would let her out of my site. This dive ended up being the best of the day, but I was so done with this experience that I really just wanted it to be over. I was hyper sensitive to my surroundings and to Friend A and I truly just wanted to be done with this experience.
I do have to say a few things positive about the mine. It is very beautiful. There are places that are simply gorgeous, such as this area called the Opera Room. The blues in the water and the large rock columns were just beautiful. I also was so appreciate of the help the last guide gave my Friend A. He really made it possible for her to go back through the keyhole, and the other overhead environments and it made her last dive a very enjoyable one.
A few thing recommendations I would like to make to the mine are:
#1 There needs to be something that would make the guides and safetys stand out a little more. Friend A made a suggestion that they have maybe a bright yellow hood. Right now they have blue tank glow sticks, but that really just didn't stand out enough (and I didn't learn about it until Dive 3).
#2 I also think they shouldn't take OW divers on trails that have overhead environments. I really just think overheads should be for a certification beyond OW.
#3 I believe they should make the number of divers in each group smaller. Every dive I did was just overally crowded. I won't go back to mine for this reason alone, nevermind everything else that happened. But, I honestly can't take that crowded of an environment.
#4 This is such a herd type of an environment and it's so easy to lose the people that you came with, plus they encourage that the guides and safetys are your buddies, I believe they need to add more safetys to each group. What if you have 8 brand new OW divers on a dive? Can 2 safetys and a guide truly handle this? I just didn't like that it's almost encouraged that you don't have a buddy on the dives.
Thanks for reading this ridiculously long review.
I went to the mine with 2 friends. All three of us are relatively new divers. Friend A has been certified for maybe only 7 months and done 8 dives before this past Saturday (2 of the past dives were at Bonne Terre though). Friend B has been certified for several years, but has only done warm water dives on vacations. I personally had 12 dives before, 3 of which were dives in low 60's water.
We were scheduled to arrive at 8am. There were 10 people diving in our group, Group C. There were 5 groups diving last Saturday, so I would assume there were about 50 people diving that day (just a guess). We were waiting for 4 of the 10 divers until 8:45 in order to start the video that's required to watch. Our main group leader decided to wait for these 4 men. Once they showed up and got everything together, we watched the 20 min video that is required by their insurance company. I understand that requirement and didn't mind it. After the video we discussed the dive plan for Trail 1 and how it would go.
Dive #1 - Trail 1
Once on Trail 1 we all did weight checks and descended to the bottom where we were to flood our mask and clear it, and do an air share exercise. I did this exercise with Friend A. After a little confusion as to what we were doing, we started to proceed with the dive. I constantly felt like we were all too crowded, and often was putting up my arms to block potential kicks to the face from other divers. Within the first 20 minutes of the dive we came to an overhead that was about 15-20 feet long. It was difficult to see exactly how long the overhead was because the lights on the other side of the overhead were out. I was a little surprised about this overhead, because I thought as an OW diver I was never supposed to go in an overhead environment. I wasn't scared or nervous, though I didn't really like the overhead, but Friend A was very nervous. Friend A experienced panic at Bonne Terre before too. But once Friend A came to this overhead, she decided to go to the surface and not do the dive. However, I had no idea she was gone. I myself was in the overhead with about 11 other divers within a 15 diameter area. It was ridiculously crowded and I felt very nervous someone would kick my mask or regulator so I continued to put up my arms blocking people. We got through that okay and the rest of my dive was pretty much the same, continuing to block for potiental kicks. Now, they do 2 air checks on each dive and they have you actually show them your PSI. They separate you into 2 groups from that, the group that goes on and the group that goes back to the dock. I made it through the first air check, but was sent back on the 2nd one. It probably didn't help that they gave me a tank that had only 2700 PSI to start. When I mentioned that I was short on my tank they said, "oh, you little air hog, you're going to be fine" Well, I probably would have been fine had I not been breathing hard from feeling nervous that people were going to kick me.
Dive #2 - Trail 2
By the end of Dive #1 I found out that Friend A had panicked. She said that she was very nervous about the overhead and that she couldn't tell how long it is. I was concerned because I know she's had some bad dive experiences in the past and I really wanted to plan for our 2nd dive. We talked to 1 of the safetys (an employee of the mind who stays in the back of the group) about what the next dive was like and if he would help us. I made a plan with Friend A that we would buddy up. You see this environment in Bonne Terre is so different than any other dive I've done. It is basically like a big herd moving through the water. You can't tell who anyone is and people move up & down, back and forth and it's really hard to keep track of who's who and which person is a guide/safety and who's another diver like you. I had a very hard time keeping track of both friends on Dive #1, but I decided to stick right next to Friend A so I could help her through the overhead areas that we would be going through in Dive #2. The safety said he would be right there with us and help during the time where we would approach the overhead. Now, I have to mention that while speaking to the safety before the dive he mentioned that our guide was trying to get us in the water early and push us ahead of 2 groups so that he could get home early to see his daughter who was home for the weekend from college. So, back to the dive and we descend. Friend B has adjusted his weight because he was underweighted on Dive #1. Never being in this environment he starts to struggle with the weights, his weight belt starts sliding around on his body, and he is starting to sink since he hadn't put enough air in his BCD. I see him (at the time I couldn't tell who it was) and I see him struggling for a while. I keep thinking to myself, is that person okay? I know he's about 20 feet below me, and below the dive profile. I considered going down there to help him, but I don't want to leave Friend A's side. I also know that I don't have the training to help, but no one was going down there to help him out. Finally after a while the safety who we talked to went down there and grabbed Friend B, and ended up taking him to the surface (but I didn't know this at the time). After that the safety returns to the group. At some point our guide takes us around a corner then has us stop and wait. Pretty soon he decides to have us do a 180 and go back where we had come from, then we make a turn to the left having us go into the overhead area, and this is the spot we so carefully discussed in our predive planning. This is the critical point. And remember how I said our guide put us ahead of 2 other groups? Well, right at this point, the critical point we collide with another group. This isn't the typical group 1 is going west and group 2 is going east, this is a group 1 goes around a large corner and enters an area were they can do a turn to the right or a turn to the left. My plan with Friend A was to stay to the back of the group to avoid the potential kicks to the face. Therefore we couldn't see where our guide was and if he went left or right. It was very confusing and I was looking back and forth to see if I could recognize anyone. About that time I look to my right where Friend A had been and she's gone! She's no where to be found. I'm looking frantically around and I see about a dozen people who look really confused. I see guides signally each other, but no one is getting what the other one is saying. Finally I spot the safety who we talked to before the dive and he seems to be going to the left. I head that way, and go through a small key hole space that is smaller than a regular size door. Once we get through there the guide thumbs up the dive. As soon as my face hit the water I say, "Where's my Friend!!!!!" All 3 of the employees were there, but somehow we've seemed to have lost 4 people! We had no idea where they were. At first the guide wanted to say, oh, I bet they went with the other group and just blow it off. Then he decides to send a safety to go check the other group, and to catch back up with us while we continue the dive. He looks at me and asks if that's okay. I immediately started crying. We've lost my friend! Right at the critical part that we discussed that she could panic at! And my other friend is gone to! The guide then decides to have us all wait until we have confirmation one where the 4 missing divers were. About 5 minutes later a man in a small boat comes by and says the 4 missing divers are at the dock and they are all okay. Of course I was relieved, and we all decided to continue the dive. This part of the dive is where I actually was able to relax and enjoy myself for about 10 minutes. I did end up finding out that Friend A did not panic, but she just had trouble with buoyancy and accidentally ended up surfacing and didn't think she could find us if she went back down. But, when those 4 divers were missing it was a horrible feeling. To top off that experience, they will not let you go to the surface without someone that works there escorting you, and they completely forgot we were waiting to be taken up, even though they rounded us up. After about 20 minutes of waiting I decided to go ask someone and they said "Oh shoot, we thought so and so was taking you".
Dive #3 - Trail 4
I was exhausted at this point. I was beyond stressed, tired of people almost kicking me, it being too crowded and the scare of my friends being missing. I decided to do the final dive. They did the dive brief without me & my 2 friends. I decided to have the guide (a different person from the first 2 dives) come and give us 3 a run down of the dive plan. Friend A was about to back out of the dive until one of the other guides came up and said he was going to be her personal guide. And that was excellent! I was so thankful he did that! I said I wanted to go with them, because I knew there was no way I would let her out of my site. This dive ended up being the best of the day, but I was so done with this experience that I really just wanted it to be over. I was hyper sensitive to my surroundings and to Friend A and I truly just wanted to be done with this experience.
I do have to say a few things positive about the mine. It is very beautiful. There are places that are simply gorgeous, such as this area called the Opera Room. The blues in the water and the large rock columns were just beautiful. I also was so appreciate of the help the last guide gave my Friend A. He really made it possible for her to go back through the keyhole, and the other overhead environments and it made her last dive a very enjoyable one.
A few thing recommendations I would like to make to the mine are:
#1 There needs to be something that would make the guides and safetys stand out a little more. Friend A made a suggestion that they have maybe a bright yellow hood. Right now they have blue tank glow sticks, but that really just didn't stand out enough (and I didn't learn about it until Dive 3).
#2 I also think they shouldn't take OW divers on trails that have overhead environments. I really just think overheads should be for a certification beyond OW.
#3 I believe they should make the number of divers in each group smaller. Every dive I did was just overally crowded. I won't go back to mine for this reason alone, nevermind everything else that happened. But, I honestly can't take that crowded of an environment.
#4 This is such a herd type of an environment and it's so easy to lose the people that you came with, plus they encourage that the guides and safetys are your buddies, I believe they need to add more safetys to each group. What if you have 8 brand new OW divers on a dive? Can 2 safetys and a guide truly handle this? I just didn't like that it's almost encouraged that you don't have a buddy on the dives.
Thanks for reading this ridiculously long review.
