newbie Dm proves lack of experience.

[Vie]

Which resort/operator was the DM from?

 

[Spoon]

Which resort/operator was the DM from?

he is not affiliated with any resort he was brought in to help the other dms. he is naui certified. btw hes not from the philippines,

 

[ssra30]

Wow, when I was in PG, current around Sharkcave was not very strong and generally most diving around there was pretty easy drift dive along the wall. Current must have been awful when you were there. Drifting 3-10 km ? I assume not in the direction back to Sabang but the other direction? Hopefully not out toward open sea. It also sounds like there are quite a few inexperience divers in the group, I agree that under such condition, the DM should have called the dive off. Under easier condition and with more experience divers, it is not uncommon for the group to get separated here and there and generally around PG (not including Canyon), I probably would not be too worry about getting separated from my group since usually it is either go left or right along the wall most of the time.

 

[Vie]

Wow, when I was in PG, current around Sharkcave was not very strong and generally most diving around there was pretty easy drift dive along the wall. Current must have been awful when you were there.

It was pretty calm when I was at Sharkcave too. Of course we didn’t see any sharks there, just a small turtle. We were there quite early in the morning in June 2004. We did experience very strong current at West Escarceo and Sabang Wreck though.

 

[ssra30]

It was pretty calm when I was at Sharkcave too. Of course we didn’t see any sharks there, just a small turtle. We were there quite early in the morning in June 2004. We did experience very strong current at West Escarceo and Sabang Wreck though.

We were there in July 2004. Saw one whitetip reefshark there that was a good 2m long (whatever the length was, it was longer than me) far into the crevice. As usual, I had my 70-180mm macro lens on my camera as our diveguide knew where a pgymy seahorse was not far from the cave so I never took a picture of the shark

 

[Mike Veitch]

When i dove Canyons it was a smoking current, get to the end with the big white seafan in that little depression and a nice school of Jacks, come out of there and "Bang" big downwelling...PG has some tricky currents and many a story of a few problems and even a few deaths. But that happens in pretty much anywhere that you have big currents (Palau, French Poly. etc) unfortunately.

 

[Spoon]

Wow, when I was in PG, current around Sharkcave was not very strong and generally most diving around there was pretty easy drift dive along the wall. Current must have been awful when you were there. Drifting 3-10 km ? I assume not in the direction back to Sabang but the other direction? Hopefully not out toward open sea. It also sounds like there are quite a few inexperience divers in the group, I agree that under such condition, the DM should have called the dive off. Under easier condition and with more experience divers, it is not uncommon for the group to get separated here and there and generally around PG (not including Canyon), I probably would not be too worry about getting separated from my group since usually it is either go left or right along the wall most of the time.

we were blown into open sea, around 3k in front of coco beach. while at the bottom we dint even get to see any wall just sand and ripping currents. there were in fact a lot of inexperienced divers but the dms assured us that it would be manageable. i was honestly fine but the others did not react so well to the conditions. as someone mentioned earlier, " the weakest link in the chain shoudl dictate the dive."

 

[ssra30]

we were blown into open sea, around 3k in front of coco beach. "

Ouch, this is definitely not the PG that I know. How long was your bottom time?
Sharkcave to Coco beach (if I remember correctly, you would have to be blown past Sabang, La Laguna Beach to Coco Beach, am I right?), the current must have been really really horrible. Personally I would not even try to dive if I know the current was that strong!

 

[Diver Dennis]

big misunderstanding chief, my intentions were not that at all, i was using the caps in another application that i did not notice they were on on this one. i just noticed they were caps when i read your thread. if it seemed i was blasting you then i am sorry.

No worries. Thanks for the clarfication.

 

[Henryville]

The whole thing sounds wrong. Taking inexperienced divers that deep on a site with potential for that kind of current - lucky nobody got lost or bent.

On the other hand, by going and I assume signing waivers (maybe not required there, I don't know) you are implicitly or explicitly saying I know and understand the risks and am capable of dealing with this dive. Otherwise it's what's known as a "trust me" dive, and those get people killed.

What is the DM's job? Applying good judgement and helping avoid dangerous situations? Yes. (Given the apparent experience level of at least some of the divers involved, it probably should have been called and moved to a more apporpriate site.) Providing orientation to a local site, yes. Babysitting supposedly qualified divers? Debatable. Nothing in any waiver that I've seen says the DM or anyone else will think for you.

You exercised good judgment, a credit to you and possibly your training. That is what is expected of qualified divers.