PADI Police in force
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Tigerman
Contributor
The latter sounds very much like my AOW wreck dive. Was a great dive but I think youre right about the comfort level needed there vs the former.
One thing I DONT like with great visibility dives is that its SOOO easy to lose track of distances tho. Can get someone thats not "quite paying attention" into a seriously murky creek if its a wall dive
It IS an interesting question, how many people it takes to change the itinerary on a dive boat, and what the boat should know ahead of time.
I dive 32% almost all the time (except when I'm diving trimix, or in the pool). In Cozumel, that meant our max depth was 110 (and we agreed on 100). Luckily, we had five of the six spots on the boat, so only one day was it an issue, and the one guy who wanted a deeper dive just had to live with our limitations.
On the other hand, four of us got on a dive boat in SoCal with about a dozen other divers who wanted to go pry some prizes off a wreck at 130, and we nixed that, because we wouldn't have been able to dive at all at that site. The other divers weren't very happy with us, but I don't think it should be necessary to tell a boat that you are diving Nitrox before you get there. Maybe it is. It's the only time that's been a big issue, but it highlighted for me the problem of square profile dives with disparate groups.
I dive 32% almost all the time (except when I'm diving trimix, or in the pool). In Cozumel, that meant our max depth was 110 (and we agreed on 100). Luckily, we had five of the six spots on the boat, so only one day was it an issue, and the one guy who wanted a deeper dive just had to live with our limitations.
On the other hand, four of us got on a dive boat in SoCal with about a dozen other divers who wanted to go pry some prizes off a wreck at 130, and we nixed that, because we wouldn't have been able to dive at all at that site. The other divers weren't very happy with us, but I don't think it should be necessary to tell a boat that you are diving Nitrox before you get there. Maybe it is. It's the only time that's been a big issue, but it highlighted for me the problem of square profile dives with disparate groups.
Was the charter advertised as being to a certain site/depth and the artifact hunters wanted to go deeper than advertised?
It may well have been a bit presumptuous to show up at a charter with a certain mix and expect the boat to plan the dive around the mix you brought. I'm assuming it depends on local custom and the specific boat's policy, but like almost everything in diving... communication ahead of time obviates 99.9% of problems.
On our boat - and every boat in NJ - divers will know the max depth in advance and probably the specific wreck so that you can plan your back and deco gas mix/volume. Once you get to the boat there will be NO CHANCE that we'll decide to go deeper than that depth unless EVERY PASSENGER is OK with it. Weather, conditions, other dive boats, or passenger request etc might cause us to switch to another wreck, but it will be at the same or shallower depth.
That said, if you show up with 32% for a charter that's been planned to something at 125' you've got two choices: watch bubbles or wave from the dock.
I've been on a few boat trips where everone has their pre-determined buddy's and won't accept another diver. I've been on boats where taking an instabud too many times, actually caused me to stop diving SoCal boats. In fact, on my dive #42, I was an instabud that aborted a dive because I wasn't comfortable and ruined it for him. All of these before my 60th dive.
I'm not a PADI diver, so I don't know what the rules / recommendations state; but in general I feel that if I wasn't comfortable with an individual to 80 ft (potentially), and I myself might potentially want to dive that depth, I wouldn't dive with that person. I may feel comfy at 40, or 60, with that same person.
On the same logic, I don't see any problems with a DM, someone who holds insurance and potental liability for a diver, making the same decision for his own reasons. What I do have a problem with is the boat changing its plans to accomodate the zealotry of a single DM.
It's hard to know how to feel when information is incomplete. Something tells me there may be more to the story than initially posted.
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The SoCal charter was primarily out to the oil rigs, where you can choose your profile. The first dive was to be a wreck, and we thought it was to be the Olympic, which was fine for everybody. But the other group wanted a different, deeper wreck. The charter was not advertised as a specific depth charter.
If I had any limitations, whether they were physical, training or back gas MOD, I'd feel it was incumbent upon me to discuss it with the operator when I booked the dive. If I just showed up & my MOD didn't fit into their plans, I'd expect to be waving good by from the dock. I hate watching other peoples bubbles.
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