Pet peeves of SCUBA diving

[TheNarrator]

- People who boast about their dive count and how great a diver they are, only to get in the water and watch them unable to establish buoyancy/trim and bang on coral with their fins

- People who flutter kick through a wreck and ruin the viz

- People who smoke on a boat

I couldn't imagine smoking having a good affect on your sac rate, but it just drives me mad when I see someone destroying coral with their incompetency.

 

[Marie13]

I couldn't imagine smoking having a good affect on your sac rate, but it just drives me mad when I see someone destroying coral with their incompetency.

I don’t give a flying fig about how smoking destroys someone’s sac rate. I do, however, despise having to be exposed to someone’s nasty, filthy habit.

 

[Shasta_man]

<<I do, however, despise having to be exposed to someone’s nasty, filthy habit.>>

Same goes for on land too. I didn't know how good I had it here until I went to Europe where you can smoke in the outdoor portion of any restaurant. And the % of smokers there seemed higher than Asia which is really saying something.

 

[WeRtheOcean]

chasing stuff

To look at some of the YouTube videos, this seems to be a too-common habit among freedivers, too.

 

[scrane]

Texans.

 

[boulderjohn]

Photography seems to be a common ingredient. I will add a story to that list, finishing with a generic lesson.

I went on a liveaboard/land trip to Thailand, and since my wife does not dive, I was a single. It was a group trip out of my dive shop, and they paired me for the two weeks with a roommate--a photographer who was recently divorced. (Hmmm. I wonder why.)

For the first few dives, he put me to good use. He brought two cameras on the dives, and my job was to carry the one he wasn't using at the time. Amazed at the request (more of an order than a request) and trying to be polite, I did it at first, and then I told him I had things to do other than hang around watching him in case he needed to switch cameras. I still got to watch him at work, since we were technically buddies, as he pushed other camera wielders aside to get the shots, after which future shots were ruined by the silt he kicked up.

Then came his greatest act of all. We were on a dive with a very specific plan. We were to follow a DM through a path that would finally bring us to the surface inside a beautiful grotto, filled with stalactites, etc. It was described in the briefing as one of the great dives of the trip. We were in the second of two groups. He took a long, long time at the first photo session, an octopus that was well hidden. Then he spotted something else inside a coral formation--I don't know what. That is where we spent the rest of the dive. Our entire group hovered and hovered and hovered and hovered while he took shot after shot after shot after shot. Our DM was new on the job, and he didn't know how to move him along. When we ran low on air, we went right to the surface, never getting anywhere near the grotto.

Back on the boat, he was raving about what a great dive it was because of how many great shots (over 140) he gotten. I said I had really wanted to see the grotto. He scoffed, saying it was a lot better to look at sea life than rocks. Fortunately, the skipper had gotten the word, and he gave the guy a great deal--the two of them would go off on their own from then on, looking for special shots. He thought that was great, not realizing the skipper was doing it to keep him from ruining the dives for everyone else.

A couple years later, I went into the dive shop and there he was. trying to interest people in buying his photographs. When we talked, he had no memory of being my roommate for two weeks, and I certainly did not assist his memory.

Generic Lesson: It did not have to be a photography story. It could have been the guy smoking the big fat cigar under the no smoking sign on the boat at Grand Cayman. It did not have to be scuba. It is the people who go through life thinking that what is important for them is what should be important for everyone. Their needs and preferences are all that matter. They have no idea that they are imposing on anyone else because they don't care about anyone else, just as my photographer had no memory of someone who roomed with him for two weeks.

 

[ibj40]

Texans.

Individuals who generalize behavior based on geography.

 

[Jafo19D]

So here it goes maybe some of you can relate to what I have to say and perhaps add into it.

I hate it when there are new OW divers always wants an experienced diver one with a 100 or so dives to go and dive with them no if and or buts.

In reality every diver starts with "0" under their belts. That makes things hard for me to go diving. To be honest with all of you I would not mind diving with a fresh student like myself so we both can learn, together instead of mostly playing "catch up" with an experienced diver.

Lots of divers are really cocky but I guess it's like that for every sport, hobby or even job.

Even more likes to stress about what brand a diver "should" have and are quick to judge another diver or a potential diver for the gear they have or planning to have and shove their opinion down the unfortunate person's throat. How do you all approach to these annoying people?

The legendary splits verses paddle fin debate....

What gear should I have? Why don't most just do research about it. I am sure the same people that asks this type of question would actually sit down and think for many nights at a time wondering what automobile and brand of automobile would be best for their needs.

Finding a great Local Dive Shop is always very hard, too. Lots of them wants to sound like car salesmen and reach into our pockets. I love supporting the brick and mortar shops, I do it all the time.

The MAP or MSRP that scuba companies puts up and does not give enough leeway for dive shops to work with in the first place I would say this actually makes a dying sport like this suffer more than it has to.

Let's see oh yeah, agencies and what training the individual might have taken and hearing lame excuses why one agency is better than the other.

I would love to see a day I may meet another diver that won't try to tell me or push me their opinions and dive merrily and sing "kum-ba-ya."

What have all of you encountered? Does any of you agree?

Diving is supposed to be fun. Why get all worked up ?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Photography seems to be a common ingredient. I will add a story to that list, finishing with a generic lesson.

I went on a liveaboard trip = land to Thailand, and since my wife does not dive, I was a single. It was a group trip out of my dive shop, and they paired me for the two weeks with a roommate--a photographer who was recently divorced. (Hmmm. I wonder why.)

For the first few dives, he put me to good use. He brought two cameras on the dives, and my job was to carry the one he wasn't using at the time. Amazed at the request (more of an order than a request) and trying to be polite, I did it at first, and then I told him I had things to do other than hang around watching him in case he needed to switch cameras. I still got to watch him at work, since we were technically buddies, as he pushed other camera wielders aside to get the shots, after which future shots were ruined by the silt he kicked up.

Then came his greatest act of all. We were on a dive with a very specific plan. We were to follow a DM through a path that would finally bring us to the surface inside a beautiful grotto, filled with stalactites, etc. It was described in the briefing as one of the great dives of the trip. We were in the second of two groups. He took a long, long time at the first photo session, an octopus that was well hidden. Then he spotted something else inside a coral formation--I don't know what. That is where we spent the rest of the dive. Our entire group hovered and hovered and hovered and hovered while he took shot after shot after shot after shot. Our DM was new on the job, and he didn't know how to move him along. When we ran low on air, we went right to the surface, never getting anywhere near the grotto.

Back on the boat, he was raving about what a great dive it was because of how many great shots (over 140) he he gotten. I said I had really wanted to see the grotto. He scoffed, saying it was a lot better to look at sea life than rocks. Fortunately, the skipper had gotten the word, and he gave the guy a great deal--the two of them would go off on their own from then on, looking for special shots. He thought that was great, not realizing the skipper was doing it to keep him from ruining the dives for everyone else.

A couple years later, I went into the dive shop and there he was. trying to interest people in buying his photographs. When we talked, he had no memory of being my roommate for two weeks, and I certainly did not assist his memory.

Generic Lesson: It did not have to be a photography story. It could have been the guy smoking the big fat cigar under the no smoking sign at Grand Cayman. It did not have to be scuba. It is the people who go through life thinking that what is important for them is what should be important for everyone. Their needs and preferences are all that matter. They have no idea that they are imposing on anyone else because they don't care about anyone else, just as my photographer had no memory of someone who roomed with him for two weeks.

With people like that photographer, as soon as somebody steps up to tell them what selfish jerks they are for being how they are, they believe THEY are the ones being attacked. They never think they do anything wrong. You wonder why this phenomenon run in the veins of photographers? Because photography can be an expensive venture, sometimes a very expensive. This puts into the realm of the well off. I call it “rich and entitled syndrome”. They think they are special and everything needs to revolve around them. They spent a LOT of money on that rig and by god you are going to yield to their needs and desires.

 

[stretchthepenn]

Texans.

Individuals who generalize behavior based on geography.

Texas is a state of mind, not so much an actual place.