AdivingBel
Diver
My wife and I dived independently at Anthony's Key. We did chat with the DM/guide prior to splashing. No problems. YMMV depending on your DM, group, and experience.
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buddy up with a teammate that have the same goals/objectives as you and go dive.A couple of years ago a group of us went diving in Roatan. One of our friends has a long standing relationship with a particular dive op. The skills of our dive group range from beginner to advanced. I enjoy slow dives, exploring reefs and taking pics. While respecting the buddy system, it always seems that I am the last one in the group. So what is the problem? Our dive master for the week in Roatan singled me out to act as "the tail of the group". Ordinarily not an issue except that after following everybody else through swim throughs and looking under coral heads, the sand was so mucked up that it was impossible to get a decent photo. During a surface interval I explained to him my goals of getting some more photographs and not to be assigned to stay in the back of the group. He explained that he LEADS the dive and cannot keep an eye out for the beginner divers at all times. Thus, I was yet again relegated to the back of the group.
We are returning to Roatan in a few weeks. I know my friend wants to use this dive op again. I just want to know what other divers think of this. Am I being petty? Is this common practice? If this annoys any of fellow Scubaboarders, how would you handle this? Thanks in advance.
You need to solve the underlying problem and then no issues. If you insist on doing group cluster dives, then someone has to be last.A couple of years ago a group of us went diving in Roatan. One of our friends has a long standing relationship with a particular dive op. The skills of our dive group range from beginner to advanced. I enjoy slow dives, exploring reefs and taking pics. While respecting the buddy system, it always seems that I am the last one in the group. So what is the problem? Our dive master for the week in Roatan singled me out to act as "the tail of the group". Ordinarily not an issue except that after following everybody else through swim throughs and looking under coral heads, the sand was so mucked up that it was impossible to get a decent photo. During a surface interval I explained to him my goals of getting some more photographs and not to be assigned to stay in the back of the group. He explained that he LEADS the dive and cannot keep an eye out for the beginner divers at all times. Thus, I was yet again relegated to the back of the group.
We are returning to Roatan in a few weeks. I know my friend wants to use this dive op again. I just want to know what other divers think of this. Am I being petty? Is this common practice? If this annoys any of fellow Scubaboarders, how would you handle this? Thanks in advance.
And my preference is solo but lets face it, this isn't always an option and I won't boycott dive locales that ban it if its some place I want to dive.You need to solve the underlying problem and then no issues. If you insist on doing group cluster dives, then someone has to be last.
During our first few years we did not know any better and thought cluster diving was normal. We did not enjoy them. Since then we have been very aware of group versus buddy dive ops. We highly favour non group situations. Every time we stray back to the cluster world we shake our heads - how could WE be so stupid to have chosen this op?
So: go places whe you can buddy dive and give the DM a big shrug, smile and head shake when they ask you to do part of their job. Not my monkey, not my circus. We are diving over there.
Agree with all here. I had one experience with a group/DM lead dive. One guy screwed up and my buddy and I (bringing up rear) were separated. We tooled around a bit more by ourselves and surfaced, to find that the DM was searching for the bonehead who broke the "line" going off completely on his own. That's my one and ONLY experience with this sort of dive. Anyone who reads SB and still signs up for group dives must like it (regardless of where you are in the line).You need to solve the underlying problem and then no issues. If you insist on doing group cluster dives, then someone has to be last.
During our first few years we did not know any better and thought cluster diving was normal. We did not enjoy them. Since then we have been very aware of group versus buddy dive ops. We highly favour non group situations. Every time we stray back to the cluster world we shake our heads - how could WE be so stupid to have chosen this op?
So: go places whe you can buddy dive and give the DM a big shrug, smile and head shake when they ask you to do part of their job. Not my monkey, not my circus. We are diving over there.
Agree with all here. I had one experience with a group/DM lead dive. One guy screwed up and my buddy and I (bringing up rear) were separated. We tooled around a bit more by ourselves and surfaced, to find that the DM was searching for the bonehead who broke the "line" going off completely on his own. That's my one and ONLY experience with this sort of dive. Anyone who reads SB and still signs up for group dives must like it (regardless of where you are in the line).
Honestly think about the reality of it all. What's going to happen when you don't adhere to the dive master's suggestion? Is he going to take you aside on the dive boat afterwards and slap you around? In reality if he wants you to go last, you don't, you just shrug your shoulders if he says anything to you later and I guess you spend his tip goes toward some drinks for you instead of him.
I really don't even understand this labeling of dives as diving in a line, I've dived for 20 years as a group but never a line. I've never kept an order on a dive, buddy teams constantly shuffle during dives, I don't witness any head to fin in line diving ever, divers are spread out laterally but side to side and up and down to some degree, when it comes to swim thrus if there are multiple ones on a dive the order isn't regimented and kept the same, sometimes I might be in the front some times I might be in the back. If everybody is diving in a regimented line you all need to let me know cause for 20 years I've been oblivious to it.