Sas
Contributor
Sas, seems to me you're drawing your conclusion of groups of three divers being unsafe based on a very unlikely scenario that two of the divers from the same group will have the immediate OOA situation at the same time. The chances of this happening are very small. What might happen more often though is one diver running out of air and then you have a buddy and a DM to help you out. This makes diving in a group of three safer than being with DM alone. It's always better to have more redundancies than not to have them - regardless of the divers training levels. In case your buddy has no clue how to react when you're in trouble - you can always bail yourself out using their air supply.
I am not basing it on two OOAs only, please reread my posts where I included some examples of my own problems with diving with instabuddies in groups of three. I was basing it on the extra problems associated with having to watch two new buddies, when you are not sure of how they dive. I gave a few examples of problems I have faced. I agree that if you know the two other divers well and have dived with them, a three person team can be great due to extra redundancy.
From your posts I gather you are not yet a confident diver. I would definitely recommend some additional training for you as well. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you wish to discuss how dives should be organized and guided - you should get some experience doing so first.
I am a confident diver for the types of dives I do myself. I would not be confident diving outside my abilities and training however, i.e. a dive to 47m without redundancy and relying on a DM to lead me around. I would also not be confident to rely totally on other people for bailing out if something should go wrong. I have dived with a DM rarely, 3-5 times and not since about dive 20 (can't remember exactly), but have dived with many instabuddies, so I do have an idea of how dives go with instabuddies and have had a number of problems with diving with unfamiliar people. The conditions locally are often not favourable for diving, so there are extra problems that one must deal with when diving with instabuddies... this is probably why I am much more fussy about who I dive with. As far as organsing dives, I have organised groups and new divers to go on dives with so I do have experience in that area actually. I stick to shallower dives when I do not know the person, and I avoid going on deep dives with an unfamiliar buddy. I do dive in groups of three with two regular buddies and it is great when one of us has the camera as we dive with photographer in front, and two of us behind. This has never gone well with a tag-a-long buddy though...
Please don't dismiss DMs in general by looking at the number of dives they logged. Sure, your skepticism is completely justified with a number of DMs out there, but surely not all of them are bad. And 60 logged dives? Well, that's the worldwide PADI standard requirement for getting the DM badge. It's not only in Thailand, it's just the same in Australia.
I am not dismissing, I am just surprised that people would be comfortable making a career out of something, and having to be responsible for other divers, when they themselves are incredibly inexperienced. Some of course, would be fine, I just find it surprising at hearing that many DMs only have that many dives. However, I don't dive with DMs anyway these days as they are rare in my area. I know many people with around 60 dives and do not think any of them would be up to looking after a group of other divers.
Dives logged during the DM internship are often quite different from dives logged by a rec diver on guided dives. You do get experience and necessary training to guide the dives competently. So in those terms 10 logged dives guiding may be well worth more than 100 dives following someone around the dive site.
I know a few DM candidates. One of which surfaces every 20mins, waits 5mins, then descends again to rack up his dive total. I suspect that seeing this kind of behaviour biases me against DMs with few dives.