dbulmer
Contributor
I struggled to find a title for this thread so I named it after a thought I had after my last dive on a recent trip. Not very imaginative, I suppose, but it's the best I could come up with anyway so here goes .
I went to a location not too far from Marsa Alam in Egypt. It was quiet over there and I just wanted to be in the water enjoying some shallow reef diving. As is the norm in Egypt, you are expected to do a checkout dive to check your gear and weighting are ok and allow the dive pros to gauge your experience level. A couple of days before I went out there I swapped out a HP hose and did not have time to do a thorough check so I was looking forward to the check dive to make sure all was well on that score. The check dive was fine and dandy - no equipment/weighting issues but I was a little perplexed at the request to leave my dive knife in the box before the dive began.
Anyway, before the dive began I put away my dive knife in the box as requested but I was little annoyed when during the dive I saw other divers in our group, predominantly photographers, with reefhooks. Now I've been to Egypt several times before and this was the first time I'd been asked to leave my knife ashore so I was kind of irritated and curious why.
Why irritated you might ask? I use a BP/W and carry a DSMB - my knife is carried as a cutting tool just in case I need to be cut out of my harness quickly or some sort of entanglement occurs. Yes, unlikely on a shallow reef dive but you never know!
I explained this to the DM after the dive and he said it was company policy that he is obliged to enforce. I spoke to the folks in the shop who explained that they had had problems with divers from certain locations who had used knives to take back mementos of the reefs they had dived and that in one serious case a DM was threatened by a diver with a knife. Because they did not want to single out divers from any one particular country or countries they had decided to introduce the no knife policy. I did point out the inconsistency with the reef hooks but they went quiet on that and we amicably agreed to disagree.
I did my dives along the reefs (minus knife), thoroughly enjoying the colour and splendour of the views. As I reached my penultimate day I was talking to the head instructor at the dive op. The subject of knives came up in passing and he went on to say that the knife ban was something he wished did not exist but was a necessity, as far as he was concerned, to protect the reef. His view was that divers from certain countries did not respect the staff and reefs in the same way that divers from other parts of the world did but he did not want to discriminate against the bad ones because they were often the most numerous divers ie his bread and butter divers.
On hearing this I could see the issue from his point of view - what do you do if your regular divers are crap - you don't want to be seen as heavy handed but at the same time you do want to ptotect the reef (and staff).
So, my last dive arrives. With a heavy heart, I start the dive with my dive guide. By the time I get to the last dive I usually end up as a surrogate DM so I get my own private guide when numbers are low
What a disaster! Me and dive guide look at each other as tank bangers are going off every minute. Our quiet reef dive has been invaded by a group of photographers - all equipped with tank bangers, expensive strobes, cameras. Having watched this group from 10 minutes, these were not beginners. They had solid buoyancy and decent trim for the most part but oh God they made a hell of a lot of noise and we saw they them finning vigorously from one outcrop to the other. One of them made his way across my bows to an outcrop so I followed him, positioned myself right next to him, watched as he clicked away and shook my head in disbelief that he was not even aware I was next to him (5cms apart horizontally at the same depth - yeah he pissed me off big time).
My Egyptian dive guide Salam (one of the nicest people you could ever meet) shook his head in disbelief at all this - my reaction?
Where's my knife?
I want to stab someone
They might have a point, actually ..
PS Most photographers I have seen do not behave as I witnessed with this particular group so if anyone feels offended please don't be .. unless you were in that group in which case you can .....
I went to a location not too far from Marsa Alam in Egypt. It was quiet over there and I just wanted to be in the water enjoying some shallow reef diving. As is the norm in Egypt, you are expected to do a checkout dive to check your gear and weighting are ok and allow the dive pros to gauge your experience level. A couple of days before I went out there I swapped out a HP hose and did not have time to do a thorough check so I was looking forward to the check dive to make sure all was well on that score. The check dive was fine and dandy - no equipment/weighting issues but I was a little perplexed at the request to leave my dive knife in the box before the dive began.
Anyway, before the dive began I put away my dive knife in the box as requested but I was little annoyed when during the dive I saw other divers in our group, predominantly photographers, with reefhooks. Now I've been to Egypt several times before and this was the first time I'd been asked to leave my knife ashore so I was kind of irritated and curious why.
Why irritated you might ask? I use a BP/W and carry a DSMB - my knife is carried as a cutting tool just in case I need to be cut out of my harness quickly or some sort of entanglement occurs. Yes, unlikely on a shallow reef dive but you never know!
I explained this to the DM after the dive and he said it was company policy that he is obliged to enforce. I spoke to the folks in the shop who explained that they had had problems with divers from certain locations who had used knives to take back mementos of the reefs they had dived and that in one serious case a DM was threatened by a diver with a knife. Because they did not want to single out divers from any one particular country or countries they had decided to introduce the no knife policy. I did point out the inconsistency with the reef hooks but they went quiet on that and we amicably agreed to disagree.
I did my dives along the reefs (minus knife), thoroughly enjoying the colour and splendour of the views. As I reached my penultimate day I was talking to the head instructor at the dive op. The subject of knives came up in passing and he went on to say that the knife ban was something he wished did not exist but was a necessity, as far as he was concerned, to protect the reef. His view was that divers from certain countries did not respect the staff and reefs in the same way that divers from other parts of the world did but he did not want to discriminate against the bad ones because they were often the most numerous divers ie his bread and butter divers.
On hearing this I could see the issue from his point of view - what do you do if your regular divers are crap - you don't want to be seen as heavy handed but at the same time you do want to ptotect the reef (and staff).
So, my last dive arrives. With a heavy heart, I start the dive with my dive guide. By the time I get to the last dive I usually end up as a surrogate DM so I get my own private guide when numbers are low
What a disaster! Me and dive guide look at each other as tank bangers are going off every minute. Our quiet reef dive has been invaded by a group of photographers - all equipped with tank bangers, expensive strobes, cameras. Having watched this group from 10 minutes, these were not beginners. They had solid buoyancy and decent trim for the most part but oh God they made a hell of a lot of noise and we saw they them finning vigorously from one outcrop to the other. One of them made his way across my bows to an outcrop so I followed him, positioned myself right next to him, watched as he clicked away and shook my head in disbelief that he was not even aware I was next to him (5cms apart horizontally at the same depth - yeah he pissed me off big time).
My Egyptian dive guide Salam (one of the nicest people you could ever meet) shook his head in disbelief at all this - my reaction?
Where's my knife?
I want to stab someone
They might have a point, actually ..
PS Most photographers I have seen do not behave as I witnessed with this particular group so if anyone feels offended please don't be .. unless you were in that group in which case you can .....
