Time to hang up my wetsuit after near death on NYE

[Zef]

Didn't I read that the divemaster was supervising 20 divers in the water at the same time? That seems a bit much for any one divemaster.

SeaRat

I don't understand why you would think a divemaster supervising 20 divers who present themselves with proper credentials is too much. The divemaster is not responsible for every aspect of an individual diver's safety unless they are specifically contracted to do so or acting as support for non-certified divers in a training scenario.....the latter was not the case here.

As a certified diver, freshly minted or otherwise, one should be competent enough to execute a dive safely in an environment and conditions similar to their training...beyond that, assuming the conditions were not similar to the OP's training, it is expected as well, that given the high risk nature of diving as an activity, that each certified diver be able to make a basic assessment of their ability and comfort relative to any dive they may conduct. Certified divers should be expected to respond based on the protocols learned during their training if/when they find themselves beyond their comfort zone, personal limit, etc. and exercise the option of terminating the dive early if it is warranted or desired.

The OP had 20 dives under their belt, that is 15 past what is necessary for certification, and while that is nowhere near enough to be considered an expert in any sense, it is enough to expect a diver to have an awareness of basic factors during the dive along with how they should respond when those basic factors are not unfolding per normal during the dive.

Perhaps there is information that might be missing such as the information included in the dive brief that divers often ignore and find themselves participating on dives beyond their ability and comfort level. What is clear, and I am not trying to assign blame here, the OP allowed themself to be stretched past their comfort zone and did not follow the protocol of their open water training. It is too easy to blame the divemaster, but I think that the majority of the onus is on the individual diver to recognize/understand/know/ their limits and remain within them.

SCUBA diving is an inherently high risk activity as it is conducted in a medium we cannot naturally survive without specialized equipment and training. Becoming certified to dive (as an adult), endows the individual with basic knowledge to take responsibility for the choice to enter the water and participate. Accepting the risk(s) that come with entering the water is ultimately the responsibility of the individual diver.

-Z

 

[Mike1967]

I don't understand why you would think a divemaster supervising 20 divers who present themselves with proper credentials is too much.

Seriously?

When you're supervising 20 divers, what is your role?

 

[Zef]

Seriously?

When you're supervising 20 divers, what is your role?

Depends on what I was hired for...some operations keep their divemasters on the boat or observing from shore, Divemasters in the water could be there to navigate and shepherd the group.

If you are a photographer and hang back to take photos perhaps my role might be to let you know when the group is moving on to a different area of the dive site, but if at some point you run out of air because you are so entrenched in getting your white balance and composition of little nemo set up that you forget to check your guage, that is not the fault of the DM.

On a DM guided dive, it is nice that a DM does an air check and I certainly do when I am diving with anyone in any capacity, but the DM asking for a gauge check does not relieve a certified diver and their buddy from monitoring their air on their own and making personal decisions that affect their comfort and safety based on what their gauge indicates.

There are far too many variables and unknowns in the OP's situation to put all the blame on the DM.

-Z

 

[Mike1967]

Depends on what I was hired for

If there's one DM to 20 divers you may as well have no DM at all, IMO.

 

[lexvil]

If your’re scared don’t dive, if you scare easily but are willing to take time to learn all the stuff that they tried to teach you, dive.

If you are scared and consistently worry over all the things that may go wrong and lack self confidence that you can work through pretty much any of those things but still like extreme sports consider sky diving, the worry/panic time is greatly reduced.

 

[M-Cameron]

Let me put it this way...I’m not going to trust my life to someone else, when I have the means to do it myself.

At 20 dives..... you know to check your spg regularly

At 20 dives..... you know you cannot breath underwater

At 20 dives.... you know to surface when you are low on air


Even if you trust your safety to a DM for some reason.....there needs to be a point when common sense overtakes blind trust.

If I’m in a car with Michael Schumacher.... and he’s driving 100 mph straight into a wall showing no signs of stopping.....when we get close enough you’re darn sure I’m pulling that emergency brake.



Take responsibility for your own actions and quit trying to blame all your problems on someone else.

 

[peeweediver]

There are a few points brought up in this thread that always produce lots of discussion. 1) What is the "role" of the DM leading a group on a dive? 2) What is the diver's responsibility post-certification? 3) What is an Advanced Certification actually worth and, 4) Should one get back into diving when scared out of their wits by a bad experience. What I've come to believe is that question 1 produces a split in opinion with no resolution as to what it truly the real role of a DM. Question 2, to me, is really about training. I have seen horrendous training (cattle car mentality to certify as many as possible at one time). The current economics faced by shops pushes them farther into mass certification while the "bucket list" mentality (and Groupon specials) to get certified as fast as possible accelerates that problem of "untrained divers". Question 3 is pretty easy for most of us. It's an OK thing to do but means almost nothing when judging a diver's capabilities. Question 4: No matter what we say on this forum, a diver scared out of his/her wits won't go back in the water without a desire to try again and a strong helping hand. It would be nice to see folks try again with someone who can take the time to take the required baby steps to make them comfortable.
I am personally becoming more and more frustrated by scuba training and the business of scuba diving/training/shop ownership. Internet is killing the profit center of equipment sales and mass certification seems to be the answer. Nobody is the devil here, it's just depressing for me to see.

Rob

 

[Esprise Me]

Well-put, @peeweediver. I also hate to see people pile on these new folks, who paid hundreds of dollars (even if it's not "enough" for decent training, it's still a lot of money to most people) for what turned out to be inadequate training, then paid lots more (see previous parenthetical) for a guided dive so they could continue to work on their skills in a safer setting, and who had a scary experience that they took the time to share here so others could benefit. It's especially frustrating to see veiled accusations of the OP blaming others for his mistakes when he did nothing of the sort. Combined with the caustic remarks about young people in the thread about how to get new people interested in diving, I'm starting to think some of you want the sport to die with you.

 

[axluba]

Let me put it this way...I’m not going to trust my life to someone else, when I have the means to do it myself.

At 20 dives..... you know to check your spg regularly

At 20 dives..... you know you cannot breath underwater

At 20 dives.... you know to surface when you are low on air


Even if you trust your safety to a DM for some reason.....there needs to be a point when common sense overtakes blind trust.

If I’m in a car with Michael Schumacher.... and he’s driving 100 mph straight into a wall showing no signs of stopping.....when we get close enough you’re darn sure I’m pulling that emergency brake.



Take responsibility for your own actions and quit trying to blame all your problems on someone else.

That’s all good and pretty, but it completely obliterate the human factors of the situation.

We’re all different, reacting differently to situations... not sure I would have had the “guts” to surface by myself before it gets critical. Is it right? Maybe not, but it’s a human reaction

Yes mistakes were made, I think that point have been well made by a lot of posts, including yours. I don’t really see the point of shoving it down the OP’s throats...

Him sharing his experience will be valuable to me for sure..

 

[lowwall]

There's not much point in continuing to question the OP directly as he last posted on this thread on Jan 3. That was also his last post on the site. I wonder why?

What is probably still worth talking about is what this tells us about the type of training the OP had and the expectations of divers who have been trained this way. I've posted a couple of times on this thread about the minimal training and skills required for certification of both divers and DMs that is typical in SE Asia today. I don't know enough to comment on what is going on in the US today, but my PADI OW and AOW courses two decades ago weren't any better in terms of teaching skills like buoyancy control or dive planning and I doubt that has improved.

What does appear to be fundamentally different is whether divers consider themselves to be independent or part of a group, From the start I understood that once certified, I was ultimately responsible for my own diving. As part of this it was clear to me that there is a major difference between an instructor and a DM. I would accept an instructor taking me beyond my comfort zone and am willing to rely on him or her to make sure I am operating in a safe manner. OTOH, to my way of thinking, DMs are guides. The only thing I'll rely on them for is navigation (although I try to maintain a basic idea of where I am vis a vis the pickup/exit location). I'll keep an eye on them for pointing out critters and hazards and I'll communicate gas level if requested, but I'm not going to follow them into places I'm uncomfortable going nor will I defer to them if I determine I need to surface early.

OTOH, from what I've seen diving in Thailand and talking to people who have dived with typical Asian divers in SE Asia*, divers do not consider themselves to be independent. They feel that they are part of a group and the leader, whether it's an instructor or DM, makes the decisions. This starts in training and definitely carries on into guided dives. If you can understand this, you can understand both the OP's actions and post-dive reaction.

For me, the takeaway from this is that we have to remind ourselves that we are ultimately responsible for our decisions underwater. No matter how easy it is to defer to someone with more experience or professional certifications. I also think this should be expressly stated as part of OW training and emphasized to new divers regardless of where the course is taken.

* Essentially we are talking about Chinese, mainly PRC, and Korean divers here. Which happens to makes up the large majority of new divers in Asia. It may not be applicable to other countries/peoples (for example, from the Filipinos I have known, I suspect it's not applicable there ). And, as always, not everyone conforms to their national stereotypes.