Tipping DM in Coz?

[elgringoperdido]

For the first 15 or so years I was diving I never tipped anyone. Didn't know it was a thing. LOL.

Then in about 2013 I went with the local shop to Bonaire, my first trip with a group, and on the last night the shop owner passed around an envelope. I asked, "What's this?" He said, "it's for tips." I noticed that everyone was putting in between $50 and $100, so I put in $50. I guess it was ten dives over the week. I have been doing it that way ever since when I go on organized group trips.

When I travel solo I try to remember to take some cash with me on the boat. I don't always remember to have cash, but when I do I tip them every time. In Mexico typically 200 pesos for a two-dive trip. In that situation it doesn't make sense to wait till the end of the week because it's a different DM each time. And I'm fairly certain that they'd rather get 200 pesos than ten dollars, even though the face values are similar.

We did some diving in the Mediterranean over the summer, off the coast of Catalonia and southern France. At the end of the first day, after two cylinders, I gave the dive leader a ten-euro note. He was astonished and very grateful. I gathered that he didn't often get tips.

Here, off the NJ coast, every one tips a bit more. $20 for a two-dive trip is fairly common. Like I said, it took me a long time to notice it, but once I did I started tipping them like everyone else.

 

[scubbq]

Solo traveler here, I make it a habit of announcing and flashing the cash on the return ride to the dock to ensure other divers are reminded to tip the DM/captain. Prefiero dolares o pesos? And always have 2-400 pesos in hand. The average DM is making 10-12 USD/HR. (Basing this off conversations with dive professionals in Bonaire - Mexico is probably cheaper) and the tips go a very long way. I tip between 10-20usd per 2 tank trip, always daily.

 

[ReefHound]

I'm not in any way discouraging tipping but Mx minimum wage is about $12/DAY.

 

[ChuckP]

I'm not in any way discouraging tipping but Mx minimum wage is about $12/DAY.

DMs in Cozumel make 4x that amount plus tips per two tank trip, behind taxi drivesr and the hookers, DM's are one of the highest paid people on the island.

 

[gianster]

DMs in Cozumel make 4x that amount plus tips per two tank trip, behind taxi drivesr and the hookers, DM's are one of the highest paid people on the island.

Where can I get hooked up with the latter next month?

 

[elgringoperdido]

I talked to a DM on a boat in Mexico about this. He said he was averaging about 15 thousand pesos per month. But he was also an instructor. He said that he was taking evening courses and working on his boat captain's license because he was already over 40 and didn't think he'd be able to keep slinging bottles for much longer. He said that a boat captain earns much more but didn't say how much. That was maybe 7 or 8 years ago.

 

[BRT]

I talked to a DM on a boat in Mexico about this. He said he was averaging about 15 thousand pesos per month. But he was also an instructor. He said that he was taking evening courses and working on his boat captain's license because he was already over 40 and didn't think he'd be able to keep slinging bottles for much longer. He said that a boat captain earns much more but didn't say how much. That was maybe 7 or 8 years ago.

Nearly 3 times what a nurse in Playa makes.

 

[ReefHound]

I talked to a DM on a boat in Mexico about this. He said he was averaging about 15 thousand pesos per month. But he was also an instructor. He said that he was taking evening courses and working on his boat captain's license because he was already over 40 and didn't think he'd be able to keep slinging bottles for much longer. He said that a boat captain earns much more but didn't say how much. That was maybe 7 or 8 years ago.

Sounds really low. It's probably double that now.

 

[Knockneed Man]

I’m surprised so many Americans can be so obtuse and act surprised about tipping. You tip your cab driver for getting you somewhere safely. Tip your fishing boat captain if that put you on the fish. Your server who brings your steak dinner. I imagine if you went parachuting out of a plane with an instructor and he managed to not turn you into a puddle on the ground that you’d tip him accordingly. Why wouldn’t you tip the boat/dm that took you scuba diving all day? Not to say tipping is the most IDEAL form of service industry, but it’s the standard. At least here in the US. And for better or for worse that carried over into most neighboring countries nearly a century ago. I know when I worked as a dm in Hawaii in 1996, tips were expected. Both by the workers and the dive shop owners - who payed employees accordingly, with the difference, being that if you provided the expected good service, the patrons would boost your pay to a livable wage. Scratch that, slightly close to livable. Meaning driving a beater car that hopefully made it to the dive shop to work, and Ramen noodles for dinner. Even back then, when I was young broke diver I still tipped if I was on other boats and being catered to. And in all the decades, since I don’t believe there’s ever been an instance where I left a boat without at least some amount of tip given.

 

[elgringoperdido]

I’m surprised so many Americans can be so obtuse and act surprised about tipping.

I don't think "many Americans" would agree with you. Or at least I think you are either over-thinking or under-thinking. It has been mentioned in this thread that it's about cultural norms.

I have never had a conversation with a fellow gringo in which he mentioned tipping a surgeon or a physician, for example. Yet in China it is universally understood that you tip the surgeon. I have been to China three times, for about a month during each visit, and I have discussed this multiple times with different people (although my Chinese is very rudimentary). What I have gleaned is that they think it is very bizarre that we would not think twice about tipping a person who brings us a glass of wine, yet find it strange to give the person who might be in charge of a valve in the very heart that brings blood to our brains an extra amount, as much as we could afford even. But that's the norm there.

They stay here a while and then they understand that here we tip waiters in restaurants and bartenders and the like but we generally do not tip physicians. It's just the way we operate here. It is not better or worse than any other system. It is simply different. And no chinese person should be called obtuse for not tipping a waiter any more than any gringo should be called obtuse for not tipping a surgeon. Or a divemaster.

Like I said earlier, for around 15 years I never tipped a divemaster. I was perhaps obtuse. But perhaps I was not. It simply did not occur to me. I am not sure that my five-year-old self would have thought of tipping the person that brought me food (or operated on my brain). These are learned behaviors, and they differ by region and by culture.

It is an odd thing, you must admit, to offer to pay more than the price listed on the menu. When was the last time you bought a house and decided to give the seller an extra 15 percent just because you thought it was a good idea? My guess would be never.

It is true that we watch old movies and we see flashy rich guys giving five-dollar bills to the men who carry their suitcases and to the chaps who open their doors. We learn from that. But we are not all Nelson Rockefeller. I would not judge harshly a man who scrimps and saves all year to take a diving vacation in the caribbean and to whom it does not occur to pay more for the service than is listed on the panel above the desk at the dive center. He may not be earning much more than the divemaster who leads his dive. I think it's important to remember that there may be some people who may not have five-dollar bills growing on trees in their back yards. At some point those people may notice that others are tipping the DM and they simply want to know if it is appropriate, and how much. That was the OP. How much should I tip? That was the question. I'd say don't tip more than you can afford. If you have paid for a service in advance, then you deserve the service that you paid for. Tipping is a gratuity. Let's not forget that.