What are your biggest pet peeves?

[DueceFire]

Is there anything you just CANT STAND when it comes to diving?

 

[h90]

hunting fishes spearguns or fishing while diving

 

[g1138]

Diver who feel the need to flail their arms to stabilize themselves.
I can't tell you how many times I've been hit in the face after handing a student their weightbelt during surface drills. You don't need to be face down to start your weight belt roll! >.<

 

[Ste Wart]

Russians!


No seriously they are a liability when diving. Always crawling over the reef.

 

[vladimir]

Russians!

Watch it, mate, I've got a polonium cocktail with your name on it.

 

[Quero]

Show offs. (I guess that's not limited to diving, but there seems to be one on every boat!)
Example: The diver in a group of Malaysians I had not too long ago who would do his giant stride holding his fins in his arms. The less experienced divers were impressed by his "coolness" and tried to imitate him. I had to retrieve more than one lost fin.

And related to that, Elitists. It really bugs me when divers claim that their gear/camera/preferred style of diving/air consumption/weighting requirements/etc. are the gold standard against which all else must be measured.
Example: I recently met a young female wreck penetration diver who stated matter of factly that recreational diving was for wusses and that the only fish she was interested in seeing was the one on her plate. Talk about a conversation killer!

 

[Ste Wart]

Watch it, mate, I've got a polonium cocktail with your name on it.

hehe

Sorry Vlad, I call 'em as I see 'em.

Show offs. (I guess that's not limited to diving, but there seems to be one on every boat!)
Example: The diver in a group of Malaysians I had not too long ago who would do his giant stride holding his fins in his arms. The less experienced divers were impressed by his "coolness" and tried to imitate him. I had to retrieve more than one lost fin.

That is such a Malaysian thing to do. Our DM's used to jump in holding their fins above their head on Tioman.

 

[John L.]

Divers that don't realize the difference between confidence and cockiness.

ohhh and also divers that hate on new divers just because they have more experience.

 

[Quero]

Russians!


No seriously they are a liability when diving. Always crawling over the reef.

Most of the Russians who come here dive with Russian staff, so my main contact with them is while everybody is setting up their gear. When there are more than a couple of Russians aboard, I quickly grab all the weight blocks I think my divers and I will need before they all end up on the Russians' weight belts. Once when I was doing the CESA skill on an OW training dive, they took even the few weights that were attached to the CESA buoy we use. We had to tie a huge ship's wrench from the engine room to the line to anchor it down. Maybe they're all overweighted by habit from being used to cold-water diving in drysuits? If they are, it makes sense that they can't stay up off the reef.

 

[vladimir]

Example: I recently met a young female wreck penetration diver who stated matter of factly that recreational diving was for wusses and that the only fish she was interested in seeing was the one on her plate. Talk about a conversation killer!

And, on a related note, ScubaBoard posters who refer to fish as "pretty fishies," which is somehow intended to denigrate the whole idea of diving to see the amazing life on a tropical reef when there are perfectly good lumps of barely discernible wreckage on otherwise featureless expanses of near-freezing water.