What are your expectations of a guide

[scubaskipper]

It seems all responses are similar and reasonable given the experience levels indicated by number of dives in profiles. One may be living in a more perfect world than the rest. Shops usually don't have the luxury of putting every level of experience on a different boat to a different location. If you've ever tried keeping a group of photographers together, looks like herding cats. I also like it when they keep moving slowly after pointing something out, this tends to keep things in that area from getting too damaged by the people that are too focused on the photo or looking at something and end up crawling all over everything. At any time during the dive the guide should be able to point you back to the boat. That doesn't mean take you back 20 minutes into the dive. The expectation that the guide will be able to find you a frogfish a great hammerhead or whatever you think is interesting is totally unreasonable. I've been on dives were I've seen all kinds of cool stuff and back on the boat someone is bad mouthing the location because they didn't see whatever they thought they should have seen. They have no control over wild animals, current, waves, how much the boat rocks, how sunny, cloudy or windy it may be. It looks like with experience comes reasonable expectations.

 

[RJP]

What are your expectations ???

Question...

Did you make any specific expectations known to the guide before the dive?

That's the biggest thing that seems to be missing whenever these threads come up. Someone goes on a dive, with certain expectations...but never talked to the dive op, the captain, or the guide themselves to ensure that their expectations are understood and can be met. Very often folks have inappropriate and/or overly-needy expectations, which is a different problem in and of itself. But even if someone's expectations are NOT out of line, you still can't completely fault the guide for not living up to your expectations if you never COMMUNICATE them.

You wouldn't go into a restaurant and not tell the waitress what you wanted to order...and still expect to get what you had in mind, would you?

 

[TSandM]

Being led into current is one of the few real peeves I've had with guides. On one dive in Indonesia, we swam for ten minutes into horrendous current, to see . . . a TURTLE. Now, turtles may be unusual sightings on those dives, but in Hawaii, you can see half a dozen of them on a dive, and I certainly didn't think it warranted the effort we put in.

But to answer the question: I expect a good dive briefing, describing the site, conditions, hazards, how the dive will be executed, and what we might see. In the water, I hope the guide, with his familiarity with the sites, will be able to point out some interesting things I might well have missed. On those Indonesia dives, the guides were fabulous at spotting tiny, well-camouflaged things I would have swam right past.

And sadly, from experience now, I expect dive guides will most likely swim way faster than we want to, will ignore or fail to notice people stopping to take photographs, and will eventually lose our part of the group But, since I don't depend upon them for anything but critter-spotting, I don't much care. And (edited to add) to answer RJP's extremely good point, yes, we tell guides that we are photographers and move slowly, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

 

[Herk_Man]

Question...

Did you make any specific expectations known to the guide before the dive?

That's the biggest thing that seems to be missing whenever these threads come up. Someone goes on a dive, with certain expectations...but never talked to the dive op, the captain, or the guide themselves to ensure that their expectations are understood and can be met. Very often folks have inappropriate and/or overly-needy expectations, which is a different problem in and of itself. But even if someone's expectations are NOT out of line, you still can't completely fault the guide for not living up to your expectations if you never COMMUNICATE them.

You wouldn't go into a restaurant and not tell the waitress what you wanted to order...and still expect to get what you had in mind, would you?

Thanks, saved me a bunch of typing. What you get from your guide depends on what exactly guide means to you and what you've agreed upon prior to the dive. If you jump in the water with someone and the only thing that has transpired is that you agreed to go on a guided dive, you get whatever the "guide" gives you. But they are guides, not mind-readers, so if you have certain expectations or want something specific, you need to talk about it ahead of time.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

And sadly, from experience now, I expect dive guides will most likely swim way faster than we want to, will ignore or fail to notice people stopping to take photographs, and will eventually lose our part of the group But, since I don't depend upon them for anything but critter-spotting, I don't much care. And (edited to add) to answer RJP's extremely good point, yes, we tell guides that we are photographers and move slowly, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

A certain well-recommended dive guide in Cozumel comes immediately to mind ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[RJP]

And (edited to add) to answer RJP's extremely good point, yes, we tell guides that we are photographers and move slowly, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

That's unfortunate, to be sure. Perhaps I'm not that demanding (unlikely, but possible) but on the dives where I have availed myself of their services I've never had a less-than-fine experience with a guide anywhere. With the ne plus ultra being the guides on the Truk Odyssey - those guys (they are guys) find out what you want to see, how you want to dive, etc and help you plan your dive to a T and/or will happily take you exactly where you want to go. By the third day they have a feel for your individual style/approach and will recommend "You know what you're gonna love..." sorts of things and suggest dive plans/tours that are what you would plan if you knew the wrecks as well as they did.

 

[TSandM]

My top guiding experience was on the MV Tala, but then again, that was one of my top diving experiences, period. Guides did as much or as little as you wanted them to do, and you could dive with them or without them. It was easy, on the Tala, to forget that these were people you were paying, because they felt like dive buddies and friends.

 

[boulderjohn]

It is very hard to make a blanket statement about what you expect from a guide, because the situations are so very different in so many parts of the world. At one extreme, they are absolutely unnecessary. At another extreme, you could never get where you wanted to go (and back) without one. There are varying degrees of need in between.

So my answer would depend upon the characteristics of the site I am diving.

 

[fnfalman]

At the risk of sounding negative here, but why didn't the OP; a veteran of several hundred vacation dives, know by now what he/she expects from a dive guide and communicate such desires to the charter?

What about dive plans? No procedures for dealing with currents? No procedures on gas checks?

Granted that I've never gone on a vacation dive and I detest diving in groups larger than 3 or 4 at most, we'd at least talk about the dive and cover the basics such as hand signals (not everybody uses the same signals), directions, maximum depth, turn around air, dealing with unexpected currents, safety stops, etc. It doesn't have to be a 2-hrs discussion but a quickie 5-minutes chat among all the divers.

 

[paul madox]

Well on this day the current was very strong and the guide did a current check and still call us in . We should have started the dive and the end point and finished at the begging

What got me most was the fact at no time did they look round if the had we would have said go with the flow
From the begging you could tell they did not wish to do three dive but i'm paying and did wish to and the hole dive was reverse drift still learn't a thing or 2 get my own smb and will be telling the guide no more reverse drift diving belucky