What do Safe Divers do that Unsafe Divers don't?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Kunk35

Contributor
Messages
390
Reaction score
22
Location
Texas
# of dives
200 - 499
I've been browsing various threads where a lot is mentioned about "safe divers" and making sure to only dive with them. It occurred to me, I guess I haven't ever been diving with "unsafe divers", since I don't think I really have experienced any. So my question is, what experiences have my fellow forumites had with unsafe divers? What do "safe divers" vs. "unsafe divers" look like?

Granted, I have limited dive experience with different people. I have a handful of dive buddies that I dive with and those people are the only ones I've ever been diving with since getting certified back in 06.
 
Someone who does not maintain their gear.
Someone who dives beyond their training, ability, and/or experience.
Someone who displays blatant disregard for any accepted safe practices.
Someone who chooses the wrong tool for the job.
Someone who thinks they know better then everyone else.
Someone who has the "it can never happen to me" attitude.
Someone who does not respect that we are practicing a sport/hobby that can kill you.
Someone who thinks they have nothing to learn.
Someone who thinks because they read about it on the internet, that they can do it.
Someone who does not plan a dive and then dive that plan.
Someone who wants to take a less experienced diver out of their comfort zone.
Someone who gets so wrapped up underwater that they get tunnel vision and forget about everything.
Someone who thinks with less dives then I have fingers thinks they can teach someone else to dive safely.


Should I go on?
 
Someone who thinks ALL divers should be able to drop from the surface to 100 feet in 2 seconds flat.
 
Someone who dives beyond their training, ability, and/or experience.

I would imagine this one is a very common issue.

Does anyone have any stories of diving with someone that displayed some of the above mentioned descriptions?
 
Someone who dives beyond their training, ability, and/or experience.
If no one ever dove outside their experience level how would they gain experience? Guilty.

Someone who displays blatant disregard for any accepted safe practices.
I have a disregard for some "accepted" safe practices. Don't know about blatant. I just feel the "safety" or "acceptance" can be debated. Guilty.

Someone who chooses the wrong tool for the job.
I don't know what kind of tools we are talking here but I bet some of my kit would be considered "wrong" by some sectors of the mainstream community. Personally I feel the skill of a diver is not measured by the uniqueness of the tools they have but by their ability to adapt to the tools on hand. Sometimes Guilty.

Someone who thinks they know better then everyone else.
Agreed in principle but tricky. Conventional wisdom can be wrong. Thinking Salem witches and Galileo. Just to be open minded I'm gonna reserve the right to say... maybe sorta potentially guilty.

Someone who has the "it can never happen to me" attitude.
Like all those people that dive with sharks. Not guilty.

Someone who does not respect that we are practicing a sport/hobby that can kill you.
Agreed.

Someone who thinks they have nothing to learn.
Agreed.

Someone who thinks because they read about it on the internet, that they can do it.
I do this all the time! No one IRL ever taught me how to do frog/back/helicopter kick or how to dive a doublehose. I read how to build a Hawaiian pack out of a book and how to use independent doubles right here etc... Guilty Guilty Guilty - off with my head!

Someone who does not plan a dive and then dive that plan.
Agreed, as long as the plan can be: swim down, look around, swim back up. I'm gonna plead Not guilty on a technicality.

Someone who wants to take a less experienced diver out of their comfort zone.
Like an instructor? Not guilty.

Someone who gets so wrapped up underwater that they get tunnel vision and forget about everything.
Agreed.. but I have done it videoing a wreck. Guilty damn it.

Someone who thinks with less dives then I have fingers thinks they can teach someone else to dive safely.
Agreed.

Should I go on?

Just havin fun but I found your list alarming... I'm an unsafe diver :(
 
Safe Diver = someone who ensures that have applicable training for the dives they undertake, and diligently applies that training without exception.

A simple point, but nonetheless ignored, forgotten or disregarded by far too many divers.
 
When I think about unsafe divers, I think about the line from Top Gun: "Your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

I think attitude has the most to do with it. Someone who is thoughtful and prudent and is capable of a reasonably objective evaluation of their own capacity is unlikely to be an unsafe diver. Someone who is cocky, careless, arrogant, dangerously cheap, or badly disorganized is unlikely to be a safe diver. Someone who doesn't respect his buddies or respect their requested limits for the dive is not, to me, a safe diver. Someone whose behavior is unpredictable or who does not have themselves under control is an unsafe diver.

I've only done two dives ever with people I thought, by the end of the dive, were unsafe. One went on to fix her problems. The other I haven't dived with again.
 

Back
Top Bottom