it's usually a surprise when we see this conduct in divers, because as a group, divers, with our shared love of diving and shared experience, usually get along.
Yeah. but on the same token, diving is an activity that appeals to individualists and individualists are sometimes people who feel that their dollars are more important than someone else's dollars. What THEY came for should be delivered... What THEY want is the most important thing.... What THEY need is the only thing needed.....regardless of the consequences to others.
We've all seen them.
I'll relay two stories to illustrate. In Mexico about ... mmmm ... 10 years ago I went diving with a buddy of mine. At the place where we went diving there was only one dive shop and it was closed because the owner had to go out of town. We managed to talk the shop owner into giving us a key so we could use his compressor and we arranged transport via local fishermen. One morning we were at the shop and this guy arrives (I won't tell you what country he was from). He wanted to go diving. I explained that the shop was closed and we were doing a private number but he insisted..... to the point where I said, "ok, ok.... you can come".
What happened next amazed me. He refused to carry his gear to the boat. He went and sat in the boat and when I got down to the water side he was sitting there and I said, "we're leaving in 10 min, you need to go get your gear". He said, literally, to me, "you organized this dive, i'm not carrying my gear".
Of course, initially, I told him to get out of the boat because we needed to leave but his gear, which came from the shop, was laying on the beach and I couldn't just leave it there. So we decided it was quicker to get the gear than to kick him out and deal with that....
That was the start of the day. The rest of the day he continued to be disrespectful to us, to the animals under water and the fisherman who was so very kind and willing to take us where ever we wanted to go.
By the end of the day I could have wrung his neck. When we got back to the shop late in the afternoon I unpacked his gear and found a paper pad of "invoices" in the shop and wrote him an invoice for $100 American for the day and presented it to him. He could have dove for free, it wouldn't have mattered to me, but I thought, "I'm going to bill the btich"
Amazingly, he paid me LOL. And I gave 1/2 to our our fisherman friend for putting up with him with a smile.
Where this attitude comes from, I don't know, but there are some divers out there who are self centered and arrogant.... I don't get it either, but it's a fact.
The second story is about an English guy I met in Turkey. I booked 2 days of diving and so did his diving club (a BSAC club) and for some reason he was the most inexperienced diver on the boat AND the odd man out.... On the day before the dives started I talked to the guy leading the dives and agreed to take this guy with me. I was travelling alone so it was an obvious choice.
Now really... I don't mind at ALL diving with new divers and I hit it off with my buddy so I was all set for a some great dives. What happened next surprised me. He asked me about my experience level.... and I should have lied to him because he cramped up and started apologizing for his inexperience before we ever hit the water..... And he spent the rest of the 1st day apologizing over and over again for his air consumption, for his tempo, for his buoyancy control... all of it.
I spoke to the club leader of his club and it turns out that a diver at that level is "required" to dive with a diver of a higher level..... and while on the surface of it, that sounds like a good idea, it appears to having an undermining effect on the self-confidence of some divers. Fortunately I was able to arrange a larger tank for my buddy for day 2 and I we went and drank beer and talked after the first day of diving (works every time with English guys) and on the 2nd day he relaxed and had a great time.
That's what I had in the back of my head when I wrote that some experienced divers treat beginners as 2nd class divers..... Sure they can't do everything yet... but I see no reason to let that stand in the way of having fun together.
R..