When are we gonna learn?

[Lorenzoid]

Wouldn't it be great if every DM-for-hire started out the relationship with his client by asking "What do YOU expect from ME?" The only thing that should be an "industry standard" for professional DMs is to make sure the DM and client understand each other's expectations.

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

Wouldn't it be great if every DM-for-hire started out the relationship with his client by asking "What do YOU expect from ME?" The only thing that should be an "industry standard" for professional DMs is to make sure the DM and client understand each other's expectations.

I agree with you. Unfortunately as I tried to convey in my prior post there are also, more and more, very inexperienced DM's out there..

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Had not heard that they had closed... web site is still up?

I've been told by people who live in Victoria that the dive shop closed ... the information's pretty recent, as in the past couple of weeks.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

It amazes me how often I see people abdicate responsibility for their own safety to others when conditions are patently too difficult. I've witnessed people get into trouble in strong currents even in the tropics because they expect swimming pool conditions always.

If you've never been there ... never dived in those conditions, or that part of the world before ... how do you know whether or not conditions are patently too difficult? Even in this thread we've seen wildly variable reports on what that dive site is like ... and that from people who have dived there. You can't tell in this case by simply reading the site description. The site can vary from pretty easy to very challenging depending on weather, wind, tidal exchanges, and what time of year you're diving there. That's why local knowledge is so important. That's why if you're unfamiliar you hire a guide. You're not hiring them to keep you safe ... you're hiring them to provide you with the local knowledge to make a responsible decision. If the guide, and the folks at the shop who took his money knew his experience level and told him it was fine for him to dive there, that's information he's going to rely on to make a decision.

That said, the shop also had a responsibility. All the information needed by the shop to say "no" to this guy and refuse to give him the choice to go was his diving history ... a total of 14 dives, 9 of which were his OW and AOW checkout dives five years prior. If the shop had that information, they should not have sold him the trip in the first place. The fact that they did was also an abdication of responsibility.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

The diving industry has made it too easy for everyone and anyone to get certified.

As you say ... including dive professionals. I've seen the same thing on this side of the coast that you have. It's not uncommon to see a newly minted DM who was in their own OW class six months ago, pushed from class to class to class and end up as a DM with little or no real world experience. In some agencies it takes 60 dives or less to become a DM ... and more than once I've seen DM candidates "get their numbers up" by doing multiple dives per day where they just go sit on the bottom for 20 minutes, come in and log the dive. By the time they get their DM card they're barely more skilled than the OW students they're tasked to supervise.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Kharon]

... his diving history ... a total of 14 dives, 9 of which were his OW and AOW checkout dives five years prior.

I'm sorry - but how can a diver with a total of 14 dives (9 of them checkout dives during courses) be considered AOW? That is such pure bushwah that it makes me want to puke.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm sorry - but how can a diver with a total of 14 dives (9 of them checkout dives during courses) be considered AOW? That is such pure bushwah that it makes me want to puke.

That there's a horse that's been flogged to death on ScubaBoard ... suffice it to say that AOW does not an advanced diver make. But that's a discussion for a different thread (or dozens of them in the past). What's relevant in this one is that a diver with a total of 14 dives just shouldn't be allowed out on a boat going to an advanced dive site in the Pacific Northwest ... or probably anywhere else in the world ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[lowviz]

...//... That's why if you're unfamiliar you hire a guide. You're not hiring them to keep you safe ... you're hiring them to provide you with the local knowledge to make a responsible decision.. ...

Now there is a fresh thought! (NO sarcasm intended)

Maybe that should be posted in the shops...

 

[gcarter]

That said, the shop also had a responsibility. All the information needed by the shop to say "no" to this guy and refuse to give him the choice to go was his diving history ... a total of 14 dives, 9 of which were his OW and AOW checkout dives five years prior. If the shop had that information, they should not have sold him the trip in the first place. The fact that they did was also an abdication of responsibility.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

They both would have been better off if they rented him a tank and sent him out on the breakwater.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

They both would have been better off if they rented him a tank and sent him out on the breakwater.

... but that wouldn't have filled a seat (or in this case two, since he hired a guide) on the boat ...

Clearly he should've been told he wasn't qualified for the trip to Race Rocks ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)