- Messages
- 93,466
- Reaction score
- 91,830
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
I show a pretty high level card always. I have never had a situation where I was asked to take care of a new diver, although I honestly did volunteer to do it recently completely on my own. It was a pretty basic dive, and doing it added to my fun. In general, dive operators want me to be happy so that I will come back and recommend them to others. By showing a high card, I get the following benefits:
A few years ago I was diving with Jack's Fish Locker in Kona, Hawai'i, and the boat had enough divers to break us into three groups, each with a DM. When our group got together, we were told we had an intern DM being broken in and getting to know the sites. We were told that we all had more dives than the intern DM, and we should just enjoy ourselves as we wished and stay reasonably close to him. We had a marvelous dive. The other two groups were pretty much all OW divers, and they were led by DMs on very basic dives befitting that certification level. I wonder if any of those divers were actually instructors smugly proud of having fooled the operator into thinking they were only OW divers.
- On a dive where a DM is required, they don't watch me like a hawk, and I get a lot of latitude in what I do. I can even get out of sight of the DM who knows I'll be OK.
- I get to have very nice and sometimes very informative collegial conversations with the professionals in the operation.
- When the dive operators break people into groups by ability, I get put with the highest ability groups doing the most advanced dives. One year in Cozumel I checked in with a dive operator who has multiple boats with groups divided by ability. I waited on the pier the next morning to be picked up. When the boat came, the people on it said "We're going to Maracaibo--you OK with that?" Of course I was OK with going to one of the most advanced sites on the island for my first dive. What group would I have been with and where would we have gone had I only shown my OW card?
- I generally get treated by the crews and the shop leadership like I am a professional, and I appreciate it.
I really liked how they did it with B&B. We got in the water as a group ... the whole boat and three DM's. After about 10 minutes, the DM's asked how much air you had. They then "shuffled" people in three groups, depending on your air consumption, and each group went their own way for the rest of the dive.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)