Your advice is requested

Hi reef life enthusiasts.

As I was discussing with friends on what they like and dislike when diving on reefs, I noticed that the experiences people had was very diverse and not necessarily related to experience/certification level. Some even stopped diving or dive a lot less because of these issues.

I purposely won't tell you what they said at this point because I want to avoid putting you on any track (I'm looking for diversity to find patterns).

I'm doing a little research to see if there is a common problem that needs solving. My question is the following:
When it comes to observing reef fish, what is the single biggest frustration or problem you've been struggling with?
Please use the following page to answer that simple question, anonymously if you want.
{{(ngMeta.title)? ngMeta.title : 'Bucket.io'}}

I'm not selling anything and will let this thread know of the overall results so we could reflect on the practices and challenges we face as a community. Hopefully, this will lead to initiatives.

Thanks!

 

I took your survey. Your post is misleading and it's a waste of time for you and me. My "frustration" as you ask me to define it, which probably echos the thoughts of many divers, has absolutely nothing to do with the product you are considering developing and marketing (despite the fact that you clearly and hypocritically state you are not selling anything).

 

Mine is believing the smoke blown out the butt of the destination, both as seen on their website (my gosh, the masses of big fish the videos show) and also by direct communication with the owner, and then finding few fish, very little diversity, virtually no adult fish, poor visibility, the promise that "this is the best place in the world to dive with X" and finding that you have no chance of seeing X. It's especially frustrating when you buy a package for 3K+ and pay about 1K for airfare for a week of being ripped off.

 

I'm sorry you really felt that way. The ideas I've had as a test were really to find out if there were any educational materials people wanted. These are not actual products at all and I do not own any of these nor am trying to market those.
I apologize if you felt like this was a waste of time. Nevertheless, I'm have great answers that are really different than expected.

 

Thanks. That's exactly the type of answers I'm looking for. I'll look and if it's not in my spreadsheet, I'll add it manually.
Regards.

 

(Sorry, I didn't see that forum before, I would have located there in the first place. Last thing I wanted is to make people angry.
Thanks for moving it to the right place.)

 

Alright. Results are in. Thanks for those who did not send me f.u.'s. I'm really looking to address issues by finding a useful service or product.

The most important issues seem to be around:
1) knowledge of what and where to look
2) groups speeding, doing mileage more than time of observation
3) groups being too large, boats being too crowded, poor DM behaviour/service
4) technical knowledge (depth control, buoyancy, wildlife respect)
5) decay in the reef life abundance and quality

While discussing with some niche diving operators, I found that these some of these issues (at least #1-2-3) were mainly addressed by proper staff training and quality assurance.

There you go. May this information help some of you.

 

No new information here.

 

Obviously... That was a survey and I promised to provide the feedback to this thread.
Let me know if you think I missed anything.

I believe that stating a problem is the first step in solving it. The idea is not to complain or be cynic, but to act.