Watching a Resort Dive Class Graduate: What an experience!!!
Sep 14 '00
Recently, I made a dive trip aboard a boat with only a couple of other divers. First there was the instructor and then there was the "Student" who supposedly had completed a resort diver training program on shore and was ready for his open water experience. I am sure this person and their spouse who wanted to snorkel had great intentions for their trip. I believe they were celebrating an anniversary. I am sorry to see what should be a wonderful day turn so sour for someone.
Relevant Background:
I will preface this experience by stating the in the end everyone returned to shore alive and well. Unfortunately I am pretty sure the resort course diver will likely never attempt the sport again. In fact I doubt if they would even snorkel after his experience.
I am withholding specifics about the location of the dive and sex of the diver who had problems. I do not wish to humiliate the person as I know they felt bad enough by the end of the dive. The point of the review is to inform folks not berate someone who seems like a genuinely great person.
I am writing about this unique experience to share what was one of the worst dives I experienced in my recent past as well as to demonstrate to folks some of the dangers that resort classes can create. I do not think that every resort student or class has bad intentions, in fact many go on to take the full open water certification. Many of the resort classes are very safe and provide a brief underwater experience for folks who would otherwise miss out on diving. Ultimately it is the instructor who can really make or break this class. So on with the story!
The Dive:
I made my way to a boat that had room to add me to the dive trip after learning the boat I was to use would not be going out after all. Ok, so I started out a bit upset that I was not getting my small boat service. When I got to the other boat, I learned that I would be diving with a resort student and that person's instructor. Oh goodie, just what I wanted!!! At least I was getting to go out. 20-30 minutes later we arrived at our reef, which was relatively close in and had horrible visibility. There was one heck of a surge and the swell was 2-3' all of which made for a bad combination for the two inexperienced folks on the boat.
Somehow I managed to get geared up pretty quickly while we were bouncing on the waves heading out to the reef. I did wait until the other two divers were in the water before rolling off the side of the boat. I got over to the two divers already in the water. I signaled ready to go and hit the bottom. Yeah the bottom was really close to the surface. I then took a nap while I waited on the others to come down. Not exactly but it sure did take a really long time before they got to the bottom.
The poor student did not have the gear set up correctly and it just about floated off. The mask was flooding on this person and their teeth fell out. (Really did happen, since they were dentures.) This person got sea sick almost immediately. Apparently the instruction was too close for the first two or three blows. Eventually the student ended up on the bottom ready to explore, or so I thought. Once again the gear was sitting really high up. I swam up from the back and held the gear in the correct position while the instructor resized the straps etc. We spent the next 3-5 minutes exploring the bottom. There was not too much to see and I would not want to go back to that reef either.
So as we are going along, the student begins to float up to the surface. The student never mastered the idea that too much air in the BC means up you go. Needless to say the instructor followed this person and I followed her because the visibility was so bad that they would have gone out of site leaving me alone. At the surface this person began to blow more chow and again it was close to getting on the instructor. She was more or less watching him and not doing a lot to get him back to the boat very quickly. Time for action.
The student was so sick at this point, they could not do much of anything on their own. I wanted to get them out of the water for their own good and because I was paying for a dive that was just not happening. I decided I would use my rescue training and get this diver back to the boat 100 yards away. I decided that since the instructor was just kind of watching and talking about pushing him back but doing nothing, it was time for a tank valve tow. I dove around this person and got hold of the tank valve. This seemed to really please the instructor since the diver was almost 3 times her size.
I got my exercise that day as I towed the disappointed diver back to the boat. I then got on first while the instructor got the student on the boat. From there we proceeded to help get the diver to lay down so they would begin to feel better. This came as their spouse began to feed the fish. Shortly thereafter we moved to the next reef where the instructor and I dove together. I was glad to end that dive trip for three reasons:
Reason 1: The student was not having a good experience, which did not help make my dive any better. I do not like to see folks sick. I do not like having my dives cut really short. I still had 2000psi left after 25 minutes total bottom time on the first dive.
Reason 2: The reefs this boat chose were horrible and the water was terrible that day.
Reason 3: The instructor did not seem as comfortable in the water as I would expect from an instructor. Additionally her gear was not working properly. Her integrated weights kept falling out, which made me nervous. I did not want to see her shoot to the surface.
Conclusion:
Overall this was a unique experience. I hope to skip another experience like this one. Everyone seemed much better once back on shore. I will likely never use that dive operator again since I paid for 2 full dives and got only 2 half dives.
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Member: David
Location: Houston, Texas
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David loves outdoor activities, travel, breeding Registered Texas Longhorns.
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