AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Chat Area editing

Glad he went, maybe he'll meet up we Marty...

C....

Don't know why you are being so closed minded about a diving thread. Uhm, excuse me, but as people so often say, people don't come to AC for the beaches.... they come for the diving. Speak for yourself, but I don't think you have the right to speak for me or anyone else who IS interested in diving. I for one have never been diving, and would definitely take in all the information I can, from facts to experiences, such as Tammy's. I am just that way. I studied this board, the site, the local newspapers BEFORE I decided I wanted to visit AC/Belize. Without the information contained in these sources, I probably would have gone on to another country. If you aren't interested, then find a thread that suits you. You aren't forced to read these posts......Didn't either you or Rick mention in another post the greatness of diversity????!!! That applies to this situation also. Go off on me all you want; this isn't meant to offend, but to remind you of the fact that we all have different interests, and.... how ironic that it all starts with paradise!!!!

Mossbank is correct.

PADI has always been vague at best about the maximum depths for divers. The only thing they are very firm on is that "Recreational diving be limited to 130ft."

Open Water divers (when you press PADI on the subject) are allowed to a maximum of 130ft under "professional supervision" which would mean divemaster or senior.

Now, Florian, how do YOU justify Open Water divers not diving the Blue Hole if they have proper supervision despite the fact that this is NOT PADI'S policy? Fact is, PADI, is a profit organisation. They WILL NOT state in unambiguous terms that Open Water divers are not allowed to dive beyond 60ft under proper supervision. This would mean that Open Water divers would miss half of the best dive areas in the world. They WILL state that if two or more Open Water divers are diving together as a buddy team or pair and they are familiar with the site, they can dive unsupervised to the 60ft max, but no more as they do not have professional supervision. But, outside of the local dive club, how many Open Water divers dive as buddy pairs with no supervision?

And, 60ft maximum for Open Water divers off Ambergris Caye??? That would limit them to Hol Chan Marine Park....how ridiculous!!

If the Blue Hole was limited to Advanced divers (and PADI only "trains" these to 100ft) then the price would have to be quadrupled to justify the boat trip out there...there would simply not be enough so-called "qualified" divers to do the dive. And, if you were to limit the dive to 100ft for Advanced divers (bear in mind this is the MAXIMUM depth that they dive during their course), there would be bugger all to see at that depth in the Blue Hole.

Of course, Florian or bywarren, you might be a couple of those special divers that would be willing to pay $500.00US for a day trip to the Blue Hole, which is what you would have to pay for the trip if only Advanced divers or above could do the dive.

Of course, this would be nonsense. The boats would never move, no-one would get to do the dive because no-one would be willing to pay.

In any case, using the dive card as a measure of someone's diving skills is also sometimes not a very good barometer of actual diving ability. I have refused to deep dive the odd Advanced or Rescue diver for being an absolutely horrible diver, and have welcomed with open arms Open Water divers who have proved to me on shallower dives (and with carefully maintained log books) that they have the experience and skills to handle the deeper dives.

Now......as to apportioning blame for dive accidents/incidents.....how do you stop divers from giving false medical
information on their dive applications/releases? When I was in the
dive business I lost count of the number of people who
"forgot" to put down small details such as a history of heart
problems, high blood pressure, active asthma etc.


I lost count of the number of certified divers who were on
lithium and prozac and any number of other powerful
prescription drugs but wouldn't admit it until pressed.


I lost count of the number of grossly obese certified
divers who walked in to my shop and showed their dive card
and expected to dive even though they were clearly not "fit
to dive."....and some of these divers had Advanced cards or greater.


I lost count of the number of divers who falsified their
diving experience on their dive applications and were only
found out through careful verbal questioning.


I lost count of the number of divers who I refused to dive
because of all or any of the above.


And yet, who knows how many good liars I let slip through
my vetting procedure that got to dive that I would not have
allowed had I known the truth?

I also lost count of the number of divers who thought they
were too experienced to dive with the dive group and refused
follow the dive profile once they were in the water.


In my years in the dive industry I never had a diving
death, but that was pure luck. Had I stayed in the business
I am quite sure my luck would not have held out. I had
quite a few divers that I admitted to the Hyperbaric
Chamber, and I would say about 60% of those omitted
important medical information from their dive applications
that would probably have saved the chamber staff the bother
of having to prevent a needless death.

The point is, no one is going to be able stop people from partaking in the sport,
including people who clearly would have difficulty
breathing let alone diving. It's human nature to challenge
authority, to buck the system, to defy the rules. It's no
good blaming JUST the diving professionals who stress
themselves out every day trying to balance a good guided
tour with safety safety safety. The individual has to take
responsibility for choosing to dive in the first place, and
he or she had better be fit for it or be prepared to take
the consequences.

Mossbank, you were bang on on everything you said, let me know when you're ready to have your computer serviced again!!

Dian....sweetie, i'm VERY opened minded! With the bad weather coming in i figured we diodn't have room to start ANOTHER section....ya'll can talk and argue the diving topic right here....or just start another thread....lighten up....geez! It's Sunday....take a rest thanks for the laugh though...my feathers are hard to ruffle, not to worry,

[This message has been edited by rickcheri (edited 08-19-2001).]

Chris-

That's what I was trying to say earlier, but you said it much better than I could have because you have the experience running a dive shop and that gives you the credibility that I seem to be lacking. Your post was much more eloquent. Hopefully some people will see themselves in your descriptions.

I was tempted to rip this thread also, but since it keeps popping up, I'll be glad to leave it if people want it.

We sure got some weird characters out there.

I agree with mossback once again.
We agree, Chris has made our point very eloquently. We are all fortunate that their are dive operators willing to take divers on dives that exceed their abilities so they do not have to charge the rest of us $500 per dive. The industry would not survive and there would be too few new divers entering the sport knowing that no one was there to take them on dives that introduce them to the joys of the decompression chamber.

Sigh . . . isn't that what I've been trying to say? Perhaps I haven't been clear enough.

It is the individual divers' responsibility to dive within the parameters of their own training and experience.

While the OW guidelines are 60', that would be quite ridiculous for an experienced OW diver. It would not be an unreasonable expectation for a *responsible* novice.

At this point I do acknowledge that most of the good SP reef dives are around 70-80'. (let us not get into the depth I dive them) Regardless, a novice diver should be paying attention to the guidelines and conducting themselves accordingly.

My travel plans permit me from continuing in this discussion, but after sleeping on it, I would like to leave with some serious as opposed to my sometimes sarcastis remarks. We are dealing with the facts that diving accidents happen in our sport. The current events started this discussion. Many of us are very familiar with the Blue Hole dive and the practices used. I think that makes it a good example to use to try and promote better diving safety. Thankfully, God does not stay as busy as he could. His acts cause some of these accidents, but many are caused by the actions of humans. We have some control over this. Both as individual divers and as dive professionals. I wish this discussion could continue with attitudes like barefoot candidly expressed in the threads that got deleted. The attitude that maybe some changes could be beneficial and are in need. As opposed to the attitudes, shit happens, he has a c card, he lied on his waiver, its either all the divers responsibility here or its all the dive operators, it has to be one or the other. Let this forum not be used in an "us againts them, circle the wagons, stick our heads in the sand" mentality, trying to figure out how far we can bend guidlines trying to justify the status quo. Let's be just us's here and collectivly and candidly do some serious self analisis and questioning. Everything can be improved on. This is difficult here because it is so personal to many of us. Both as those who dive for recreation and those who make their living off of it. But we are all in it together. The last thing I want is for all of us to be sitting at the bar talking about how much fun diving the Blue Hole used to be until the government decided we were screwing up too much and closed it. Maybe a far stretch at this point, but think about it guy's and gal's. Go forward and keep trying and if some of us have to "wear the shoe (fin) that fits, so be it. And when you recall many of my past sarcastic remarks, please believe me they were made with good intentions to try and stimulate debate, even if heated debate, and in no way were ment to offend any of you.

PS: Florian, sorry they are just going to have you to kick around now. But, if you ever come back diving in Belize, don't worry about having to spend the big bucks diving. You and I will go out diving on my boat "BAD HABITS".

I just couldn't leave without one last sarcastic remark, but that is the real name of my boat.

[This message has been edited by bywarren (edited 08-20-2001).]

[This message has been edited by bywarren (edited 08-20-2001).]

Thanks,

I agree with what you say, actually you've said it better then I in some ways. It's a team thing, diver, dive buddy and divemaster. I'm not leaving the 'diver' part out, and folks, the courts, US and Belizean, are not going to let businessman leave the 'divemaster' part out.

I think good safety practices would be financialy benifical to AC. Fewer lawsuits, lower business liability insurance, more customers. Didn't like the Cosmo article? Stick around. Who the hell knows where stories about the recent tragety will end up, but I'll bet the authors are a lot less kind to AC then I.

I've said my piece. It started to feel like I'm preaching some time agon, and I don't like it. If I say anymore I'll be repeting myself.

I'm quite certain that I can document my postition and have spoken from a point of view of having spent years cleaning up the mess when folks make errors in judgement.

I hope you enjoy your travels, and have a safe return. I would enjoy meeting you and your boat, just as long as we don't go to the Blue Hole. Knowing there are five bodies in there makes it to me not a divesite but a graveyard. I don't want to dive there anymore. Bout a zillion other places I do want to dive though.

[This message has been edited by Florian (edited 08-20-2001).]

I'm thinking that you may have been misunderstanding me all along. I'm not saying that *no one* except the diver has any responsibility. I'm saying that the diver is ultimately responsible for themselves. The diver should be able to make the right determinations of whether they can do a certain dive or not.

That said, I believe that dive operators should be doing what is necessary to ensure that they are not taking novice divers to dive sites that are beyond the diver's abilities. This is just good common sense and is in the best interest of the novice diver, the other divers on the dive and the dive operator.