Taveuni Fiji - Aqua-Trek Nightmare

Tim in discussions like this one it is impossible to be 'nice' to everyone and get the information that this thread holds. There is some extremely valuable information here for new and maybe not so new divers. If we were totally polite to the husband and wife and left them feeling that their complaints were valid what would be the point of this debate. The husband and wife have opened a great thread and we should be grateful for that but this is a discussion that could save someone their life and that is more important than having an upset person who feels they are in the right.

The critical point is 'what would I have done in this sitution' and I think I would have gone back to the boat with my wife and she could have informed the dive guide that we were going up. The dive guide's responsibility is to the group as a whole and if a couple have a problem they should deal with it assuming it's not an out of air or an emergency.

That's my final say on this one.

Would love to see a pinned thread of 'Life threating situations I was in' as I think that would be very useful.

regards

Ardy

I'm with you in some repects Jeremy, I think communication is the key to this scenario. We can't expect new divers to be able to understand all the non verbal stuff we use underwater. It takes a while even for people who spend a lot of time together on land to be able to read each others minds underwater. Once Tatiana was in the water on the dive, I think she did the right thing though, she did a great job of following the bubbles back down to her buddy and got back together with the group. I would have done the same thing in her place. I'd bet most of us have been seperated from the group at one time or another, you just get back together and go on. I had an interesting experience on my wife's first open water dive in Cayman many years ago. She had about 10 Califiornia dives under her belt at the time. There is a pinnacle on the west side of the island that comes up to 80 ft. from a depth of about 300 ft. It's about 40 ft. wide at the top. Our group consisted of 6 friends and the guide. On our descent I noticed one of the other divers didn't look right. The group was headed down and he was bringing up the rear at about 30'. I swam over closer and saw his eyes were rolled back in his head and he was losing it. I got him back to the surface where he came to and we got him back on the boat. He found out the hard way it's not recommended to try and drink the airplane dry then dive the next morning. My wife meanwhile was somewhere below me headed toward I knew not where. I still hold the unofficial record for descending to 80 ft. She was fine of course and was merrily enjoying the new experience, my other friends had joined up with her when they saw what I was up to. There was no way I was going to stay with the boat with my inexperienced wife somewhere below me. We have since learned to dive together and communicate much better. In her couple of thousand dives since that day we have descended together and can read each others mind. Every situation is different, we have to make the calls based on our experience and the conditions. Im not saying your wrong. I just think Tatiana did the right thing in that situation and I sincerely hope that she and her husband have many years of enjoyable dives ahead of them. Hey Tatiana, if you read this tell your husband " We need to work on our communication" we just love to hear that.

 

Steve

WOW!!!! Hi there Steve, and hello to Tatiana! (I am glad you are A-OK!) I say wow, as this post seems to really have stirred up some folks! I also say "wow", as the whole situation blows my mind... It's just that you have been diving for 12 years, and have 100 or so dives and are jumping in with a D300 at The Great White Wall-on your first dive there! Really!-that is awesome for you, but it's like being a 16 year old, driving for a week or two, and then taking an indy-car or formula 1 car for a quick spin around Laguna Seca!! What do you think is going to happen eh?....(especially with a large, empty housing..it's like having a mini lift bag on the dive with you , as all photog's know!) 100 dives-12 years...what's that, not even 10 dives a year...I'm just glad your housing and you are both in one piece!! Maybe it would be prudent to get a tad more experience before doing such a thing. I also would say that most of the underwater photographers and videographers I know look after themselves...ie solo dive. I have to agree with Steve's comments-and I don't mean to be rude as I have seen some other people be to you on this posting! We are all certified divers yes?? Please don't rely on dive staff to get you out of situations! It's like the good old signal:"I'm out of air...can I share please?" we all learnt or have taught to our students....lovely in practice, but I can almost GUARANTEE that when push comes to shove, a panicked out of air diver will simply rip your primary straight out of your mouth!!(and knock off your mask in the same frenzied action),leaving you to quick draw your octopus or pony.... Anyway-it is not very nice for that divemaster to be rude to you!! (But as you do more dives with photog's you will see that some can be VERY snappy about their super expensive rigs, especially to what they percieve as lowly DM's...those photog's give us all a bad rep!!... and often alienate the DM's.. to the unfortunate result that they believe we are all arrogant jerks with bags of money while they earn a hand to mouth existence!) Keep on firing and getting wet!!!! Good luck and happy hunting of the critters!!

Chillidog

I have had 2 so called buddies run out of air, one was supposed to be on the way to the surface up the anchor line. We had said goodbye sometime before, and I was unhooking the anchor that was caught. The biggest issue is trying to calm them down, they literally suck up huge amounts of air. In this situation I was left very short for any kind of safety stop from a 28m dive so I had to retrieve my occy without warning and send him on his way from 5m. I know this sounds harsh but I figure I had got him up from 28m I was not going to risk an injury to myself because he was stupid. The other was a female and she was very apologetic and polite, the guy just complained about me not taking him to the surface.

The other thing I noticed is that both of them wouldnt try their own regs on the way up and I found this very annoying as it was my limited air they were breathing.

These experiences and a few others are the reason I treat buddies I dont know like a bomb that can explode at any time. DM's also seem to buddy you up with newbies if they think you might know what you are doing, which increases the risk profile.

Solo diving or with another experienced photographer is the only way to go.

WOW!!!! Hi there Steve, and hello to Tatiana! (I am glad you are A-OK!) I say wow, as this post seems to really have stirred up some folks! I also say "wow", as the whole situation blows my mind... It's just that you have been diving for 12 years, and have 100 or so dives and are jumping in with a D300 at The Great White Wall-on your first dive there! Really!-that is awesome for you, but it's like being a 16 year old, driving for a week or two, and then taking an indy-car or formula 1 car for a quick spin around Laguna Seca!! What do you think is going to happen eh?....(especially with a large, empty housing..it's like having a mini lift bag on the dive with you , as all photog's know!) 100 dives-12 years...what's that, not even 10 dives a year...I'm just glad your housing and you are both in one piece!! Maybe it would be prudent to get a tad more experience before doing such a thing. I also would say that most of the underwater photographers and videographers I know look after themselves...ie solo dive. I have to agree with Steve's comments-and I don't mean to be rude as I have seen some other people be to you on this posting! We are all certified divers yes?? Please don't rely on dive staff to get you out of situations! It's like the good old signal:"I'm out of air...can I share please?" we all learnt or have taught to our students....lovely in practice, but I can almost GUARANTEE that when push comes to shove, a panicked out of air diver will simply rip your primary straight out of your mouth!!(and knock off your mask in the same frenzied action),leaving you to quick draw your octopus or pony.... Anyway-it is not very nice for that divemaster to be rude to you!! (But as you do more dives with photog's you will see that some can be VERY snappy about their super expensive rigs, especially to what they percieve as lowly DM's...those photog's give us all a bad rep!!... and often alienate the DM's.. to the unfortunate result that they believe we are all arrogant jerks with bags of money while they earn a hand to mouth existence!) Keep on firing and getting wet!!!! Good luck and happy hunting of the critters!!

Hi Chillidog,

You are right, pretty funny... really good point you have going there.

I stopped diving for many years after my first 12 dives (aprox) and then almost forgot about it. I got a refresher about 3 years ago and in the last two years I have accrued 110 dives plus the ones that I never logged. I know I am not very experienced by any means but I survived, didn't freak out, made proper ascending, and showed navigation skills to find my group, if anything I am quite surprised to how well I handled myself.

Me and my husband got professional underwater camera equipment because I fell in love with it using a small camera, I've dove with underwater photographers a couple of times before and it wasn't such a nice experience.

Too bad the dive master is not on this thread so I can express my opinion directly to her...I only wish she would have talked, explained her reasoning, and TELL the boat captain I was lost!

Thanks for your comments chillidog, here is the link to my pics ever since this incident, i hope someone likes at least one or two: tscher photos

all the gear, no idea. springs to mind.

 

100 dives in 10 years, i would not call that experienced. what kind of dives were the 100. were they adrenalin challenging current dives. it doesnt sound like it.

 

the person here that i would put at fault would be the female diver. not the guide. she should not have gone back down after getting to the surface. ok she might have seen bubbles from the a distance, but to try and fight a current and catch up is not the thing to have done. i might be mistaken but i do not recall hearing that the 3 other divers that were left on their own made any complaints of being left to themselves. perhaps they were experienced divers and didnt even notice that you had gone awol. i for one would have been pretty pi$$ed if the dive was aborted due to the facts that you have written.

 

the main thing is you are both here to tell the story.

Your harsh answer hardly warrants a response.

after many years of not diving i got a refresher about 3 years ago and accrued 110 dives over the last 2 years.

If you had read better you would see I explained the reasons for our disappointment and the fact that other divers (who were somewhat inexperienced) felt quite uncomfortable with the DM as well.

You weren't there, still you seem quite quick to judge me. Thanks but no thanks.

Tatiana,

 

I don't and didn't intend to pick a fight ... but I'd like to make a couple points since you seem to want to keep this going ...

 

I found it a bit unkind to trash someone on a public forum without the opportunity for that individual to respond ... so I took the divemaster's side to give her a voice.

 

In my opinion, you still don't seem to be taking much responsibility for what happened. You and your decisions played a HUGE role in this fortunately harmless episode of underwater confusion.

 

I'm glad you are ok ... really ... but I think you need to examine your own contribution to this incident more closely.

 

Best,

Jeremy

Jeremy,

I don't want to pick a fight either, I know I must have come across a bit harsh but I was frustrated because I've explained the same things over and over again.

We learned a lot from that dive and the mistakes that we made won't be repeated...if we don't feel comfortable with the crew then we won't dive with them, if they don't want to answer our questions then they don't want our business.

Overall I won't ever take new equipment without checking the current myself and making a buoyancy test prior to the dive. As far as my decisions after I got lost, I consider I handled myself pretty well given how scared I felt.

regards,

Tatiana

This is fruitless,

I appreciate all comments and criticism, but honestly only me and the divers that were abandoned by the DM at the end of the Dive know how it felt like to be with such an unprofessional team.

My husband and I learned a valuable lesson from this. Having dove 30+ dives since the incident we are still convinced that this DM should not be guiding groups with that attitude.

We were not the only ones who seemed to have a traumatic experience. A few days later another gentleman told us he was in distress and was the dive guide actually pulled him down while he was having trouble clearing his ears. That was what he stated and we believe he also spoke to the manager of the dive shop but we weren't there to witness it.

The manager of the dive shop was kind enough to give us the DM's certification number and complete name which she had denied to giving to my husband when he directly asked her. She also refused to show her certification card as we honestly didn't believe that she was a certified DM.

All we wanted to achieve with this thread was to share an unpleasant experience that we do not want anyone else to go through.

More pictures, less chatter,

Tscher