The Ugly photographer

Marjo you could always take a night time walk down the guys dive gear and rub a chili around his mouth piece of both his 2nd stages. That might keep him occupied for a dive or two !!!!!!

Punch him, Poke him, remove the bottom, flip it with your fins and you will see that he is going to be the one who avoid you the next dive. Even better take some pictures of what he is doing and publish it.. that´s a career draw back....

Marjo you could always take a night time walk down the guys dive gear and rub a chili around his mouth piece of both his 2nd stages. That might keep him occupied for a dive or two !!!!!!

When temperature permits gloves should be banned as it clearly incourages the holding of coral.

I do agree with that in most cases, and I'm not trying to change the topic of this thread, but wearing gloves isn't quite that black and white. Perhaps "discouraged" might be a better word than "banned".

There are some people, like me who are hyper-sensitive to everything underwater, to the point of having to carry an EpiPen and other meds just in case. This includes tiny little floating things NOT attached to the reefs. I can't even touch sand in some places! In places where there are a lot of small jellyfish or hydroids, its a nightmare when I'm told that absolutely, under no circumstances can I wear gloves. Most the places I dive with already know me, know how I dive, and know I'm not asking because I want to grab things, so its not a problem. For new places I do respect their rule, but its a painful lesson to spend my whole trip with swollen, blistering hands and wrists before the dive op realizes that they may need to make some exceptions.

Marjo you could always take a night time walk down the guys dive gear and rub a chili around his mouth piece of both his 2nd stages. That might keep him occupied for a dive or two !!!!!!

Nah, that would just make it tasty. Try Vegemite instead!

Unless he/she's an Aussie. They like that stuff.

I'm afraid Marjo.. that your described "ugly photographer" is all too common...

Your story brings back bad memories of a guy my wife and I met a year ago while diving in Cayman Brac. This one particular guy we ended up calling him "Alpha Male" because of his loud, pompus, ego centric, "look at me", hey "I've been here several times so I'm damn near a local" type of attitude.

Every day I dreaded being on the same boat, as he was having fun making fun of my "old film" camera, and my older (and in my experience more experienced) dive gear. And of course, after one dive he "apologized" to me for cutting me off and barging into the way when trying to photograph a turtle. He claimed he'd been trying to get that shot for years.... (we'll so have I).

This guys wasnt so much eco-unfriendly.. as he was obnoxious.

I just look at such folks.. smile... laugh a little laugh.. and try to ignore such folks. If I see em underwater.. now I swim the other way. Perhaps I need to more often tell these types to mind their own business and leave me alone. I come on these dive trips to enjoy the underwater world and not to listen to them.

We've had the luck of having one "Know-it-All" on about 5 of our liveaboard trips ( not the same guy, just the same ego). The last one, the whole boat nicknamed "Charles in Charge".

Bonnie, I asked my Dr. to write me a note instructing that I must wear gloves while diving. My hands break out in oozing welts just whiffing the stuff down there. The Dr didn't know what I was talking about, but he wrote the note anyway, and it has worked so far.

Fletcher

did you get any shots of him, are yu going to say who he is ?

You could always do the TV anonymity thing and blur his face out if you don't want to "out" him publicly, but do want to show a picture of what NOT to do.

Last trip to Indonesia we had a guy in his fifties that was very nice but also a bad diver in a way that harmed the reef continuously. I noticed it but Luisa told me not to say anything because he was not going to change AND we had to be in the same liveaboard for two weeks...

One day I saw him taking pictures of a "nemo" while kicking continuously a bunch of softcorals so I could not resist and tried to hold his fins but I arrived late and a soft coral of around a foot was torn of the reef... He was still shooting at nemo and had not even noticed...I took the poor softcoral, interrupted the guy and gave it to him while signaling his fins and left.

Later on the boat he was mad at me saying stupid arguments like "don´t do that to me again" "don´t interrupt me while I am taking pictures"... but that´s fine with me and later on he apologized saying that he understood what I was trying to do.

These situations are never nice and noone likes to be told that he is doing wrong, less still admit it.