Dear John,
At 11:25 AM 9/2/01 -0700, John wrote:
>OK John,
>You got to me.
>I, too, have some pet peeves for bad boat DM's.
>Because there are many DM's who can run a boat so well - most DM's we've
>seen are very good - when it's not that way - I get "groused" as well
>What can happen is that we take a nice long dive on the first dive. Then the
>DM wants to give us "great service" by switching our tanks for us. So, the
>next dive, we find we've been switched from 80's to 72's. This really
>happened on Maui last month.
Please tell us the name of the operation (I hope it wasn't Mike
Severns or Ed Robinson, but I could believe it if it were). Four years
ago, Heather, my wife, and I spent two and a half weeks on Kauai and
Hawaii, and at the time, the average two tank dive seemed to run
~$90.00. Now it seems to be around $100, about twice what you expect to
pay in Coz, so things might have changed, but in 1997 $90.00 wasn't enough
to deliver competence, or relaxing dives without time constraints from
Bubbles Below in Kauai.
Before we got there, I made phone calls and sent e-mails making
certain that we would have nitrox every day and that things were arranged
for our trip to Niihau. When we got there, however, the Bails, who own the
operation, weren't there, "They're on vacation up at Midway where the
diving's good." On that less than auspicious note, we were squired around
by an arrogant young cocksman and nitwit, who claimed to be related to a
famous female marine biologist but who seemed to have his own biological
urges fixed on the ladies on the boat and back on the island. Needless to
say, neither Heather nor I saw a bottle of nitrox all week although this
little putz managed to show up with two bottles of nitrox for himself every
day and, of course, from the first day I knew that his social life was so
important to him that we would never see Niihau on that trip. And now I
guess I've made it a certainty that I'll never see Niihau at all.
On the plus side, we saw a lot of white tipped reef sharks which I
had never seen before as well as all sorts of endemic fish which even a
close examination of John Randall's books didn't prepare me for. Also, we
were fortunate in that our DM didn't touch our gear or burden us with any
rules which, to my mind, almost made up for his negative qualities. In
all, once I got the nitrox charges off the bill and bought a "Blow them
bubbles below!" T-shirt (which I'm still too homophobic to wear), I put it
down as a positive dive experience.
The Hawaiians (native and non-native) we met on the island were
immensely charming and friendly, and we found so many excellently done
local handicrafts that we bought many more things than we had planned to
buy. Every restaurant had a better wine list than I could have asked for
on a small island in the Pacific, and we stayed in a mega-resort on
Heather's AXP miles that was like Vegas with a soul. At most of the
restaurants, the entrees weren't much, but the hors d'oeuvres, coffee,
fruit, and desserts were in almost every instance, excellent. Thinking
about it, I want to go back this winter.
On the Big Island, we dove with Jack's Dive Locker and except for
the boat driver who could have used a good purgative, the diving and DMs
were great as was everything else, except again the entrees. Especially
noteworthy was Keller Laros' pre-dive briefing before a manta dive that was
so good I found myself taking notes. Fortunately, on neither island did
the DMs try to shorten our dive time.
>We also did a little "octopus use practice." Vicky uses
>almost no air. It was no great feat to take a long dive. It's just that they
>weren't expecting it. The dolts.
:-) I've done that myself with Mary Ann, a negatively buoyant, 5'
tall, woman with thousands of dives under her belt, but not to deliberately
torment a DM "in a hurry" though I can't blame you.
>In the end, I'm paying. I'm diving. It's my trip. If I'm not doing anything
>stupid, I feel that I should be left to my own dive. From the boat's point
>of view, liability is a big issue in the states. They are worried about
>accidents and law suits. So they feel that they need to put up the most
>conservative front. Too bad.
Then again there are many dive operations in the U.S. where the
DMs don't even get in the water. For my money, the fewer people there are
on the diveboat, the better time you will have; and conversely, if their
are more than 10 people on the boat you won't have a good time unless they
are all NEDs
>In Oz, the boats were much more open. They let you do your thing, mostly. I
>think they would give suggested profiles, but if you are good diver and on
>computer, they understood that you were responsible for your own dives.
>I really liked that. I can remember only one spot where the boat people were
>really snotty. {At times, Viv refers to a certain bitchy American running a
>dive company out her way - it's that company.}
I'm still looking forward to Oz, maybe in 2003. As to Ugly
Americans, how could we have filled the world with so many and yet still
have so many here at home? When we're travelling and an American starts
acting up too much and demanding his "Constitutional rights" or mistaking a
language problem for a volume problem, a dive buddy of mine occasionally
puts on a maple leaf pin, but my nds and I are still too chauvinistic for
that. We just grit our teeth and wince -- except at the topless beaches
where sometimes I can't help getting ugly myself without even putting on
beachwear.
>Here's a new one: Solo diving is becoming popular. Most boats hate this.
>Some will accommodate it (if you have two air sources). Some won't. It
>usually comes down to a good diver not having a good buddy available. .
If you don't count a camera as a buddy, I think that almost every
time you see a camera you're looking at a solo diver. Also, I think most
DMs know this even if they don't consciously admit it, and until these new
solo certs get some cachet, I think most solo divers will remain mum about
their plans.
DPTNST,
John
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