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It is a shame that so many operators have virtually no clue what more experienced divers like. I dive solo even when I'm with the group I dive with. And when you wind up on one of those boats with the 45 minute PADI lecture and then you see the boats "elite" doing what you are "not allowed" to do you think real hard about which boat you won't use next time. I understand the liability part, and it is obvious to many that the majority of divers are a hazard on the larger boats. But if you can show the boat staff that you are fairly competent it would be nice if they left you alone to do the dive you paid for. The best part is after the captain has spent the better part of a day making an example out of the dangerous diver you are he will often sheepishly ask if you could just pull the hook on your way back up because his mate just had a near death experience trying to do his dive on his pony and you happen to be the only one on the boat who is competent in the water. And how often do you see these same people who preach to you dive alone or doing something else that they told you earlier was verbotten? If you want to get a real vacation dive experience, tell them you're from the North East and they'll frisk you for sledgehammers and crowbars. Mark ---------- From: Jim Cobb To: MWelzel; MRW; Tech Diver; Wreckdiver List; DC Scuba Subject: Stroking out in the Keys Date: Tuesday, April 22, 1997 10:40PM Having some fun on vaca down here in the Florida keys. Planned on renting a boat and doing some wreck diving but my partner in crime caught pneumonia, but what better place to recoup,huh? At any rate I was forced to get on local tourist barges to get to the wrecks. What I had in mind was to do some penetrations and some mild deco, big no-no's with the local cattle trucks. So what do you do? Lie like hell and involve innocent bystanders. On the first dive on the Eagle I enlisted the help of a husband and wife team sitting next to me. After listing to the stern remonstrations against such wild and crazy ideas such as diving solo, penetration and deco I asked these guys if I could "buddy up" with them and mentioned that, by the way, after we hopped in the water it was likely the next time they would see me would be when we got back on the boat. All went well, I went to the interior of the Eagle and marveled at doing a wreck dive and actually seeing more than just 10-15 ft. in front of me. What a fine dive, boat sits on it's side and is completely intact. When I got back up to the boat, the dive master looked at my AUL and all the dirt and rust streaking my tank and wetsuit and asked "WERESYOURDIVEBUDDYANDYOUWERENTINTHEWRECKWEREYOU?" I pointed at the nice couple and said, "those guys, and gosh no, I would never think of doing something so insidious and patently dangerous as penetrating a gosh darn wreck". He mumbled something about a lying sack of shit and went off to tend to other divers. Second dive on the Duane (today). Of course I got the same shpeal from the captain of this boat, and he looked at my 120 with the H valve, backplate and wings, and the giant AUL light, and singled me out as a trouble-maker from getgo. The damn boat did not even have a fin ladder, just a platform a couple of inches in the water. I sat down on the deck and he tried to help me into my rig, but the long hose had him completely befuddled. After lecturing about what a pain in the ass "technical dive rigs" were, he suddenly stopped and said, "Hey, wheres your dive buddy??". I pointed to the guy (whoever he was) sitting next to me donning his gear "er, him?" The guy looked confused and said, no, he had someone else as his buddy. At this point my cover was blown so I said "Look, I want to do some penetration and decom and am the only person on this boat setup to do this, how 'bout it skipper?" The poor guy turned red and started spluttering about "absolutely not, you must have a buddy blah blah, etc." The boat was loaded and people were stacking up behind me and the scene was getting ugly, the skipper started to weaken "er, uh, well, er, I suppose if I get the dive master (a beautiful stacked blond bombshell, well, maybe I will do this buddy thing, heh heh) to keep an eye on you (yeah, right, snubbed again, must have been his ol lady). This sounded like implied consent to me, so over the side I went. Well, it was a terrific dive. Fantastic. I don't know what everyone is so uptight about, the wreck is dummy-proofed with only the upper decks available for entry, the rest is welded off. Had a great time exploring all the cabins and other areas, the fish life on these wrecks is super. Made my mouth drool, if only I had a (horror of horrors) speargun! I would have loved to have seen the look on the skippers face as I plopped a stringer of grouper onto the dive platform. In the skippers favor, he did not give me a hard time about the dive. Did a shallow dive at molasses reef after with (gasp!) no safe second as the 80 I rented did not have a H valve. What a sad fucking diver I am. Look. Whats the first thing these damn cattle boats make you do when you sign up for a dive? Sign a fucking fine print disclaimer which absolves them of all blame and guilt for whatever might happen to your ass during the dive and for 10 years thereafter. Why do they have to freak out over a solo diver who wants to do his own thing? They all sing from the same psalm book, verbatim. The only thing I can figure out is that this guarantees 2,4,6 or 8 divers instead of 1,2,3 or 4. This BS about solo diving is a bunch of crap which I hated going through. In my case it is going to hurt these operations and increase business for the boat rental companies, as that is where I will head in the future (pneumonia or not). Signing off from the Keys- Jim
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