Mark, you are absolutely correct. There was a divemaster on board the 
Duane dive who was solo diving, and made sure everyone on the boat knew 
what hot shit he was.

On the same dive, a man and his son were doing their nitrox certification 
dive. They came up with 150 and 200 psi in their tanks, their instroketer 
was saying on the boat "boy, it's a good thing I had my pony and spair 
air, or there could have been real trouble". Yes, he actually had a 30 
pony AND a very beat up spare air dangling off his BC.

Two others came up the wrong upline (we were at the stern line, they came 
up the bow) and we had to go pick them up. How you could confuse the bow 
and stern of an intact, upright wreck in gin-clear water is beyond me. Or 
could it be that their crappy training made them unable to guage their 
gas usage, freak out and go up whatever line that happened along?

on 4/23/97 7:41 PM MRW Consulting wrote:

>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

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