dominican.not a good dive

[divefunscuba]

Hi Rob,

You are right to raise this.  I have dived in the Dom Rep and found the instructor top class.

Although this was an OW course it ws run well and the instructor took additional time to get my then girlfriend through the mask removal.

This sort of thing is not restricted to the Dom Rep.  Some time after my OW, I had done some 280 or so dives I went out on a day boat out of Hurghada.

Our Dive guide had only two other divers on this dive and he had told us that this would be a special dive.

For some reason I thought that I would upgrade to a 15l tank from my usuall 12l.

The dive brief was very poor with little detail.  We all jumped in and went down 10m or so then continued down.

We reached 30m and again the guide gestured that we decend further.   We continued down and when we reached 40 m and again he indicated that we continue down.

I looked at the other diver and advised him that I would be remaining at 40 and not going any deeper.

I also indicated that the dive guide was a wa**** We watched as he continued down I would guess that he stopped around 60 or 65m.

What makes this worse is that he was diving without a computer or pony and had only a 12l tank.   At the end of the day STAY within your limits.  I was happy to go to 40 as I had dived in various conditions both in the UK and overseas.

I would dread to think what would have happened if the group was larger or someone with less experiance had followed the guide down.

When we returned to the boat.  There was a rather heated discussion about safe diving.  

The bottom line is you get good and bad guides all over the world.  If anything my lesson is that I should have reported this guy to the Dive Centre and to PADI.

It turned out that the reason that it was a "special Dive" was that it ws his 21st Birthday.

[rob34]

<font color='#810541'>Hi victorian dad,

the safety stop went ok cus when i got down to 30m, i insisted the guide give me a couple of blocks off of his belt, &quot;delegation&quot; i think it`s called, i made it his problem!!! &nbsp;

divefunscuba,
MY GOD!!! He`s lucky it wasn`t his last birthday!!! I think i`d have freaked if my guide had tried that aswell!!

Dive safe all
Rob

[DIVE BUDDHA]

[/quote]We reached 30m and again the guide gestured that we decend further. &nbsp; We continued down and when we reached 40 m and again he indicated that we continue down.

I looked at the other diver and advised him that I would be remaining at 40 and not going any deeper.[quote]i think at this point a few hand gestures may have been made for example u r a wa***r!!!!!! i hope these kinds of practises are few and far between they sound like a real cowboy outfit? i can tell ya !!! the last thing p.a.d.i need ,is people flying there flag and taking stupid unnesacary risks with clients stuff like that just gives them a bad name ,i know that i would have been on to bristol as soon as i got home if i had been abroad and had a bad experience with a dive school or dive operation best wishes as always dive safe and never take unessacary risks (leigh) &nbsp;

[Mark Chase]

Hi Rob

Scary stuff, glad it ended up OK. Dive guide was an asshole taking you down to 30m aftr you had had trouble getting down. Only two reasions for that problem either &nbsp;inexperianced diver or underweight diver both reasions are strong enough to sugest to an experianced guide that the dive should be A paused untill the problem is sorted or B kept well within safe limits.

30m is plenty deep enough for narcosis to kick in and stress and heavy breathing can triger serious narcosis so going that deep was high risk. I have never gone diving in strange sea or strange kit without a proper weight check first and I would insist upon it next time you travel and dive. Nobody wants to apear a fool or be a PITA but sod them. Diving is a dangerous sport and hurting your self over a silly thing like being underweighted or going deeper than you are comfortable with is just not worth it.

Dive safe and if that meens being a PITA for the dive guide then so be it.

ATB

Mark Chase

[victorian_dad]

(Dons flame retardant clothing)
Can people please start taking a bit of responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming other people.I'm sorry but after 16 dives you should have some idea of how much weight you need , and I've done less than 280 dives but I don't go on a dive with either knowing how deep the bottom is or having a planned depth limit.Please stop treating dive guides like your mother and learn to look after yourselves.
Bring on the flamethrowers !

[Noel Johnson]

Hang on a minute V.Dad, it was Rob's first dive in the country and after 16 dives I knew what I needed in the UK weightwise but I didn't know what I'd need in the Red Sea due to the salinity of the water, changes in kit etcetera. I changed to a dry suit at around 50 dives and this enforced more changes.

Rob, by his own admission, didn't feel comfortable before, during or after the dive due to the lack of briefing and being yanked down below the surface as he was about to ask for more weight - I fail to see how he could be responsible for that.

[rob34]

<font color='#810541'>V.dad &nbsp;
i`m more than happy to take responsibility for my own actions...or `non` actions,i expected to be able to carry out a weight check because the only kit i was using which was mine was...suit,fins,mask and computer, due to poor weight limit on flight and the fact i was on holiday for 2 weeks (more clothing req`d) i thought i`d be ok using their kit.

There has been some discusssion on various threads about the difference salinity makes to your bouyancy...something i had no experience, therefore no opinion on...until this dive. It is bloody salty there.....something i didn`t find out till i`d jumped in!!!!! This and the different characteristics of the kit i was using req`d more weight which i` `am` used to.

The fact i ended up doing the dive before i could get more weight passed to me from the boat WAS my fault at the end of the day!!!!

On the second dive i went in with 8 lb more than i would normally require, the guide only wanted to give me 4lb, but i had to insist strongly, so he gave me the second block, this left me perfectly weighted, as i thought it would.

I started this thread to find out if these were poor safety standards, in comparison to experiences other people had had on their foreign holidays, or for that matter domestic holidays.

I have my answer to this query, both on the responses i have recieved via the thread, and also by PM, thanks again to all those concerned

Rob