8/15/2006 - New Divers vs Good Divers
A friend of mine recently learnt to dive. As she lives overseas (in the US of A), I can't dive with her, and to be honest, I've never dived with her. She's the type of person though, who likes doing things properly and thoroughly, and even though it's cold and miserable at the moment she signs up "fairly frequently" on group trips to some quarries which get dived regularly by her local dive shop (bearing in mind it's a few hours worth of travel between the sites and her home).
Anyway, the point of this post. This friend of mine, who we'll call Mary, is a new diver. She's logged all of 18 dives now, including what she refers to as her four "checkout" dives, so in the grand scheme of things, she's not very experienced at all. That said, by the sounds of it she sounds pretty conscientious and very well trained. She cares about her fin placement and profile, and talks to me about things that I normally wouldn't expect a new OW student to really be thinking about yet...
Despite her obvious attention to detail and dedication to being a good diver, her physical experience is obviously still developing. A few weekends ago, on her second trip to the quarries with her local store, she had a fairly bad experience. She was buddied with a "more experienced diver" (who had about 50 logged dives.. again, not really that experienced) and left to her own devices. The girl Mary was buddied with, and the rest of the group, all dropped straight down at the quarry and didn't consider that as a new diver, Mary likes to take things slow and careful to make sure she's comfortable and doing everything right.
As a result of this very fast, plummeting descent, Mary couldn't equalise, and to avoid her buddy disappearing into the murky depths of the quarry without her, she kept going despite her equalisation problems. Thankfully, Mary didn't cause any physical damage to her ears by doing this, however she was completely uncomfortable and signalled to her buddy (when she finally caught up) to surface. The buddy was apparently very annoyed, which Mary could see quite clearly on her face during their ascent) and then basically abandoned Mary on the surface to continue her dive.
To give Mary's buddy a bit of a defense - she is also a fairly new diver, and given she also paid for this dive trip I can see she was upset at having her dive disrupted because of a 'bad new diver'. So Mary effectively missed out on her first dive, and because of her buddy complaining to the group instructor, Mary was buddied with another brand new diver and taken under direct supervision by the instructor.
To give the instructor her dues - this is exactly what I would have done.
Mary, however, was a little upset as being classified as a "bad diver" just because she was new and had made a choice to end the dive based on the fact that she wasn't comfortable.
This made me think of two things - the concept of good divers and how new divers are almost always viewed as 'bad divers'. The second thing I stopped to consider in light of this, was the initial planning and considerations undertaken when Mary was buddied with a diver that was more experienced than her.
Mary doesn't like to think of herself as less than competent. She agrees that yes, she is a new diver, but argues that being a new diver doesn't necessarily mean that you are a bad diver. I'd agree with this, however, I'd also suggest (and I did to her) that being a new diver also doesn't mean you are a good diver. In my opinion, she certainly has the attitude required to make a good diver because she wants to learn, asks a lot of advice and works on suggestions which people give her. To her, being buddied with another "New diver" who had no control over his bouyancy at all (according to her) and put in direct supervision with an instructor, was fairly offensive.
However, I stand by my opinion that a good diver is not only someone who is competent and capable in all areas of diving, but has a good attitude toward diving and still continually looks at improving. They contribute to the diving industry by setting a good example, helping others (even if they are not a 'professional' diver) and promoting activities and behavious which are positive toward diving as a general. However, diving skills are an integral part of being a good diver, and as with most things, diving takes practice. Some people naturals, and after a handful of dives have most of it down pat. Other people need to work on their skills a lot harder, but that doesnt' make them "bad divers" compared to the 'naturals', if you get my drift.
It did make me stop to think how people view new divers though. Mary was offended at being classed as a 'bad diver'. To be fair, she did assume she was classed as a bad diver based on the fact that an instructor decided to directly supervise her diving activities. If Mary's skills were fine, and there was nothing wrong with her diving, then maybe the instructor should have pulled her aside and explained that the supervision was more as a safety rather than Mary's skills being bad, or that her buddy requird the supervision even though Mary was probably fine only diving with another buddy...
As an instructor I see "bad new divers" a lot. They're only interested in raping and pillaging the environment, or getting something material out of diving through employment or saving a few dollars by cleaning the bottom of their boat etc. I see "bad new divers" who think they know it all, are atrocious in the water and refuse to accept that maybe they need to work on their diving technique.
I also see new divers with the potential to be good, if not BRILLIANT divers.
However, regardless of whether these new divers are just "Bad" or have the potential to be good, they are all NEW divers, and new divers inevitably have problems because they are inexperienced.
So what do you do if a new diver wants to dive with you? Do you sigh and automatically write the dive off as a waste of time because they'll chew through their air in no time, stir up the bottom and have serious issues getting down, staying down, and then getting up and staying up, not to mention gearing up and getting the gear off?? Or do you embrace the opportunity to assist someone and give them a little advice to make diving easier for them, and give them a little confidence by treating them as an equal?
You were a new diver once too, remember, and you've doubtlessly picked up a wealth of experience from divers more experienced than you, so do us a favour and pass it on.
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