First let me say for the record I’m an open water diver, the papers and their “Deep sea diver” stuff is BS. Deep sea divers wear big white suits and big round brass helmets, they have a ship based air supply and long hose from above. The divers left behind in Florida are “open water” or “sports divers”.
All that being said let me get to my point. Stupid! In the first place people that dive like me for fun should never and I mean never go out on a boat with more than 12 other divers. Going on a boat with 30 divers is asking for trouble. When I dive and I’ve made 100’s of dives, I like my boat to not to be packed. So whose fault is it for leaving the divers behind? I say both the boat crew and the divers. Now you say why blame the divers for the captain and crew of the boat they paid for leaving them behind?
Think about it like this. There are 30 people not counting at least a 2 or 3 member crew. You ever had a party at your house? Stick 33 people in your house and keep track of them all for 2 or 3 hours. Now throw in waves, swell, and people coming and going and moving around, tanks being removed and replaced from racks without hurting anyone, other boats with other divers. Plus the dumb divers that keep to them self don’t interact with others on board. Watch the movie “Open water” and you see a couple sitting on a boat with 20 other people and didn’t talk to anyone, no one really even knew they were there. So the lesson here is being a pest, like me. Get in the captains face tell him your name, get real close and point to your head and say “See this ugly mug, when you’re ready to go make sure you see it again!” Never leave it to chance when your life is at stake, and trust me it’s at stake from the time you get on the boat till you get off.
Non divers don’t know all that goes on. Everything in a divers head should be about safety. You have gear to check, gauges to monitor. Don’t want to run out of air at 60 feet under water. Don’t want to stay too long past certain depth and pop right up and jump on the boat, don’t want to anger the underwater creature some of which can mess you up or kill you. The last thing you want to worry about is your safe spot floating right above you is gone!
Blame the captain and crew ok, but blame the divers to for not standing up and yelling “hey I’m here and I sure want to be here when you leave”. Better yet look for a dive company that believes in safety first and takes out the number of divers they can keep up with.
On a closing note, in the day when diving became a sport or hobby. The US Navy did all the testing and experimenting and wrote the book that is pretty much being used today. The big different is when the navy sent 1000 divers into the water and the bombs got set and the bad guys killed and the ships fixed then 975 divers come back that was acceptable. When 1000 sports divers enter the water, I think 1000 sports divers need to come out and go home to dive again….but that’s just me.
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