Diving Courtesy

[Groovekitty]

I have a question for the local divers around here relative to diving courtesy - are the divers in MN as bad as the drivers in MN when is comes to common sense and courtesy???????

Last night I was diving out at Square Lake and my husband and I were practicing drills and skills on one of the platforms. A diver came down - totally saw us practicing - and attached a flag to the platform. About 2-3 minutes later all of these open water divers (obviously a class) came tumbling and plummeting down LITERALLY on top of us! WTF Mate???????

I don't even want to get into the discussion of proper descent - I mean feet first??? Whatever!

But why did this dive instroketor not take his divers down on the other platform that was not in use instead of having them all bomb down feet first on top of us?????

[Chris]

So much for 'Minnesota Nice'...

[LKunze]

Amber, I realize you said someone came down and attached a flag before they descended but out of curiosity did you have your own dive flag at the platform before they got there to know you were down there before they even came down to attach their flag?

[Groovekitty]

Lonnie,

No we did not have a flag as we never carry one on any of our dives. Personally I think a flag is completly unnecessary if you can maintain bouyancy and don't have to worry about shooting to the surface (it's not as if you're gonna find boats with 30ft of draft on square lake In case we have to make an ascent we deploy a marker bag.

Whether there was a flag attached to the platform or not is somewhat irrelevant as our bubbles are clearly visible on the surface, and the diver who placed the flag did so while we were performing exercises on the platform and as I stated before looked at us. Given the fact that there is a second platform 30 ft away the instructor could have:

A. asked us if we would like to move to the other platform

or

B. taken the flag over to the other platform, in which case the students just had to follow his flag on the surface - again only 30ft away.

If we had bombed down on a class in that manner the instuctor would have been livid - why then is it ok for the instructor to set such a poor example for his students and interrupt our training?

~Amber*

[igotoofar]

Well, at least they weren't diving illegally 8)

You keep saying the instructor bombed down on you. Did the person actually run into you? Was the person coming down feet first to maintain visual contact with the students? Did you move or indicate that you were leaving? Intentionally or not?

Personally if a class came to use the platform, I would immediately give them the space, especially if it was beginners. Imagine telling your students you the dive plan and then getting to the bottom then changing the plan. That would set many on tilt from the start.

I would think diving without a flag is far more egregious than what the instructor/class did? I have a hard time believing that not using a flag follow with the DIR philosophy.

[DRE]

Whether it's legal or not is beside the point.

You keep saying the instructor bombed down on you. Did the person actually run into you? Was the person coming down feet first to maintain visual contact with the students? Did you move or indicate that you were leaving? Intentionally or not?

It were the students who came bombing down on top of us while we were performing an OOG drill - we had to cut the drill short - that is after I got hot in the head twice by people descending without looking where they were going. I'd personally never would let any student descent like that, but that's just my opinion. Furthermore, the instructor didn't seem to be paying too much attention either: as we left the platform I had to grab one of the students by the tank valve and help her toward the platform, as she had "missed the drop" and was scrambling for the railing, way overweighted.

Personally if a class came to use the platform, I would immediately give them the space, especially if it was beginners. Imagine telling your students you the dive plan and then getting to the bottom then changing the plan. That would set many on tilt from the start.

The instructor came down by himself, attached the flag to the platform, went up and a bit later all the students came freefalling down. How hard is it to tell students to swim another 30 ft on the surface towards the next platform? BTW, we didn't mind moving but a little bit of forewarning, such as the instructor giving us a thumbsignal or whatever would have been nice.

I would think diving without a flag is far more egregious than what the instructor/class did? I have a hard time believing that not using a flag follow with the DIR philosophy.

No, it's not DIR as it creates a charlie foxtrot dealing with it during the entirety of the dive, only use the marker when ascending in boat traffic.

[shamre]

I don't see how you can justify criticizing the instructor when you yourself were not following local dive regulations. Dive flags are REQUIRED when diving local lakes and if you do not use them you jeopardize closure of lakes to scuba divers!!!!!

[Groovekitty]

My original post was not about whether we had a dive flag or not. It was about courtesy.

The insturctor, unless he's a complete idiot, was completely aware that we were on the platform - whether from our bubbles on the surface or when he saw us with his own two eyes.

Regardless, I still do not understand why, in a first come first served type of situation, he felt compelled to interrupt our training for his own purposes.

As I stated before, if we had bombed down in that manner on a class the instuctor would have been livid - why then is it ok for him to interrupt our training and expect us to give way to his class when we were there first???????

Would his class give way for us if the situation was reversed???

Furthermore, these appeared to be new and inexperienced divers - what kind of an example did this instructor set for these students?

(and yes - we were both actually hit by multiple students)

[shamre]

I agree with you that it is impolite for him to have done that. But you picked a lake that all local dive shops use for their checkout dives. Some of those shops are the ones who put the platforms their in the first place. So there is a sense of ownership. My advice to you is next time you want to practice pick a different lake. Again my comments are not meant to be mean but this is the only solution that i see to your problem.

[ccuda]

Did you make the effort to go ask the instructor at the lake why it happened? It could have been for reasons you haven't thought of or something?