Posted by msblucow on July 09, 2001 at 09:26:39:
Just got back yesterday from a wonderful weekend on Catalina. The hubby and I went over to attend the wedding of 2 fellow Long Beach Aquarium divers (no, they didn't get married underwater). I arrived Friday morning to dive the park and to play with my new underwater camera. I'm still at that point-at-anything-that-moves-brackett-like-hell-and-pray-you-get-one-good-shot-a-roll stage, so I'll take any chance I can get to just relax and burn some film.
The 2 dives I did were very pleasant and relatively uneventful. Unfortunatley my dive buddy didn't make the ferry (you know who you are ;-)),so I had to improvise and try to find someone at the park who would let me tag along. Fortunately I spied a couple just suiting up and noticed that the husband had a Halcyon. I had found a member of my tribe and was happy. Turned out that they were from Palm Springs and had spent the last few days trying to beach dive in Orange County, but had struck out because of heavy surge. So they decided to hop the ferry over to Catalina and try there luck at the park.
The water temp was a balmy 70 degrees above 45 feet and about 66 below. The vis was about 40 feet once you got away from the steps. There were all the usual suspects, including a nice surprise encounter with 6 bat rays flying along the sand.
On Saturday morning, the day of the wedding, we did a 'bachelor dive' at the park with the groom to be. There were 5 of us - all aquarium divers - and I was the only one even remotely DIR. But that was ok. We were all experienced divers (2 divemasters and 3 with rescue certs), with good communication skills and completely comfortable at the park. The dive was wonderful. What a difference it makes to dive with a group of folks you know and trust. Being that my husband doesn't dive, I'm usually forced to buddy up with strangers unless I can make arraingments in advance (see rant below). So this was a real treat. I fired off a bunch of pictures, so hopefully one or two will be good enough to present as a wedding gift.
Sunday I took a 2-tank boat dive out. The wind was kicking up pretty good, so they took us to the rock quarry for the first dive. I had never been there before, so it was a nice change of pace. Again, had a nice bat ray sighting. The vis was a very acceptable 40-50 feet and the water temp was roughly the same as the park. The second dive was at Long Point/Little Italian Gardens. As soon as we hit the water, we saw what can only be described as a 'herd' of Black Sea Bass. There must have been at least eight of them. They all wandered off in different directions after a few minutes and we didn't see them again for the rest of the dive. I fired off a few random shots, but I was too busy gawking to get get anything decent. The rest of the dive was anticlimatic (though beautiful) after that.
All and all a wonderful weekend of diving after a long dry spell.
And now for the rant.
I know this has been done to death on this board, but my experience this weekend really brought this home for me. What the heck is going on with dive training (and personal responsibility?). When I went out on Sunday, I went to the boat alone and had to buddy up with someone I met there. I had 2 choices. The guy who just moved here from Florida, had been certified for 5 years, but had only been diving 15 times since, or the abalone free-diver from San Francisco who had been scuba certified for a year and when asked how much weight he needed, answered, "whatever the divemaster puts on me".
So I talked to both of them first, and this is what I learned. Mr. Florida was renting all his gear since he owned none. He had no compass, no dive computer, no watch and no dive tables with him. When I asked how he would calculate his dive time and pressure group for the second dive, he responded, "They told me we wouldn't be diving deep enough or long enough for it to matter. I'll be fine. Besides, I'll just follow you around." Mr. San Fran had done almost no scuba since being certified and besides wearing 30 lbs of weight (he weighed all of 140 lbs. and was wearing a one-piece 6.5mm suit), kept asking me if the size limits on abalone were the same here as in Northern California.
I ended up going with Mr. San Fran because I assumed that anyone who freedives for abalone must be tough, but the dive was anything but relaxing. On the first dive, he kept plowing into the sand, stirring up so much silt that the vis went from 40 ft. to 3 ft. in about a minute. He was so busy looking for abalone, that he missed the bat rays floating right by him. I constantly had to check his air. By the time I got to 2000 lbs, he was down to 800! Fortunately, we weren't too far from the boat, so I was able to get him back in one piece. I ended up joining another group near the boat for the rest of my dive, so at least I could use up a roll of film.
The second dive was better (after I yanked 5 lbs. off of his belt), but everytime I turned around, he was smashing sea urchins to feed the fish. Now, I know a lot of folks do this, and if you do one or two, fine, but this guy was going after everyone in his immediate area. I finally had to gently grab is arm and motion, "No." The rest of the dive was pretty calm, but at one point I did notice Mr. Florida and his dive buddy smashing into each other and the rocks. It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad.
Now having said all this, I don't want to give the impression that I have a problem with inexperienced divers. I don't. But there's a difference between inexperience and willful ignorance. Why do folks think it's okay to just passively tag along, letting other dictate their safety, all the while refusing to learn anything about how and why you need to follow certain proceedures? And what about the training these divers are getting? What kind of instructor would let a student walk away from a class thinking it's okay to just blindly follow a more experienced diver around and hope for the best?
So thats my rant. Let the games begin ;-)