Posted by Chris on August 21, 2001 at 23:33:59:
Ten days ago my girlfriend Kathryn I returned from a week trip to Roatan, Honduras.
We stayed at the Fantasy Island Resort.
It was all inclusive, including 3 boat dives a day, and unlimited "beach diving."
Their version of beach diving is dropping you on the spot you want to go from a small boat, and picking you up from their gazebo at an appointed time.
After hours they would put out all the tanks you requested in the gazebo for night or early morning dives.
If was "tough" diving in the 86°F to 88°F water.
The visibility on the reef walls was only about 150 feet or so.
Near shore on the "beach dives" the visibility sometimes dropped to an almost intolerable 30 feet. ;-)
Strangely enough, very few people besides us, took advantage of the "beach dives" the week we were there.
Although they did three boat dives a day, many people only did two.
Almost all of the people at the resort I stayed at took no responsibility for their dives.
Most dove with the rented gear, whose instrumentation only included a depth and air gauge.
They did not do tables, or use computers, or even watch their dive times or surface intervals.
They seemed to have no interest in doing so.
They only wanted to blindly follow the dive master on each dive.
They seem to have no desire to do anything else.
My warm water experience is very limited, thus I had never seen this type of diver in action until this trip.
I would characterize about 80% to 90% of the divers at the resort at his level.
The divers I met there, and many people I meet here who claim to be divers, are the reason diving standards are being lowered.
PADI and the other agencies are only catering to what the market wants.
From what I can see, there is not a prayer in h*!! of improving the skill level of most divers.
People will only improve when they want to.
Most do not, they seem to have no desire to go beyond the minimal skill level needed for these dives.