Posted by Wayne on August 26, 2001 at 15:47:50:
In Reply to: I hope I remember how to dive here! posted by Wayne on August 26, 2001 at 15:27:11:
OK so there we were shore diving at Grand Cayman. I would go in the water first. Then the kids entered under the watchful eye of the wife. Then she joined us and we buddied up and descended. Kinda like we do it here. EVERYONE ELSE did it differently.
I saw parents putting their children in gear that was dangerous. Non-functional equipment and non-fitting BCs. Dads unable to control themselves and taking their kids. They were bouncing up and down like a newbie from that chain store (Oops. Sorry.) It was unbelievable. It was frightening. And they all lived. I guess this is a pretty safe sport if those clowns did it without death.
My favorite was a resort diver getting a new resort course to retrain after a 2 year absense from being a resort diver. On his way to the reef (25 yards) he got tired. His instructor had him descend so he could see some fish. When he was done with the dive (low on air) they ascended and he needed to be towed back to shore. I saw the tow and went to the steps in case she needed a hand getting her student out of the water (he was not moving). When they got to the steps she took him back down in 10 fsw so he could dive a few minutes more (now that he was rested).
I asked her about it later and she said it was OK because he was a big tipper.
The only folks I dove with were my family, so underwater we did not have much contact wth the other divers there. We had a ball. The 13 year old has her buoyancy control down well enough that we took her on some fun swim throughs. The 18 year old was no problem and could do anything (and was the best lobster finder of the bunch). The 10 year old was interesting to dive with. She was so happy and excited that she was the worst air pig I can imagine. She hit 1000 when the rest of us had at least 2000. Some of you know me and understand that I am a BIG guy! For her at 1/3 my size by weight to use more than twice the air was odd. I kept looking for leaks!
She was clueless about her location in the water except when she was next to something like a statue or a upright part from a wreck. But she took notice of every critter and thing there. She just was clueless about her depth control. But she still did better than the average diver there. What a hoot!
Wayne