Posted by gosford on May 01, 2004 at 23:47:00:
This is all BS!
I worked diveboats for many years, and as much as we loved our DMs, they were NEVER trusted. At EVERY roll call, a crewmember verified the respondent as the name being called. There was NEVER any answering for someone else. The excuse of "They're a sleep in their bunk," earned them at least a verication visit from a crewmember (and a strong suggestion that the DM come along to verify too). I remember several occassions when we held up pulling the hook, waiting for someone to finish in the head so we could do a visual confirmation that it was the person whose name was called. Some passengers might bitch about killing dive time to do the verification, and we had a standard response: "We've never left anyone behind on this boat, but we might make an exception for you..." ANY dive boat who cares about the safety of his passengers ( and fears the retribution of possible liability claims or punitive measures from such agencies as the USCG) has to verify that all passengers are accounted for before making a relocation or departure, and that means verifying the DMs roll-call.
Me thinks Capt. Ray was cutting corners, and not Doin'It Right.
Gos