This exact situation has presented itself time after time here in South Carolina.
It never occurred to me to mention about the above scenario that this is not happening on a professional charter boat - it's either our scary friend's boat or yours.
This situation happens to me more often than not. I have actually been told straight-faced by a local diver that he was Jacques Cousteau's college roommate, and of course, every other person "used to be a Navy SEAL."
...Interestingly, I happen to know TWO Navy SEALS -
real ones, and they never consider themselves "used to be," even when they retire. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL.
...And interestingly, neither of them dive recreationally. From conversations with them (usually pretty interesting, as they're often "not quite right" somehow), they know a lot about covert operations and how to annihilate an enemy, but rarely know much about diving, other than what they're told to do. From what I can surmise, being a SEAL is about black ops, not diving... Even though their reputation is that they're dive specialists. Conversations with them about NDLs or decompression obligations or equipment configurations or even dive sites with recreational or historical significance usually leaves them glassed over, probably wondering whose throat to covertly slash.
...Not to say that SEALs don't know how to dive - but especially if these people really
were SEALs, I don't think that being a part of the elite group would be something they'd want to volunteer - especially to make a point that they're some kind of Dive God.
Anyway, this situation happens to me often. With tanks in the back of my truck and me often in a wetsuit, partially folded over even at the grocery store, I am approached by local divers on a regular basis... Often the question is, "Where do you get your tanks filled?" When I tell them that I pump them myself, a light goes off and they now consider me their new best friend. It doesn't take long before I'm sitting on the gunnels of their boat - or they on mine - splashing into one of our local rivers, looking for fossils and historical artifacts from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
When I approach this kind of diver about his gear choices, I am often scorned, regardless of how I approach the topic. You wouldn't believe the logic behind some of these guys' decisions... And it's like they all come from the same gene pool or something, 'cause they all make the same bizarre choices.
They say, "Around here, you NEED to overweight yourself by at least 50 pounds."
"Around here, we wear helmet lights."
"Around here, the current is so strong that you need a jon line, a shot line, a tether, a rake (yes, they dive with a rake), etc..."
"Around here, you need kneepads to dive." (Yes, I'm serious.)
"Around here, the only way to find anything is with a light." (By "light," they mean "cheap Wal-Mart light Play-Dohed to the top of a hockey helmet.")
"Around here, you need a BC with at least 65 pounds of lift."
(But they may, just to be able to lift their weight belt.)
Consequently, I've learned to call them "Around Here" divers.
The first time they lay eyes on my rig - backplate and 30-pound wing and a total of six pounds of lead - they look at me and ask me where I dive usually. When I tell them that I was born here and dive every day "around here" with a light that stows conveniently onto my rig, they all ask the same question: "How do you stay on the bottom?"
Well, I could if I wanted to, but generally, I don't. The fact that I'm streamlined just above the bottom and able to search for anything I want, without a cloud of silt surrounding me, makes searches very successful. I don't know who taught these people to go down, nail the bottom, and overweight themselves so hard as to need kneepads. Further, if you're not on the bottom, generally you don't need a light at all because you're not diving on your knees in a cloud of silt. Usually there's enough ambient light to work just fine, and for those cases where you need more, it's right there on the rig. Any way you cut it, a head-mounted light does nothing but blind anyway - it's like having your car's high beams on in the middle of a snowstorm. The only way to effectively use a light in low or zero vis situations is to hold it out to the side and shine it on your subject, so that you're not looking down the beam of it.
That said, most times it's unnecessary anyway.
...And if you're having a difficult time resisting the current, the problem isn't that you don't have enough weight on - the problem is that you're not streamlined and able to resist the current in the first place. Streamlining is easier without the enormous, parachute-like BC, without 60 pounds around your waist (which tends to stand you upright, where you're easily "blown away") and without fins that don't match - neither of which were very good even when they were a complete set.
...Sorry, venting.
Anyway, the picture I painted above is the "Around Here" diver - one who's justified a bizarre, totally illogical style of diving based on propagated and persistent myths. I see it all the time, and I've learned to deal with it. I rarely even mention anything to the future organ donor about it any more... They've been told all of this stuff before, and they tend to be very sensitive about it, and I have been told many times, "I have been diving since before you were born," and, "This is how Cousteau and I used to do it - you think you know more than my buddy Jacques?" Consistently I hear, "Around here, this is the way that you HAVE to dive - and you'll be wearing $8 mechanic's overalls, too, just as soon as you learn how to dive Around Here." I get tired of pointing out that I do this full-time for a living, and that they haven't been in the water since the dive shop closed two years ago, since they haven't been able to get their tanks filled until they met me. I probably put in more bottom time in a week than these people have in 30 years.
...But this isn't really about me, and pointing this out to them only comes across as arrogant, so I've learned to shut my mouth and just nod when he tells me what it was like to build the first Aqualung in his garage.
...So what do I do in the situation that I pointed out above? Well, if it's really bad, I'll call the dive... But I see it so often that I've come to ignore the obvious hazard that this diver poses and just go diving anyway. So far, only one of the "Around Here" divers has killed himself in the past few years, and I was the one that did the body recovery - just two months earlier he and I had had a big falling out about his gear choices, and I told him that I wasn't going to dive with him any more. He told me to get bent, that he'd been doing this "for all of these years," and I had no idea what I was talking about.
Interestingly, he was the guy whose hand came off in mine when I tried to pull his body out of the drink.
The general belief amongst "Around Here" divers is that he had a heart attack while underwater... But I don't know where that myth comes from. I was there, and I can tell you first hand that his lungs were full of water, his tank was completely empty, and his BC had been cut off partially, probably by the missing leg knife. Underneath, he was wearing 128 pounds of lead (5 mil suit that day), more than 20 of it simply stuffed down his wetsuit (he'd run out of pockets and places to put weight). His weight harness (too much weight for a belt - had to wear the "suspender style" harness) was still on him, underneath of his BC. Both the harness' and the BC's quick releases were duct taped closed, since they kept coming apart from being so loaded with weight.
Obviously, he had run out of air on the bottom, and was unable to swim up. With no air in his tank, he was also unable to inflate his BC to help with his ascent... And since his rig was duct-taped closed (waist straps tied in a knot, since the buckle was long gone), there was no way to get out of it quick enough.
"Heart attack?" I can't understand why they didn't publish what really happened. "Dumb-*** attack" was more like it.
If I mention this to any "Around Here" diver, I constently get, "You should have more respect..." because he's dead. Bull-oney! The situation needs to be told the way it really happened, 'cause I'm tired of explaining to people why their gear choices are going to kill them.
...So I've stopped. I just don't even bother any more.
...But when someone stops me in the grocery store and says, "Let's go diving," I'm really leary of the entire situation. I have my own boats now... No longer is there anything another diver brings to the dive that I need. There was a time when buddying up meant the use of a boat or compressor or gear or whatever... Now I have all of my own stuff and pretty much avoid other recreational divers.
If I want to go diving, I just do... It's that simple. If I want to take someone else diving with me, then I call them and ask them. I do not have a shortage of people that want to go diving.
...And if I find fossils or artifacts or a great place to dive or something special, I just enjoy it - there is no benefit in sharing it unless they want to pay for it and buy it from me.
I know this all sounds like I'm being a serious Scuba Snob, but I'm really tired of explaining, arguing, rescuing, and helping, rather than
diving. Consistently, too, I'm tired of then cleaning the boat by myself, filling their tanks for them (for free), and often picking up their snack wrappers, forgotten gear, and even beer cans... Then ride around with a day-glo thingamabob in the back of my truck for a week while Around Here #47 gets around to picking up his forgotten piece of kit.
Sorry, ranting again.
So what would I do in that situation? Well, I'm guilty of doing what I shouldn't do, and that's brush over all but the very worst of issues, and try not to let it ruin my dive. I should call the dive and head in... But I generally don't. I do avoid diving with them again, which can be tough, and often hoses an otherwise good friendship, even if I never mention anything about the fact that I really don't want to dive with them any more.
Truth be told, I think this is why I'm not an instructor. I know I have the patience to deal with the noob who knows that he doesn't know... But the ones that don't know that they don't know... Er, rather, the ones that absolutely insist on practicing methodologies that are plainly dangerous... I don't think I'd have the patience for.
9am... Gotta go blow tanks.
Reattempt another day.
