Do Your Research

For the last few days I've been going back and forth with a fella on Rebreatherworld.

Here's the shortest possible version of the initial post: a diver curious about rebreathers got taken by a known con man, consequently got ripped off and insufficiently trained.  Now he's having a giant temper tantrum which included spending a likely not-insignificant amount of time making this sign.

At first glance it's laughable but I'm reminded of that last scene of The Graduate.  After the giggles wear off reality sets in... and this sign is right.  Not just in the rebreather world, but in the dive world at large.

I personally have known at least a dozen instructors who shouldn't have been allowed to teach anyone to tie their shoes, much less how to dive at any level.  But the industry allows it for a variety of reasons, some of them based in their own immobility and greed... but mostly the industry responds to customer demands.

Students don't really know enough yet to know what they're looking for, so they default to things they're familiar with: cost-effectiveness, time constraints, and Yelp/Trip Advisor savviness.  But what they are really looking for, without knowing it, is shitty training.  Even in the case of the guy who made this sign, he doesn't really recognize that he has been insufficiently trained, he's more pissed that he got ripped off.

It is a shame that we don't serve our customer base better.  Instead of retreating behind QAs and only responding when students (who, again, barely know what they're talking about) accidentally notice something is amiss and complain, why aren't we more prophylactic?

At the instructor level, sadly, there are forces we have to deal with such as needing to comply with shop or local norms to work or not wanting to get friends or coworkers in trouble.

At the shop level it's keeping up with the competition (and not really being taken seriously if you report the competition).

At the agency level... well, there, I admit, I lose focus.  That's where I tend to want to place the blame.  This is the level where the marketing for better, longer, more expensive training could be decided and where the rules are carved in stone.  But I'm not certain,I have never operated at the agency level, so I don't know the challenges there.

I do know that I, personally, have been guilty of letting the system grind on at the instructor and the shop level, though.  I'll always feel bad about those past actions and spend a lot of my energy these days trying to undo that karma by sending the best divers possible out into the world.

I hope it helps move the mountain.

In the meantime, we might as well post this sign in every dive shop window.

Are You a Diver or a Cert?

There are two types of people in this world...

It makes life easier that way, doesn't it?  Make sure everything is nicely divided up into "us" and "them."  Things are more easily understandable and controllable that way and you know who stands with you in the world and who doesn't.

But things aren't really that black and white.  The whole world is actually grey, and purple, and bright azure and orange and yellow.  I'm a nihilist vegan who works at a zoo and has gun-toting, right-wing friends.  And that's cool, because the real world is prettier and more exciting than the inside of some goddamn bubble.

So don't mistake that I am about to say, "There are two types of divers in this world..." for some t-shirt-worthy, distillation of the reality of the thing.  There are dozens... hundreds of types of divers!  Techies, photographers, course directors, 80s divers, wreck, cave, and reef divers, depth junkies, adrenaline junkies, liveaboard addicts, exotic local travelers, muck divers, scientists, wannabes, quarriors, blowhards, bimblers, gear geeks, shop-rats... the list goes on and on.

What I am going to break down here is a line, across which there is an obvious divide.  The delineation is between those who really want to be good at our sport and those who don't. Those who are willing to put in the time, energy, effort, and (to be sure) the money, and those who just wanted the card for whatever reason.

This is the difference between Divers and Certs.

From an outside perspective it's nearly impossible to determine.  Certs and Divers alike will tell friends, neighbors, and family, "I'm a diver."  The chiefest difference will be that in the case of a Cert it will come as a surprise to most around them.  It will come up as an afterthought in casual conversation about some vacation story or anecdote if it comes up at all.  Typically it will be a lead in or a supporting fact in the actually interesting part of the story.

The people around a Diver... they already know they are a diver.  They know because almost every story about every vacation starts with, "I was on this dive vacation to..." and most stories happened either right before, during, or after a dive.  A dive which features very heavily in the story.  A story the people around them have trouble differentiating from the LAST 20 stories about a dive they have heard.

The people around a Diver have invariably also noticed the dive flag or generally dive-themed hats, t-shirts, bags, and possibly jewelry that feature into their wardrobe.  If they'd ever been to that Diver's house they would also have seen the dive magazines, books, textbooks, and various resort destination mementos that punctuate their personality as a diver all around the place.

Around a Cert's house... frankly, I don't know what you'd find there.  I try not to affiliate with those people and certainly don't want to go in their house.  Some magazines about golf, perhaps?  I really don't know, they could be conducting orgiastic sun-god rituals that culminate in human sacrifice for all I care.  But more likely it's golf.  Or X-box.  I often hear people talk about something called X-box, so whatever that is, it's probably that.

"Why, Roger," you ask, "Why do you go to lengths to avoid these people you call Certs?  And why does it sound like you spit that word?"

The depth of my disdain is likely born of years of dealing with a near-constant parade of them.  I lived in a place with world-class diving, but not known for its diving.  Oahu is an island that people travel to for a medical equipment sales convention, have a tropical adventure close enough to a Cheesecake Factory that they don't panic from lack of cholesterol, or visit their nephew who is stationed there.  Almost no one travels there specifically to dive.  And so every boat I crewed was full of people who were in town for their college roomate's wedding and thought they'd get in a dive while they were there.

These are people who had dived maybe a handful of times after they got certified, but just as often not, having gotten their card and never been in the water since.  They apologize that "it's been a while" without ever realizing that diving is NOTHING WHATHEFUCKSOEVER like riding a bike. They certainly didn't have any of their own gear... rarely ever even owning their own masks or fins, much less flying with them to the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

A Diver wouldn't dream of going on any vacation to anywhere up to and including a ski town in a landlocked state in the middle of winter without, at least, their mask.  This is assuming they're going on a trip, for some unusual set of circumstances, to someplace other than a dive destination.  No a Diver knows exactly what the overage charges for their airline are before they get to the airport, own a luggage scale, and have a small, crushable bag stowed somewhere just in case a slightly still-damp wetsuit on the way home would make their luggage just too heavy and second checked bag cheaper.

What it comes down to is a very different mindset.  While there are a great many kinds of divers, that differentiation comes after the person has started to learn their way around the sport and crossed a line. On one side there is not thinking of diving as much more than a bucket list activity, something you saw in a movie once and thought you'd try out.  Training is seen as more of something to get through as fast and a cheaply as possible without a second thought about how being poorly trained in an activity leaves you shitty at said activity.

The temptation here is strong to point the blame at the industry, the marketing, and the training agencies for catering to Certs, but while there is a valid point there, the truth is that we live in a capitalist society.  The industry is catering to its consumers.  These are consumers who you could probably try to browbeat into caring more about the sport or the environment, but you'd be more likely sending them right out of your classroom to someone else's who would deliver them what they want.  The industry could do better, but they have no impetus to (and that's a whole other conversation.

So while Certs might see diving as something to do on occasional vacation if they can remember to wake up on time and if they're not too hung-over... Divers see the sport as a defining characteristic.  They care.  They train.  They try to be better at it.  They talk to other divers and concentrate, while they're diving, on swimming better, trimming better, and avoiding contact with marine life or the bottom.  They become at peace with the sea and learn how to move effectively and calmly.  Many will go on to formalize their further training to become capable buddies or even capable of effecting a rescue, should the situation require it.  Most will learn how to avoid situations where the threat of it becoming a rescue exists.

No, Certs have no one to blame but themselves when they have no idea what they're doing in the water.  They stand on the coral, killing life all around them, demolishing the reef, and getting buffeted by the full force of the sea around them.  They are narrowly snatched from the jaws of death 1/2 dozen times over the course of a dive, without even knowing, by a DM harried by trying to keep an entire flail of Certs (yes, the group name for Certs is "a flail") from hurting them or themselves.

But at least they could tip.

(Which they usually don't.)

Why Do You DM?

The Divemaster giving the breifing knows it all!  Their gear is well-worn and faded, their skin is sunkissed and salt-worn, their wetsuit looks to have seen better days, but each of the scuffs and aquasealed holes must be a story of the sea.  They are the envy of the dive world, the tropical dive pro; the archetypal person that everyone wants to either sleep with or to be.  

It's a romantic image, to be certain.  The devil-may-care attitude, living in a tropical paradise, getting to dive glorious reefs so often you know EXACTLY where to find some of the hardest to spot wildlife.  What is there not to envy?  Such people are "living the dream!"

And so, back home, when the LDS suggests you would make a great Divemaster an image flashes through your mind: yourself on the dive deck, wetsuit pulled down to your waist, giving the briefing to a boat full of tourists from far-flung places you'll never want to visit (because there's no diving where they're from).  You imagine living on an island happily going about days of flat, clear, blue water and night hours ringing late with the chimes of cold beer bottles.

"Yeah," you think, "I would be a good Divemaster!"

You respect your instructor, perhaps you have been working with them for some time already.  They know how committed you are to the sport and how capable and safety-minded you are.  This is not even to mention that they've been teaching for years and, after all, they're an instructor!  Of course they know what they're talking about.

Do they, though?  Do they really?

It is hard to intuit that there are some seriously crap instructors, especially when you're a newer diver.  It becomes a classic case of not knowing what you don't know, with the person offering to tell you the things you don't know... when they don't know themselves.

I have known a great many crap instructors and instructor trainers.  Still do know.  By and large they mean well;  they like the sport and believe in dive safety.  Sometimes they even accidentally train a good, lifelong diver.  But, for the most part, they come to the life of a dive professional either as a bit of personal fun or (more commonly) because they were sold the class.

For my purposes here I am going to ignore the destination DMs/Instructors.  The people who ACTUALLY live the dream.  Most of these wind up in the life either accidentally as most people get their jobs, or because they are true misfits who had too little sense to hold down a real job.  The people I'm talking about here are not these, but rather the 99% of people you've ever met at the office Christmas party who say, "Actually, I'm a dive instructor."

I got lucky. Very lucky.  I had finished Recue Diver class and first aid and Cavern Diver.  Like so many newer divers who have been really and solidly bitten by the bug I loved taking classes; I loved learning more.  I wanted to take my diving further and I was trying to decide which way to go next.

"Should I take tech classes or Divemaster?" I asked, Mark, an instructor I had been working with pretty extensively.  He sighed.  On reflection, I know that sigh.  In that sigh he said everything I am trying to work around to writing out here.

"Do your really want to teach?" Was all he came up with.

"I guess so?  Eventually?"

"No, no.  I mean now.  Do you really want to be a dive instructor?"

"Not really.  I mean, im not ready to teach anyone," I admit, I didn't understand what he was asking.  He was trying to press me on whether I get that dive instruction was a vocation?  A holy calling that I couldn't resist or extinguish thoughts of.  He wanted to know whether it hurt my soul that I couldn't teach people how to dive.

"There really isn't any point in becoming a local Divemaster unless you intend to be an instructor.  And you really don't need to be an instructor unless you really want to teach."

I thought about that a long time.  And I enrolled in tech courses.

I was jealous when a good friend got his Divemaster certification.  Not long after he had his instructor.  I was jealous of that, too.  Because some little part of me knew that now he had that imaginary life on the boat available to him.  Now, somehow, he had access to some hidden truths that are obscure to the rest of the diving world; somehow he was a better diver than me.

I know now that my friend Mark saved me from myself, in a way.  He could have easily sold me the shop's DM course.  Ushered me through the coursework to make his numbers look good and to score some free labor for the shop for a while.  The joke is that Divemasters are any given shop's tank monkeys; people who not only work for the shop, but PAY for the privilege of working for the shop.  It isn't a terrible stretch of the imagination to see why this might be a valuable arrangement, not only to the shop, but to the certification agency.

At some point I'll talk about how the largest certification agency is not much more than a publishing company cult anymore; for here you'll simply have to take me at my word.  Which is a bit of a cop out considering it gets quite pointedly to the center of my thesis...

Most people become Divemasters and even instructors simply because that was their next apparent step.  The instructors, the shops, and the agencies are all too happy to accommodate them because they have proven to be a reliable source of revenue. 

When I say my friend Mark saved me, this is what I mean he saved me from.

I didn't understand what I was asking when I first suggested I might become a divemaster.  I didn't know what being a Divemaster really entailed, being responsible for people's lives (people who are often trying to kill themselves... and you), being hyper-aware of your surroundings and your divers in the water at all times, never really calming down and simply enjoying the zen calm of being underwater.

Some years later I looked at the divers around me and realized something heartbreaking.  They're just crap.  Few had the first ideas about buoyancy or trim, many "experienced" divers had no concept of streamlined gear or safe diving.  Far worse: I'd hear instructors repeating falsehoods and myths to their students who didn't know any better than to accept them as gospel, likely to go repeat them to others (who, if they go on as divers are likely to repeat these same myths even as they earn regard as an experienced diver themselves).

"I can do better than that," I thought.  It became a constant, nagging thought, that I could teach better, stronger, safer divers than the baseline.  I simply needed to do it.

It had become a vocation.  And it continues to be, as I have earned higher degrees of teaching credentials; all along the way it had been about making better divers for me.  It was never about the agency or or credentials or the prestige.

Full disclosure: I have to admit, there is a joy in being a working dive professional.  But the drive to do it was never some windswept fantasy for me, I view it as a job.

So why do you DM?  Do you want to help make better divers and keep people safe?  Or do you want people to look at your C-card and think, "Ooo, this person must know so much about diving!"

If it is the latter, I'll let you in on a secret:

The people you're impressing don't know shit.  The people you are seeking to impress -- the resort boat crew -- they have seen your type many thousands of times over... they anticipate you being a giant goddamn nuisance. 

Has-been

I used to be a NY/NJ wreck diver.

That is now many years passed, and while I am nostalgic about it, I'm ambivalent about whether I miss it.  Or, at least, miss it enough.

On the one hand it is local and can be challenging.  The boat captains and crews are entertaining at least and good friends at best.  When you're diving locally you get to be a part of a cadre of weirdos who spend their time appreciating what their very own ocean is capable of and you get to visit local marine wildlife which, while it might not have the colors of the Caribbean, it is all still curious, abundant, and cute.

On the other hand... and this, I find, is the dominant hand... there are the 4:00AM wake-ups and the two hour drive to the boat.  The loading and unloading of gear while you're jostling for parking and still 1/2 asleep in a marina lot that stinks of yesterday's fishing charters.  There's wind fetch and off-shore storms that could get a charter called only an hour after you've left the harbor.  The $120 ticket per ride.  There's whole seasons where you make the emotional and psychological preparations for boat after boat, just to get a call at 8:00 every night before every charter to say that the wind is against us.  To say nothing of running tanks around NYC to get filled for these charters when helium is damned expensive and there are cops waiting in every subway station to do random bag searches who would be none-too-pleased to find compressed oxygen in a 3 liter bottle in your messenger bag.

And there's the salt.

If you haven't had to rinse salt off of 300lbs of gear -- including 1/2 dozen scuba tanks and a rebreather --  in a second floor walkup's bathtub then had to find a place to hang it all to dry in under 900 square feet... well, you haven't REALLY gotten to appreciate the NY dive experience.

The land of Bon Jovi and Pork Roll

I used to be proud of my ability and my background as a Northeast wreck diver.  Hell, I've got this image tattooed on my chest over my heart!

For the years I was living in Hawaii people would often ask, "Where is your favorite place to go diving?"  And without any irony or pause I would say, "New Jersey!"  I missed my wrecks while I was out in the middle of the Pacific, I thought about them often and dreamed of, one day soon, returning to them and seeing how the ocean had treated them.

So what happened?  Have I grown lazy?  Burned out?

I have been back for five years, now.  Every year I vow that THIS will be the year that I'll revisit the wrecks that I loved and longed for.  And every season comes and goes with, at best, a small handful of unphenomenal dives.

So why don't I miss the wrecks now?  Or, at least, miss them enough?

I hope I will.  This season is all but finished; I'm scheduled to go out one more time with the NYAquarium folks in about a month.  And I do look forward to it.  

I look forward to jumping off the back of the boat into the cool, green water and descending through the haze with only the line to guide me.  I look forward to the shadow of the wreck materializing into the outline, then the clear angles of a shipwreck below me.  I look forward to the silence the sea imposed on this once-great tool of humanity and the quiet reflection of impermanence and change that is so accessible when you're surrounded by marine life and rust.  I look forward to the rush that I lived for for years.

I do not look forward to the salt.  Or my alarm clock going off.

Perhaps it's a function of age.  Or maybe I'm just a grumpy, old bastard anymore.

I want to be as excited about this facet of the sport as I used to be.  But I'm not.

I guess I'm just a cave diver now.