Our bubble blowing brethren have been peeing their wetsuits with laughter recently due to a rather embarrassed snorkeller. Whilst snorkelling off Clifton Gardens in Australia the aforementioned snorkeller spotted a couple of large sea urchins between the rocks. Being a public spirited fellow when it comes to safety but damn bad at differentiating between normal marine life and explosive ordinance, the snorkeller in question decided that that these relatively harmless sea urchins were in fact unexploded mines and promptly called the police. The Aussie boys in blue, being somewhat sceptical, showed the man photographs of urchins and mines, just to be sure. The snorkeller however was adamant that what he had seen were mines and having to take the necessary precautions the police were forced to call in the Navy. Unfortunately the Navy's specialist divers weren't immediately available and the police were forced to put a maritime exclusion zone in place. When the divers did investigate they found exactly what the snorkeller had – two large urchins between the rocks. Now we can all laugh at stupid incidents like these, unless you're the Aussie taxpayer whose picking up the bill, but one comment has stuck in our collective craw. In the Beachcomber section of the British Diver magazine the embarrassing incident was recanted with a humorous flourish but ended with: No it really did happen recently, but he was a snorkeller not a diver so it is almost excusable, almost.
Now it could be argued that Diver Magazine was pointing out that no diver would have been that stupid but since it was a lowly snorkeller, such a mistake was forgiveable. Equally it could be argued that Diver Magazine was hinting at the fact that such an incident would be far more embarrassing if it had been a diver and not a snorkeller. Which, if you think about it, is even more patronising than the former. Either way the impression is that Diver Magazine thinks snorkellers aren't as intelligent as your average bubble blower and can be forgiven for doing silly things like not being able to spot the difference between an urchin and a mine.
The idea that snorkellers are somehow dumber than divers is of course quite ludicrous. As we've pointed out on the pages of this blog, divers are far from innocent when it comes to doing dumb things. So in the interests of the defence Mi'lord, let's cast a legal-eye over the diving world's long list of stupidity. Some of which are simply idiotic, whilst some border on the criminally incompetent.
First up for the defence Mi'lord is an editorial from December 2015 by Mark Evans, editor of Sport Diver Magazine, the official PADI publication in the U.K. The editorial concerned the Sport Diving teams trip to Gozo, Malta. Here is the verbatim bit.
Our trip was sadly marred by bad weather, namely strong winds which rendered many sites off limits, yet I was shocked that some independent groups of divers were still attempting to get in, or had got in, at sites that experienced centres had deemed unfit. At one location, I saw three well-known centres rock up in their vans; the instructors surveyed the conditions, and then called the dive, heading off to find more-suitable surroundings for their divers. Yet there were a group of obviously fairly inexperienced divers who were being badgered and cajoled by their group leader that “it was fine” and “this is what we are trained for”, Christ, these were pleasure divers, it wasn’t a Special Forces drill! At another site, I saw a couple who were clearly novices, and they had a bit of a battle getting out of the water due to the swell washing up and down the shore. Their instructor was stood up above them on the shoreline helpfully telling them to hurry up but not offering them any assistance! So please, whether you are diving in Malta and Gozo, right here in the U.K. or anywhere else for that matter, make your own mind up about the conditions and whether you want to dive. Do not feel pressured to get into the water – any instructor or dive leader worth their salt would not make you do anything you didn’t want to do. And remember if you do go in despite your reservations and it all goes horribly pear-shaped, the odds are that the person who ends up in serious trouble will be you, not your instructor.
So even Sport Diver Magazine agrees that there are very, very, very dumb instructors out there. Or should we call them Brad's? Those badge strewn types who believe that sport diving is the realm of the macho, wannabe SAS soldier. Either way it's pretty stupid to take novices diving in poor conditions. Should we send the jury out now? No. Okay. Then next we turn our attention to the Sundiver. The Sundiver Express is a charter boat and in 2004 happily sailed away from a dive site leaving a certain Dan Carlock alone in the water. No one on the vessel noticed this. A Dive Master working for Venice-based Ocean Adventures marked Dan Carlock present on the dive roster, even though he was absent when the remainder of the divers returned. As strong currents were picking up, the crew decided to move to a second dive site about seven miles away. When the divers left the boat for their second dive, Carlock was once again marked on the roster, even though he was on his own, several miles away from the boat. Three hours after leaving Carlock behind, the crew finally realised he was missing. 6 Years after the incident, Dan Carlock was awarded $1.68 Million in compensation for post traumatic stress and the fact that he developed skin cancer as a result of the sunburn he sustained while adrift. Now, to leave a diver behind would be stupid wouldn't it? But to mark that diver present not once but twice, even though he was several miles away bobbing about on his lonesome in a very big ocean seems beyond stupid. Still you'd imagine that the Sundiver Express team would have learnt their lesson – never again would that happen! Err.... I'm afraid you're wrong Mi'lord. On 29th December 2015 the Charter left another diver behind. That morning, Laurel Silver-Valker, went diving for lobsters off the coast of Catalina Island with Sundiver Express. The boat left the dive site without realising Silver-Valker wasn’t on board. The boat returned to search for Silver-Valker but was unable to find her and notified the Coast Guard. She has never been found.
So, Dive Master's who can't count? And a Dive Charter that repeats the same mistake in 2015, with even more disastrous results, than its previous error in 2004. Now that's got to be stupid hasn't it? Still not convinced. Okay then how about this. In Antigua in 2007, two British divers were abandoned for five hours when the dive boat they were diving from weighed anchor and left. The two Dive Masters and one Instructor aboard seem to have miscounted and were only made aware that 2 of the 13 divers who were supposed to be aboard were missing when the divers wives enquired about their husbands whereabouts when the boat returned to dock. Fortunately, both were rescued, although they did suffer sunburn, cuts and stings during their ordeal. The outcome however could have been very different with rescuers of the two men slamming the dive crew as “breathtakingly irresponsible”. Just to re-cap Mi'lord, that's two Dive Masters and one Instructor on board who didn't seem to notice that 13 had become 11. Perhaps they were superstitious and didn't like the number 13 or perhaps they were really, really stupid. What do you think? Is that silly mistake by the Australian snorkeller looking rather tame in comparison.
Mark Scott Makes A Social Media Gaffe
I think we can send the Jury out now don't you Mi'lord? But before we do, let's just bring up one last piece of evidence. An incident that proves that not all stupid things in the diving world can end in such a tragic way but can still ruin your career. Ladies and Gentlemen of the diving world, the defence would like to introduce you to Mr Mark Scott. Mr Scott is an SSI diving instructor in Vietnam or at least he was. Mark recently had his Licence revoked by the organisation for doing something that is pretty stupid and to be fair, pretty damned revolting. Mark was filmed dragging an octopus from its lair causing the animal extreme distress. To make matters worse, Mark posted the video on his facebook site causing a global stink on social media that led directly to him losing his licence. Now, we don't know if Mark is registered with any other diving organisation but judging from his website he does appear to be still working. Here's a little snippet from the blurb on his website:
You want to Become Teacher Leader Guide of The Underwater Scuba Diving World well I Am Happy to help You get started here in our Home of Nha Trang VietNam perfect learning Enviroment shallow water beginning Divers so plenty of practice to become the BEST... You Need a Love for Scuba Diving and just as Important a Sharing and Caring Love of Teaching . Yes You are a Teacher 1st so if Teaching the Exciting World of Scuba Diving is for You?? SO IS MY COURSE.This Course is ONLY FOR People Who Can make Strong Comment to Having Highest Standards of Training Our Diving Friends. What Does This Mean???This is Training Except Standard of a Job Apply so All Candidates MUST be People of Good Character, NO Training Under Stress (No Party Animals Allowed), Dressed in Professional Manor, Enjoy Doing What We Do Share love Of Underwater World Scuba Diving.Can I go from Zero-Hero I Hate this phrase PADI* slogan I never wanted To Be Called a Zero Why would You So NO ZERO NEED APPLY.. Beginning Diver Welcomed. (padi/mcdonalds not My Favorite)Yes You can go from never having been Scuba Diving to a professional Diving Leader.As a Dive Professional You are often looked up to if you Earn that Right. Many Supposed People in the Scuba Diving Industry are far from being looked up to… You will not be one of Them but True Professional.AIl Our Programs based on 3 months of Diving Teaching and Training. During this Scuba Diving Adventure, I will be Your Teacher and Guide and You will also Teach Me as We Learn Together as Team. What I bring to Our Team is 34 years of Scuba Diving Experience and True Passion for Scuba Diving and Sharing this Love through Teach Others.What I want from You is a True Love of Becoming an Educator of the Underwater World of Scuba Diving.(sic)
Now we are just a group of
snorkellers Mi'lord and aren't as intelligent as your average diver,
so we have no idea if Mark's blurb is written in professional diver
speak or is a very bad translation of Vietnamese into English.
However Mark doesn't appear to be Vietnamese and judging by his name
we would expect him to understand English. We would also expect him
to check that his website has stuff on it that makes sense. Such a
lack of attention to detail should worry the hell out of anyone
thinking about learning to dive with Mark.... Interestingly though,
and without excusing the Octopus incident, Mark might be a good
diving instructor. He might even be a nice guy – we've never met
him. More importantly, Mark hasn't killed anyone. What he did do was
make a mistake, a pretty big one mind, but a mistake nevertheless.
Yet SSI were quick to revoke his licence. The Sundiver Express, that
boat in Antigua and the rest on the other hand, still seem to be
working (Sundiver Express shouldn't have been working in 2015 mind,
due to financial issues). Wouldn't it be nice if the glorious
self-serving diving organisations revoked a few more licences now and
then, for things like.... Oh say.... Being so incompetent that you
kill people! And would it not be nice if the people who got so upset
with Mark Scott on social media turned their attention to say....
Diving operations that can't count how many divers they have aboard
at any one time? Just saying.
Anyway, the case for the defence
would like to sum up Mi'lord. As we have seen divers can be dumb. And
don't just take these few tragic incidents as proof. A relatively
short dip into the scuba diving forums on the net will highlight a
seemingly endless catalogue of divers doing and saying dumb things.
From divers poking tiger sharks to see what happens, to divers being
confused by time and tide, therefore missing their boat, to divers
wondering out loud if rain is salty, you'll find the global diving
brotherhood has some less than bright members. However, we are not
saying for one minute that the world of snorkelling is any different.
On the contrary there are some snorkellers out there who do such dumb
things that their continual existence on the planet defies rational
belief.
No. What we are saying is this. The
snorkeller in Australia made a mistake. A very silly and probably very
expensive one for the authorities but a mistake nonetheless. But he didn't make this
mistake because he was a snorkeller, nor can it be proved that he
wouldn't have made the same mistake if he were a diver. In fact we
have no evidence to suggest he wasn't a qualified diver or for that
matter a diving instructor who was snorkelling. Whether he was a
snorkeller or a diver is, frankly, utterly irrelevant. He made the
mistake because he couldn't tell the difference between something
that can give you a nasty wound and something that can produce a very
lethal and very loud bang. Dumb we agree. Excusable? No. However to
make a comment that can be construed that snorkellers aren't as bright as divers in the way that Diver Magazine did, is pretty dumb as well. As we've stated before though, we're just snorkellers, so what would we know... Oh hang on. We can count. 13 minus two? That's 11. So maths, we know maths! Can you be sure your Dive Master knows maths as well?
Have fun out there and watch out for
all those dumb divers, snorkellers, swimmers, freedivers et al.
Mark Scott Makes A Social Media Gaffe
Some Interesting Reading
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