Oh the good old life of a diving instructor. Much like a teacher at school or a cat herder, dive instructors spend their days fielding questions, trying to get the attention of others, and general corralling. During this, as with any public-facing role, you end up seeing a lot of “offenders” doing silly things that maybe they do not mean to do, but might drive their instructors a tiny bit crazy. Curious to find out if you are a culprit?
Here’s a cheeky list of (more than) 5 ways to annoy your dive instructor.
- Putting your mask on your forehead. Sometimes this is just an industry annoyance. While it does represent a panicked diver, all good dive instructors should be able to tell the difference between a distressed diver and someone new. Putting it on your head is a waste of time and you’re more likely to lose your mask but more so, it’s just a bit of an annoyance.
- Excessive drying… air blast blasting the air out of your tank to dry the first stage or the dust cap…. Come on now, it really doesn’t take that much air and your dive master probably has eardrum problems from the excessive noise…. Just don’t.
- Overstating your own experience as a diver. No sense in overselling yourself. Chances are your dive instructor will know how much experience you have once underwater.
- No log books. It’s important to be able to show your experience and also it is a nice record of your experience and knowing how you have dove in the past. Not wanting to use a book is no excuse– you can use your PADI app!
- Fibbing about how much air you have left. This is not a contest you want to win! No one cares about your air consumption other than your Divemaster.
- Peeing in your rental wetsuit. What you do in your own equipment is entirely up to you. However peeing inside a rental suit is just a little mean. Someone has to clean that!
- Photographers- OK not all underwater photographers are that bad. It’s important to remember photography is a secondary objective. Focusing on your photo alone can cause a lot of issues. Newbie photographers might:
- Forget about their surroundings
- Use excessive flash
- Chase wildlife into the depth without regard to their dive group or environment
- Kicking reefs unintentionally. .
- No pre dive safety checks! Just tossing on your equipment and jumping in to later realize you missed something is not ideal.
- Poor finning and buoyancy. – this can cause reef and habitat destruction. Learn how to choose the right amount of diving weight here to improve your buoyancy.
- Lack of awareness of other people on the trip. Try your best to stay aware of your surroundings and other folks on your trip. Have your equipment sprawled across the boat? Maybe you should tidy that up.
We were a little cheeky with this one, but with any public facing career there’s always going to be some things that people in the industry see time and time again. So if you’re a culprit for any of the above, don’t beat yourself up too much. Just remember next time stay aware of those around you and don’t pee in your wetsuit then you’ll be headed in the right direction!
