Dive In
The Good Dive Guide
near to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. We’d gone ahead
Challenging the popular view among experienced divers that dive of the guide as the dive was a very leisurely one but half way through
guides are for novices, Brendan O’Brien puts his case forward for freak weather conditions brought on a current that we initially
why it’s cool to follow those in-the-know. thought was part of the encounter. But then it picked up and before
long we were hurtling along the seabed at a most uncomfortable rate
Can you remember the first time you went diving? How your of knots. We managed to find a rocky outcrop where we hid from the
instructor would point out creatures and vistas you can still remember current and after a few minutes we made the decision to head for the
today? Back then your instructor and the dive guides who followed surface – by the time we reached it we were about half a mile from the
them were looked up to as the fonts of all knowledge on what lay dive boat. Fortunately we managed to swim over to a coral head that
below the surface – you’d follow them around waiting for the next we could just about stand on and from this position we managed to
thing they’d find for you to be amazed by. Despite this, you may well attract the skipper’s attention.
have been jealous of the more qualified divers, the ones that were
allowed to go off and do their own thing. Suddenly the dive guides The dive guide and his team were already onboard. He’d remembered
became less attractive, what you wanted was independence. the conditions from a dive he had done a few years earlier and knew
at an early stage in the dive that he needed to abort it. No-one could
This was certainly my experience and I eventually achieved that have predicted these circumstances, but it does serve as an example
level of trust, the recognition that once off the back of the boat I was of how conditions can change rapidly and it’s local knowledge that
competent enough to take care of my own buddy team. However, might just keep you out of harm’s way.
several hundred dives and three decades later I’m a changed man.
Dive with the guide? That’ll do nicely - sign me up. Given the choice But there are those who put themselves in perilous situations despite
between independent diving and joining the dive guide I’ll always opt warnings from dive guides about dangerous conditions. On too many
for the latter. occasions I’ve seen divers nod their heads as their guide provides
them with the information they’ll need for a safe dive only to get in
My epiphany came a decade ago while on assignment for Diver the water and ignore it all.
magazine on a liveaboard off the coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.
Also on the boat was the pioneering underwater film producer Stan On another assignment in the Maldives, ignoring the guide’s
Waterman, who, despite decades of experience under his belt, chose instructions very nearly led to a tragedy during a challenging drift
to carry out every dive with the boat’s guides. Early on in the trip I dive. The guide had briefed us that we needed to enter the water,
asked him why. ‘It’s simple,’ he said. ‘They know where all the cool stuff descend as a group and bottom out in blue water at m. The current
is.’ would then take us to the lip of a vertical wall that we could grip hold
of, spin round and watch the big pelagics from. I stuck to the guide
For the rest of the week I joined him and the other guides and do you like glue as I could sense there was an element of risk, but the others
know, he was right. I came back with shots of macro subjects I would didn’t and went too deep. They were pushed by the current along the
never have found as well as the manta ray photographs that made the wall and then forced up and over the lip missing the opportunity to
lead pictures for the article – all because the guides led me to where I grasp it. I did see them, but only for a moment as they were tumbled
would find the subjects I was looking for. along the top of the reef by the current destroying a few sea fans
But diving with the guides isn’t just about finding all the, ‘cool stuff,’ it’s along the way. They ended up over a mile from the dive boat and were
also essential for safe diving practices. only rescued when the pick up boat from the floatplane passed them.
I guess the lesson is, if you want to see the ‘cool stuff’ or more
A year after my Stan Waterman experience I almost ended up being importantly stay as safe as you can, use the services provided by your
swept out into the open ocean during a dive off a small set of islands dive guide. After all, isn’t that what you’re paying for?
1 www.cdws.travel
Issue 1 June 2009
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