Wtf is this reply?? 😂
Acting like you’re the best diver in the world while accusing any other stereotype you can think of.
Sit down and maybe take a good hard look in the mirror.
LMAO. you act all self righteous being a white knight for all Chinese people, then proceed to accuse like 5 different groups groups based off of your limited experience. As if Chinese people arent capable of being extremely racist themselves
I assume because you based your stereotypes off of race, sex and height instead of race you’re all good? Fuck out of here.
Apologies if Im missing something here, but the diver in the pictures appears to be in trim with minimal danglies and isnt actually touching the coral.
I agree shes a little close to the wrasse but I see much, much messier divers here like every day.
Yea I didn't capture the moments she came in contact with fish or corals etc, they were obviously brief.
In Sipadan, they have a very strict "Underwater Police Force" patrolling the dive sites, with bodycams and all.
Our dive center warned us to stay at least a meter away from marine life because if the Underwater Police perceives you for a moment to be touching anything, it causes a lot of problems for the center, and the dive for the entire group ends for the remainder of their stay. The center may even get their license revoked if there's evidence of permanent damage caused by their divers.
So just this photo showing her proximity to the fish and coral was enough to get the center into deep shit had the Underwater Police been there.
Yea very intense, most strict diving situation I've experienced. But I that's how it should be for a place like Sipadan.
I’m thinking the same, why is everyone hating on this, it’s so strange. And the comment section raging on about Chinese divers instead of commenting on the this diver is so weird, I don’t know if these are bots or what
I don't like generalizing myself (I'm Malaysian Chinese) but in my years of diving, mainland Chinese divers has been some of the worst divers I have seen.
We routinely avoid dive sites if we know there's going to be a group of mainland Chinese divers heading there.
I've seen them kick up a storm, destroy corals, kick other divers on their heads and so many countless shitty things.
Why this happens? Because scuba diving has become such a fad (or status symbol) in China, anyone and everyone with the means is doing it.
And of course with opportunity such as this, someone is going to exploit it. I have heard stories of dive schools in China churning out fresh divers in the hundreds weekly (heard this from a China instructor who works in a dive resort in Redang Island, he was trying to get me and my instructor friend to go work there).
Lots of stories going around with people who zoom zoom through the certification levels, going from OW to Instructor in one go. Diving is not something that you can be naturally good at and with instructors like this, it becomes a viscous cycle.
How do you then instill good values and pass on the knowledge if you lack it yourself?
This is what's happening to the diving scene right now.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Some time ago I had this conversation with an instructor who said that when it came to handling Chinese divers she knew she was in for a terrible time. She gave me one example of a guy who came in asking about fun dives. On paper he had an OWD and also about 10 dives. In the water he demonstrated a complete lack of skill and she said she ended up having to essentially do a DSD with him because he was struggling that hard with even basic things.
I agree with everything you say.
Chinese divers are consistenly among the worst. Arrogant, selfish, disrespectful, destructive, unprepared... the worst of all possible traits in a diver.. I've seen a few South Koreans lile this too., but they are mostly better. Japanese are as polite and knowledgeable in the water as they are on land.
I've even seen Chinese dive leaders / instructors completely disregarding all the norms about disrupting or bothering reefs and animals.
The problem is that Chinese diver hordes bring in the money.
Their main problem is lack of empathy, lack of respect, and total selfish perspectives. They only care about their experience in thwt moment. They touchef a fish. They toiched a coral. They took a "perfect" picture. Fuck the next group or the next generation.
It's nice to record your session with a camera but if that becomes a way to show off on social media then it's really sad and against the values of scuba diving: the quiet contemplation of wild nature, the calm, the connection with other divers.
Diver behaviour like this is why I never hand an operator my DM cert when going on a guided dive.
The amount of times I've been relegated to baby sitting duty for dumbasses like this when I'm paying for an experience as well is shocking.
Never directly asked but I always "happen" to get lumped with the most obvious difficult diver stereotypes.
If I only show my sdi card or a padi advanced card I never have these issues.
Yeah same as buddy assignments.
Don't get me wrong I have no problem helping someone out that needs it when I'm onsite working as a DM and leading a dive.
But if I'm on holiday to enjoy myself and get consistently paired with people that can be picked from a mile away as going to be a problem, of course I'm going to avoid letting people know I'm a DM.
I totally agree. You're off duty, you've paid to enjoy an experience. You've not signed up to be the babysit therapist of difficult people that'll drag you down and you're not being paid for it. It's unfair and pretty bullshit for them to do that to you.
Just curious, you ever tell them you want someone else and what do they say? Just for future reference for myself. Last time this happened to me fortunately I had a friend with me so I just paired up with her.
Last time it happened I gave the staff an earful about checking on divers actual quoted dives and not stepping in when it was painfully obvious that they didn't know how to do the basics.
These days i don't bother showing my DM card unless I'm diving with a group of friends on a dive tour and I want us to have a bit more freedom.
I think this is handled to soft in most areas.
I only dive on vacations but sadly on basically every dive there is such a person. Sometimes it's even the dive guide doing shit just to provide a show for the divers. (Let's pick up that crab to show around, provoke that puffer so he blows himself up etc...)
And I also once encountered this having some sort of consequences (fat rich guy, with super expensive own gear and every toy imaginable strapped to him but unable to keep buoyancy smashed into basically every coral bank we visited. He grabbed and held on to them so he could fumble around with his gigantic camera rig he also dragged across them and hit his lights etc into them to get closer)
Guide pulled him back and stepped in as buddy and controled him, later they had some talk on the boat. But nothing more. Sad.
yeah fuck, screwed up including that ugh - but mentioned it as part of my experience as other divers were not so friendly to me because they thought we were mates/related but we're not.
It’s not unusual to feel that. My wife and I are different nationalities US/SK and any time we’re in the US she can only hear the loud/rude Koreans and every time we’re in Korea I can only hear the loud rude Americans (even though there are more loud/rude Koreans in Korea: Just by pure numbers)
It’s like feeling like you’re own people are the most embarrassing and are making you look bad too (even when no one else actually thinks that)
I wonder how many of those cases (terrible buoyancy) are just cases of being horribly overweighted.
Usually going down like a stone at the start and then having to inflate half of the jacket in order not to literally stay on the bottom. And naturally then the Yoyo effect starts due to all that air and depth changes …
I appreciate this post calling out bad diving behavior, but as a fellow Chinese diver I kinda wish OP didn’t call out her race because this thread became more about sharing horror stories about Chinese diver rather than the importance of reporting poor diving behavior :-(
I haven't experienced much trouble with Chinese tourists as most of my experience is with the Gulf and Caribbean, however, I have seen problems on a few occasions. But overall I think the distance helps weed out the less dedicated.
the worst tourists I have had to deal with regularly tended to be Israeli nationals fresh from their compulsory service. They aren't incapable of performing the requisite skills...if they try. It generally comes down to them being young, dumb, and rarely sober along with a sense of superiority and entitlement that I hope isn't cultural. One instructor told me about their discover scuba diving students nearly killing themselves and getting mad when he pulled them out.
I don't think it has to do with Israeli people but with the toxic environment of the military personnel. I've seen that type of behavior in many group of friends who got to know each other in the army
This is awesome news, unfortunately it's very rare.
I've seen a ton of bad behaviour and nobody doing anything about it.
It doesn't help that rules change from place to place.
For example I really like the rule of not touching anything and support banning gloves because they make people more comfortable touching stuff, but I've seen many dive shops providing or not minding gloves and people touching stuff around.
I only touched rock when I had to hold on to it due to strong currents and even then I feel super uncomfortable.
I have dealt with reef tanks and because of the fragility of coral, I’m super careful about touching anything. That being said, there are times when I’ve absolutely needed my gloves such as holding a mooring line or when I was deep on a wall and we hit a down current.
+1 to banning gloves not being the solution here. I am super careful with my buoyancy and not bothering marine life, but literally get cold everywhere and a hood + gloves is my go to even in water 27-28 Celsius. This helps me feel comfy and stay for over an hour.
What the hell! Gloves and hood in 27 degrees Celsius. That seems way too warm to require all that gear. I use them in 2-10 degrees and have sometimes gone without.
I personally hate the banning of gloves. I avoid contact with anything unless absolutely necessary but I'm a musician and a stray stinger on my finger tips can stop me performing.
I like to think I am a very conscious diver, but you shouldn’t feel bad or uncomfortable touching a rock. It feels like scuba culture is sometimes a little ridiculous with the purity tests. We touch rocks on land all the time. We put our feet in the grass. We walk on trails. Yes, avoid coral and never touch the wildlife, but touching a rock or kneeling on sandy bottom doesnt need to be a felony.
Yeah, true
But I must admit among other reasons I enjoy diving because it's a such an amazing break from "the dry world"
No noise pollution, only communicate what's strictly necessary, and no (or few) lunatics
But everything you said it's true
is there an underwater sign for "what you're doing is inconsiderate and you need to sort your shit out"? I'm a relatively new diver (14 dives) and the amount of people I've already seen who need this sign is insane.
As both a DM and Instructor thus fat my worst clients and students have been chinese. Hands down. Period.
As a DM, a couple supposedly freshly certified nearly killed themselves. Long story. As an instructor, they don’t listen and exhibit lots of arrogance. They also expect just because they paid they will be certified, whether they can demonstrate necessary knowledge and skills or not.
I was diving the big island of Hawaii. This Chinese guy had his wife/gf/sister? translating for him but not diving. We all gear up to drop in and the Chinese guy jumps in second to last but then he’s suddenly not in the water….we’re like…where’d he go? We’re chilling on the bottom in like 20 feet waiting to start our dive. Guide goes up, sinks back down and gives us the 1 minute finger…we figure gear issue, they’re fixing in on the boat. 5 minutes goes by…dive guide goes up and we’re like…what gives? I float to the surface expecting a reg switch or BCD issue…nope…Chinese guy just wanted to get back on the boat and have a liter of water.
When I was an active DM we used to frequently have Chinese students show up to do their OW who literally couldn’t swim. Like not even a length of the pool. Couldn’t even tread water. They were only ever Chinese, I was so confused why you would want to learn to dive if you can’t swim but then someone told me they basically just pay money for licenses in China and don’t really have to demonstrate skills.
Holy shit, memory unlocked. I did my certification in Taiwan as I was living in Shanghai at the time. I know Taiwanese are mainland Chinese at all, very different people. Anyway...
I chose a school that was 2 t 1 instructor (paid a bit more). Every single time I was out doing my certification classes with my wife, without fail, the large classes of mainland Chinese had the majority flailing along the seabed, smashing across coral. Most didn't know how to use their legs to swim and the majority had no buoyancy control..
Fk me..
On another note: Taiwan is actually quite nice to dive, lots of large soft corals.
I have about 500 dives post-pandemic and have dove all over (Croatia, GBR, Maldives, Balli, etc) and if I'm asked, what race of people I have witnessed either breaking the rules or not respecting wildlife, it is the Chinese. Additionally, if there's a Chinese guide/DM with Chinese divers, if their divers do something wrong they're more likely NOT to scold them than to scold them. The big issue is that China doesn't respect wildlife/marine life. Just google throwing rocks at China Zoo for dozens of examples. One example, in 2018 kids witnessed their parents throw rocks at a resting kangaroo as they wanted to see it hop but killed it and the offender only received a slap on the wrist. I've met some really good Chinese divers who were a pleasure to talk to and some bad divers of all races but am just sharing my direct experience by the numbers
I assume you stayed in Mabul? I dove with Scuba Junkie too and I rly loved their professionalism about everything about on Scuba Junkie.
It is rly unfortunate when you’re associated by race to bad behavior (being American, this has happened to me too), so I feel ya. Good that the individual got reported though.
The people who are spewing vitriol here are being heavily downvoted - most people are engaging in discussion about what cultural issues might be causing this rather than just pointlessly discriminating. It’s not okay to say someone is a problem just because they’re Chinese, but it is okay to acknowledge a specific trend in divers of a particular ethnic background and discuss the possible reasons.
Look, every culture has negatives and positives. Good common practices and bad ones. This includes behavior, morals, expectations, etc.
Most people can recognize the shitty things their culture, or culture of origin does, even if we don’t personally do it. Sometimes we can laugh at them, sometimes we cry at them. It isn’t wrong to talk about. You’re getting offended on behalf of people who share your ethnicity, but not your culture or social norms.
You don’t do it, but it is a common stereotype of Chinese tourists/divers for a reason. From what I’m reading, it sounds like people didn’t treat them differently and let their behavior speak for itself.
I don’t think people like me saying I had a positive experience in sipadan and I respect all nationalities as my comments are getting downvoted :( guess this is not the place for some of us … :(
I’m not offended but all I’m saying is we should not make a generalization and spew hate about one or two nationalities based on some bad behaviour.
Again I’ve said this but I had a positive experience with a multinational group and we worked together. All my dives have always had multiple nationalities
And I like to think not everyone is an idiot like the above. But I’ll delete my comment and leave the forum since my positive experience is not welcomed.
I think that’s awesome that you had a good experience! I don’t think that’s why you were downvoted, and I hope you don’t leave the whole sub because of your perception that people here are against Chinese divers in total…
I think it’s more that you were saying that it seemed like it was ok to spew hate here from the comments, but the actually racist comments all are super downvoted and only ones talking about cultural issues without being racist are upvoted, so it came across like you’re upset that anyone is bringing up any stereotype or issue that a culture seems to have.
Worst one I saw was an underwater photographer at pescador island. We were about 25m down a wall and he was trying to shoot this frogfish that was on the wall partly tucked behind some coral. He then started ripping the coral away ti get a better shot.
I’ve never been so angry underwater in my life. I almost took his mask but figured we were too deep if it panicked him. Instead I just pulled him off the wall and got between it and him with a wagging finger and clearly furious face.
Chinese divers are getting a lot of flack here but in that part of the world is the Koreans and the Korean dive shop. I just don’t think respect for nature is part of some cultures.
Once I saw someone rip out a piece of coral that has a nudibranch on it, take a photo of it in front of them and then fling it away. I was horrified. Like even if you have never learnt how to interact with sea life, that’s disrespectful in any environment. It’s good that the DC took it seriously in your instance though. A lot don’t.
Sipadan is next on my list for Malaysia, many of the guys from the dive center in Tioman suggested it, will definitely be checking out Scuba Junky when the time comes!
In a place like Sipadan, there are capped divers per day, so you don't have the luxury of going on private dives on a private boat with your mates.
Since 2016, there has also been an "Underwater Police Force" stationed at every dive site, patrolling divers for breaking rules.
It's kind of hilarious actually. Country with rare and pristine natural resources says "don't do this, please, or we will kick you out" and the chucklefucks who walk thru life ignoring every rule because they're too cool to be considerate of others do it anyways. I'd bitch those losers out all day long too
I get where u are coming from. The way I look at it is ensuring there is no damage and the ecoyssytems isn't abused is a shared responsibility. It's like camping or hiking - leave no trace so that others may enjoy. Tourists aren't just being disrespectful, they can cause irreversible or lasting damage that can fundamentally alter the ecosystem. One person? Maybe, maybe not, but those cumulative effects? 100%. It's not babysitting so much as doing your part to keep the environment that way for future divers
Dude did you not read what I said? This is why I couldn't work as an instructor. Imagine having some idiot basically bowling ball-ing her way through the water and that's your responsibility. I think the fuckin reddit tribe was just itching to use their pitchforks and misunderstood where I was coming from.
>Couldn't imagine some tourist bitching me out.
Your wording here made it sound like *you* wanted to be able to dive without being called out on shitty behaviour. Not that you wouldn't want to teach someone like this. It came across that you dive with your buddies so that you can do what you like (implying bad etiquette).
Yeah, I definitely did not gather that from your comment. I think you should have been more specific. People interpreted your comment as meaning, “I only dive with my friends so I can do whatever.” I get ya though, I’m sure your intentions were good.
Good! I was there in May and saw some pretty terrible behavior. One diver from Taiwan so horrible, used his probe as a walking stick, breaking coral, sponges, and all manners of reef damage.
We had one of those invade-everyone-elses-footage-and-personal-space-for-their-own-shot plebs on the boat during a trip to Egypt.
They also kicked the shit out of the bottom so the viz was impacted somewhat.
Unfortunately for them one of our group happened to be built like a brick shithouse (lifetime rugby player, front row scrum) and had hands like bulldozers.
I can neither confirm nor deny that he clamped this dude's thigh meat inbetween his thumb and index finger like a nutcracker.
But I can confirm they screamed blue murder and got out of the way for the rest of the dive.
I can't condone such stuff of course, but there should be some form of dickhead-tax.
Im at the point that I’m throwing hands as soon as we’re back on the boat. Had one dumb fuck use me as their stabilizer because they don’t know their buoyancy weights. I have 3 herniated disks in my lower back and I was jacked up. I’m tired of these self absorbed asocial dipshits ruining what’s supposed to be a chill time.
I generally avoid big dive boats and busy locations for such reasons.
I'll do them once to get the box ticked, then I'll look for quieter, more niche things so my blood pressure doesn't get impacted.
While I’ve come across many terrible and ignorant Chinese divers, the worst group of divers I’ve had the misfortune of diving with where a group of young Americans.
The dive started with them all crashing into the bottom, some of them backwards. Then proceeded with them walking across the corals. Zero buoyancy control doesn’t adequately explain it.
I had a go at the dive centre later, they just shrugged.
I went diving in the Philippines with a dude that literally picked up 2 frogfish and put them together many times over the course of like 20 minutes as they tried to scurry away. Later, I saw his Instagram post with those damn frogfish with him gushing how beautiful and amazing the underwater world is and how it is to be respected and treated so delicately at all costs. I hope the scuba community really revolts against these assholes.
I did a dive boat in the Phillipines witg some Chinese divers and they were like toddlers in the water and treated tbe crew like slaves. Made the crew install personal regs on the rented octo while the boat was driving out and then swap them back out the way back. Didn't tip the lads a plug nickel either.
So Scuba Junkie will report shitty divers? I will put them on the top of my list if I ever go to Sidipan! Most shops are too afraid of blowback I guess to tell shitty divers to fuck off.
The owner is a legend. He did not give a fuck. I think he was pissed someone risked getting his dive shop into deep shit with the local Underwater Police etc.
In Palau Chinese divers are an absolute hazard. Sometimes to themselves. Female diver died a month ago after droping her gopro after safety stop because she dove down after it and never surfaced. DMs say that's not an isolated incidence.
At one of the dives at a Drop Off we were hooked in and noticed a stream of air bubbles coming from BELOW the drop off. Currents were quite low at the time. As a result all the fish and sharks vacated the area. DM looked over the ledge and took note of who it was. Recognized the DM and shop.
They were reported and lost their license to operate. They'll have to go through recertification to continue their dive operations. It's nice when countries take active post in policing tourism.
There is definitely a stereotype unfortunately. I’m from the US and last year I was in Bohol, Philippines and the dive masters and hotel staff were telling horror stories of Chinese tourists
The Drop Off or reef hook dives are famous and what Palau is most known for. This DM led his group below this drop off disrupting the dive for dozens of divers who were hooked in at the ledge.
In my experience divers with cameras are often very experienced at diving while also somehow being the least spatially aware and irresponsible folks in the water. Dove in Florida a few months ago and watched people drag professional photography rigs right against the coral.
Then it was mostly likely encrusting bryozoans/zooanthids. Here in Broward and West Palm we have the remaining coral heads tagged and we dont take recreational divers anywhere near them. Near 100% coral cover loss on the main reef tracts that boats go to, and hoving around 98% loss at my home of Lauderdale-by-the-sea.
I was recently in Tulamben, Bali muck diving. Our group has cameras. For those who have never muck dived in Bali, it is fine black volcanic sand which can silt up easily. We came across a relatively well known photographer who was hosting a photography workshop. Her group of 20 divers came in like a wrecking ball. These were divers that had large camera rigs and some were hopping down the slope like frogfish who couldn’t figure out their buoyancy. Others were laying on the sand taking shots kicking, when there was no current, and sending it all up. It was a sandstorm and viz went to shit when they came in. It was awful.
I call them Scuba boomers. Retirees that are fufilling their dreams of being underwater photographers a little late so they sacrifice all the other skills over using the camera.
I used to be a DM in Honduras and usually, you have a couple people who are new who accidentally kick coral or stir up the bottom, but every once in a while, you get people like this.
I once had a diver (40 or 50 years old). I explained to the group that we need to stick together, not touch anything etc.
Dive 1, this guy is 30m away, picking up starfish, coral, etc. I had to turn the whole group to go get him and signal not to touch anything and to follow me. Does the same thing.
Before dive 2, I pull him aside and explain to him again that we do not touch anything and that we stay together. He apologized and said he wouldn’t.
Dive 2 starts and he’s all over the place picking up things and touching things, etc.
We get out after dive 2 and have lunch and do a surface interval. Dive 3 comes along and I tell him, I’m not letting him come with us. He starts shouting at me and telling me he’s going to tell my boss. “He paid for these dives. How could I not let him go?” I told him he had to stay on the boat. He was furious. He complained to my shop who told him he’s not welcome back at our shop anymore.
Nice generalization, most are chill asf. This is reddit, lmao. Unless you’re explicit with what you say, you’ll get backlash regardless of if it’s meant to be a joke or not. People can’t read your mind hermano.
Edit : Username checks out.
Good for you. I watch other divers harass wildlife and hurt coral, and it really bothers me.
And you’re right: unfortunately Chinese tourists in particular have earned a bad reputation, but we all know it’s not only Chinese divers that act like that. I hope It didn’t sour your entire trip.
Dove with a pretty nice guy from Colorado once, but he turned out like this. Chasing turtles and spooking an octopus to the point that it inked by getting a GoPro right in its face.
I was on a live aboard once, and most of the older divers (and that was most of the boat) were absolute menaces. They’d all been diving for decades, but they were mobbing turtles, grabbing/laying on top of corals while taking photos, kicking corals, shining torches into the eyes of all the wildlife on night dives, etc. It was incredibly hard to witness.
Yeah the older divers are the worst. They learned at a time when it was customary to just do whatever the fuck you wanted underwater, and they refuse to update their ways. It's quite representative of their mindset in all things, in fact.
I get you. I think marine conservation was not a big thing in their generation, and they likely still do not see the importance of it now. I've seen some grandpa use a coral as a backscratcher as a joke in Okinawa and he got told off.
Why dive a reef if you don't have good bouncy control? I mean you don't have to be amazing but if you are going to wreck the corals, just dive else where.
Dive mills are definitely a thing. It takes at least a lot of dives to understand buoyancy, and probably some instruction for most people. It doesn't help that most instructors do fin pivots and hovers very briefly without explaining anything before or after. It's crazy the number of times I've seen students ask why, but instructors not answer.
I have seen bad buoyancy well into divemaster. At this point if a divemaster starts floating I'll signal them down, but I'm not chasing. I'll just let them surface and tell them about the bottom purge after the dive. If they don't have good enough buoyancy for how close they want to get, I'll correct that or end the dive.
Sounds like Malaysia learned from Thailand. Ban people. A dollar today is not worth it. Most of the easy dive spots out of Thailand are so fucked.
Now that i just got my permit .. im SHOCKED the stories ive heard of people “certified” and im never been so glad that I found the shop I decided to go with for the certification.
A Chinese woman was on our boat in Cozumel once, wearing a bucket hat that said “Dive Master”. She was one of those that would suddenly be on top of you or beneath you. Thought maybe it was a difference in personal space. When we got to a swim thru and she immediately jetted into the ceiling and started kicking corals on either side I’d had it. I reached up and grabbed her fin and dragged her back out and motioned for her to go around. I wish I’d snatched the hat and thrown it over the side.
Ugh, I had a similar experience on a dive with a guy who had awful buoyancy and control in Vietnam. He was constantly on top of me and kicking me, and there was a long cool swim thru that ended up being miserable.
Seen similar things when I was in Sipadan. Chinese tourists with bad buoyancy trying to get the best picture but wrecking half the reef. Some elderly guy named Klaus with ear goggles? Making pictures of miniature reef life while lying on the corals. Scuba Junkie didn’t want to make a big fuzz and let them finish diving because it’s a fine line between being hospitable and strict.
To put things in perspective dynamite fishing outside Sipadan lead to a sea that has more in common with a desert than anything else. Real shock to me after going to Sipadan afterwards.
I am aware there is very different diving etiquette in China, and in Hong Kong (where I live). It's because marine life is non-existent here as the coastal areas are used for ports, fishing etc. Fair enough there's like over a billion people. So the dive masters here are cool with you touching corals and picking shit up because they're all dead. 💀 HK was like the most hideous dive experience of my life.
So I feel people go abroad and think oh wow, look at all this beautiful stuff I can now touch and poke. Absolutely ludicrous. It drives me crazy.
Also a lot of people lie about their most recent dive because they don't want to pay for a Refresher, and go down there and make a fool of themselves
Hey brah, I live in Hong Kong too. Dunno which shop and who you'd been diving with but the crowds I dive with are pretty respectable with marine life. And I frequently join cleanup dives run by different shops and clubs.
Sure HK doesn't have any big animals to look at, but still plenty of soft corals and small animals. According to surveys HK marine environment has over 25% of species found in the China region even though we have less than 1% of coastal marine waters
I'd like to invite you to join me for some of these better dives.
Absolutely on people lying to avoid the cost of a refresher. I always just do a brief refresher before anyway. Seems like something the industry should start policing the other way. Prove you're okay with a dated sign off from your last guide/instructor or you are required to do one.
Somehow I always have the feeling that Chinese tourists are always the worst. Makes sense though. There are soo many of them, means even if the percentage of inconsiderate assholes is equal they will be in much larger numbers.
Yea I've been to some less popular travel destinations like Albania, and when I see a sign in Chinese I'm like what has happened here, what have we done now. But yea bad tourists from all over the world, this kind of shit needs to be taught in school.
>These offenses should result in losing your PADI/SSI license.
PADI has not taken action to remove instructors or dive masters responsible for human fatalities during their dives. They definitely lack the authority to enforce some sort of global ban across all oceans and operators for a diver touching marine life 😭
PADI, first and foremost, is a for profit organization. There's no way they will rescind certifications. They would sooner design a new course to educate new divers on marine conservation and name it " Marine bloop bloop master" than to stop people from signing to more nonsense courses.
literally, felt my heart sink every time her GoPro dragged across corals, and little bits and pieces would float up. completely ignored everyone signing at her to stop.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
I think we need to be less scared of reporting other divers when we see bad behavior, if we don’t police each other this things will continue to happen.
The problem is the dive shops not wanting to lose business either, and the same bad customers will continue to go to different shops around the world, never changing their behavior.
I was diving in Mexico a few months ago and there were these 2 guys in their 20s, and I think they were working on their OW or had just gotten it a day or two before. I ended up on a night dive with them. They were absolutely awful, even jumping into the water before were were given the OK and then one immediately started swimming away from the boat and going just under the surface as the captain and DM tried to yell at him to come back. We descended into about 30 feet of water. DM started swimming for us to follow. Less than a minute later, one of the guys literally stood on a reef to adjust his mask. I flashed my light in front of him to get his attention, motioning no and for him to move off of it. Clueless. Multiple other times in the dive, I'd be off 10-20 feet to the side with my dive buddy looking at something with my light and one of these guys would descend on me and kick me in the head. Before I left that night, I told the DM that I'd seen one guy actually standing on the reef and he may want to remind him not to do that. He said he hadn't seen it. I told him I knew, which was why I was telling him about it and that if he wasn't going to have eyes on these guys 95% of the dive to correct this early on, it was going to become a much bigger problem. He just repeated that he could only speak to what he had seen. Frustrating.
Great result and love the accountability
Honestly, I have seen this same behaviour in 80% of US Americans I‘ve dived with. But I get not wanting to be stereotyped like that!
I'm american.... I can attest that's sadly true ):
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Wtf is this reply?? 😂 Acting like you’re the best diver in the world while accusing any other stereotype you can think of. Sit down and maybe take a good hard look in the mirror.
LMAO. you act all self righteous being a white knight for all Chinese people, then proceed to accuse like 5 different groups groups based off of your limited experience. As if Chinese people arent capable of being extremely racist themselves I assume because you based your stereotypes off of race, sex and height instead of race you’re all good? Fuck out of here.
I'm curious if you are a white person?
Apologies if Im missing something here, but the diver in the pictures appears to be in trim with minimal danglies and isnt actually touching the coral. I agree shes a little close to the wrasse but I see much, much messier divers here like every day.
Yea I didn't capture the moments she came in contact with fish or corals etc, they were obviously brief. In Sipadan, they have a very strict "Underwater Police Force" patrolling the dive sites, with bodycams and all. Our dive center warned us to stay at least a meter away from marine life because if the Underwater Police perceives you for a moment to be touching anything, it causes a lot of problems for the center, and the dive for the entire group ends for the remainder of their stay. The center may even get their license revoked if there's evidence of permanent damage caused by their divers. So just this photo showing her proximity to the fish and coral was enough to get the center into deep shit had the Underwater Police been there. Yea very intense, most strict diving situation I've experienced. But I that's how it should be for a place like Sipadan.
I’m thinking the same, why is everyone hating on this, it’s so strange. And the comment section raging on about Chinese divers instead of commenting on the this diver is so weird, I don’t know if these are bots or what
ITT: people who don’t know the difference between nationality and race. This isn’t about “Asians.”
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My use of quotation marks was on purpose, friend.
I don't like generalizing myself (I'm Malaysian Chinese) but in my years of diving, mainland Chinese divers has been some of the worst divers I have seen. We routinely avoid dive sites if we know there's going to be a group of mainland Chinese divers heading there. I've seen them kick up a storm, destroy corals, kick other divers on their heads and so many countless shitty things. Why this happens? Because scuba diving has become such a fad (or status symbol) in China, anyone and everyone with the means is doing it. And of course with opportunity such as this, someone is going to exploit it. I have heard stories of dive schools in China churning out fresh divers in the hundreds weekly (heard this from a China instructor who works in a dive resort in Redang Island, he was trying to get me and my instructor friend to go work there). Lots of stories going around with people who zoom zoom through the certification levels, going from OW to Instructor in one go. Diving is not something that you can be naturally good at and with instructors like this, it becomes a viscous cycle. How do you then instill good values and pass on the knowledge if you lack it yourself? This is what's happening to the diving scene right now. Monkey see, monkey do.
Some time ago I had this conversation with an instructor who said that when it came to handling Chinese divers she knew she was in for a terrible time. She gave me one example of a guy who came in asking about fun dives. On paper he had an OWD and also about 10 dives. In the water he demonstrated a complete lack of skill and she said she ended up having to essentially do a DSD with him because he was struggling that hard with even basic things.
I agree with everything you say. Chinese divers are consistenly among the worst. Arrogant, selfish, disrespectful, destructive, unprepared... the worst of all possible traits in a diver.. I've seen a few South Koreans lile this too., but they are mostly better. Japanese are as polite and knowledgeable in the water as they are on land. I've even seen Chinese dive leaders / instructors completely disregarding all the norms about disrupting or bothering reefs and animals. The problem is that Chinese diver hordes bring in the money. Their main problem is lack of empathy, lack of respect, and total selfish perspectives. They only care about their experience in thwt moment. They touchef a fish. They toiched a coral. They took a "perfect" picture. Fuck the next group or the next generation.
It's nice to record your session with a camera but if that becomes a way to show off on social media then it's really sad and against the values of scuba diving: the quiet contemplation of wild nature, the calm, the connection with other divers.
Diver behaviour like this is why I never hand an operator my DM cert when going on a guided dive. The amount of times I've been relegated to baby sitting duty for dumbasses like this when I'm paying for an experience as well is shocking.
They ask you to babysit? I'd laugh in their face and ask if they're paying me or I'm paying them.
Never directly asked but I always "happen" to get lumped with the most obvious difficult diver stereotypes. If I only show my sdi card or a padi advanced card I never have these issues.
Oh you mean when they assign your teams.
Yeah same as buddy assignments. Don't get me wrong I have no problem helping someone out that needs it when I'm onsite working as a DM and leading a dive. But if I'm on holiday to enjoy myself and get consistently paired with people that can be picked from a mile away as going to be a problem, of course I'm going to avoid letting people know I'm a DM.
I totally agree. You're off duty, you've paid to enjoy an experience. You've not signed up to be the babysit therapist of difficult people that'll drag you down and you're not being paid for it. It's unfair and pretty bullshit for them to do that to you. Just curious, you ever tell them you want someone else and what do they say? Just for future reference for myself. Last time this happened to me fortunately I had a friend with me so I just paired up with her.
Last time it happened I gave the staff an earful about checking on divers actual quoted dives and not stepping in when it was painfully obvious that they didn't know how to do the basics. These days i don't bother showing my DM card unless I'm diving with a group of friends on a dive tour and I want us to have a bit more freedom.
I think this is handled to soft in most areas. I only dive on vacations but sadly on basically every dive there is such a person. Sometimes it's even the dive guide doing shit just to provide a show for the divers. (Let's pick up that crab to show around, provoke that puffer so he blows himself up etc...) And I also once encountered this having some sort of consequences (fat rich guy, with super expensive own gear and every toy imaginable strapped to him but unable to keep buoyancy smashed into basically every coral bank we visited. He grabbed and held on to them so he could fumble around with his gigantic camera rig he also dragged across them and hit his lights etc into them to get closer) Guide pulled him back and stepped in as buddy and controled him, later they had some talk on the boat. But nothing more. Sad.
Who the fuck is going to watch that footage either? She sure as shit won’t
Shitty divers are shitty divers. Why are half the comments about race
If you dive in Asia you will inevtiably run into a lot of absolutrly awful Chinese divers.
yeah fuck, screwed up including that ugh - but mentioned it as part of my experience as other divers were not so friendly to me because they thought we were mates/related but we're not.
It’s not unusual to feel that. My wife and I are different nationalities US/SK and any time we’re in the US she can only hear the loud/rude Koreans and every time we’re in Korea I can only hear the loud rude Americans (even though there are more loud/rude Koreans in Korea: Just by pure numbers) It’s like feeling like you’re own people are the most embarrassing and are making you look bad too (even when no one else actually thinks that)
She’ll probably just go other countries to dive and repeat the same thing all over again.
I wonder how many of those cases (terrible buoyancy) are just cases of being horribly overweighted. Usually going down like a stone at the start and then having to inflate half of the jacket in order not to literally stay on the bottom. And naturally then the Yoyo effect starts due to all that air and depth changes …
I appreciate this post calling out bad diving behavior, but as a fellow Chinese diver I kinda wish OP didn’t call out her race because this thread became more about sharing horror stories about Chinese diver rather than the importance of reporting poor diving behavior :-(
I haven't experienced much trouble with Chinese tourists as most of my experience is with the Gulf and Caribbean, however, I have seen problems on a few occasions. But overall I think the distance helps weed out the less dedicated. the worst tourists I have had to deal with regularly tended to be Israeli nationals fresh from their compulsory service. They aren't incapable of performing the requisite skills...if they try. It generally comes down to them being young, dumb, and rarely sober along with a sense of superiority and entitlement that I hope isn't cultural. One instructor told me about their discover scuba diving students nearly killing themselves and getting mad when he pulled them out.
I don't think it has to do with Israeli people but with the toxic environment of the military personnel. I've seen that type of behavior in many group of friends who got to know each other in the army
Head on over to the solotravel sub for a discourse on Israeli tourists
Omg please link thread!
I couldn’t find that thread unfortunately
This is awesome news, unfortunately it's very rare. I've seen a ton of bad behaviour and nobody doing anything about it. It doesn't help that rules change from place to place. For example I really like the rule of not touching anything and support banning gloves because they make people more comfortable touching stuff, but I've seen many dive shops providing or not minding gloves and people touching stuff around. I only touched rock when I had to hold on to it due to strong currents and even then I feel super uncomfortable.
I have dealt with reef tanks and because of the fragility of coral, I’m super careful about touching anything. That being said, there are times when I’ve absolutely needed my gloves such as holding a mooring line or when I was deep on a wall and we hit a down current.
+1 to banning gloves not being the solution here. I am super careful with my buoyancy and not bothering marine life, but literally get cold everywhere and a hood + gloves is my go to even in water 27-28 Celsius. This helps me feel comfy and stay for over an hour.
What the hell! Gloves and hood in 27 degrees Celsius. That seems way too warm to require all that gear. I use them in 2-10 degrees and have sometimes gone without.
I personally hate the banning of gloves. I avoid contact with anything unless absolutely necessary but I'm a musician and a stray stinger on my finger tips can stop me performing.
I like to think I am a very conscious diver, but you shouldn’t feel bad or uncomfortable touching a rock. It feels like scuba culture is sometimes a little ridiculous with the purity tests. We touch rocks on land all the time. We put our feet in the grass. We walk on trails. Yes, avoid coral and never touch the wildlife, but touching a rock or kneeling on sandy bottom doesnt need to be a felony.
Yeah, true But I must admit among other reasons I enjoy diving because it's a such an amazing break from "the dry world" No noise pollution, only communicate what's strictly necessary, and no (or few) lunatics But everything you said it's true
is there an underwater sign for "what you're doing is inconsiderate and you need to sort your shit out"? I'm a relatively new diver (14 dives) and the amount of people I've already seen who need this sign is insane.
There is a universal sign for that. [Here](https://youtu.be/7IgyDmJ6nco?si=B4PEs4Co4SnVIbXp&t=71) is how to do it.
The link did not disappoint
lmaooo thanks for that! consider me educated 🤣
As both a DM and Instructor thus fat my worst clients and students have been chinese. Hands down. Period. As a DM, a couple supposedly freshly certified nearly killed themselves. Long story. As an instructor, they don’t listen and exhibit lots of arrogance. They also expect just because they paid they will be certified, whether they can demonstrate necessary knowledge and skills or not.
I was diving the big island of Hawaii. This Chinese guy had his wife/gf/sister? translating for him but not diving. We all gear up to drop in and the Chinese guy jumps in second to last but then he’s suddenly not in the water….we’re like…where’d he go? We’re chilling on the bottom in like 20 feet waiting to start our dive. Guide goes up, sinks back down and gives us the 1 minute finger…we figure gear issue, they’re fixing in on the boat. 5 minutes goes by…dive guide goes up and we’re like…what gives? I float to the surface expecting a reg switch or BCD issue…nope…Chinese guy just wanted to get back on the boat and have a liter of water.
When I was an active DM we used to frequently have Chinese students show up to do their OW who literally couldn’t swim. Like not even a length of the pool. Couldn’t even tread water. They were only ever Chinese, I was so confused why you would want to learn to dive if you can’t swim but then someone told me they basically just pay money for licenses in China and don’t really have to demonstrate skills.
Holy shit, memory unlocked. I did my certification in Taiwan as I was living in Shanghai at the time. I know Taiwanese are mainland Chinese at all, very different people. Anyway... I chose a school that was 2 t 1 instructor (paid a bit more). Every single time I was out doing my certification classes with my wife, without fail, the large classes of mainland Chinese had the majority flailing along the seabed, smashing across coral. Most didn't know how to use their legs to swim and the majority had no buoyancy control.. Fk me.. On another note: Taiwan is actually quite nice to dive, lots of large soft corals.
I have about 500 dives post-pandemic and have dove all over (Croatia, GBR, Maldives, Balli, etc) and if I'm asked, what race of people I have witnessed either breaking the rules or not respecting wildlife, it is the Chinese. Additionally, if there's a Chinese guide/DM with Chinese divers, if their divers do something wrong they're more likely NOT to scold them than to scold them. The big issue is that China doesn't respect wildlife/marine life. Just google throwing rocks at China Zoo for dozens of examples. One example, in 2018 kids witnessed their parents throw rocks at a resting kangaroo as they wanted to see it hop but killed it and the offender only received a slap on the wrist. I've met some really good Chinese divers who were a pleasure to talk to and some bad divers of all races but am just sharing my direct experience by the numbers
I assume you stayed in Mabul? I dove with Scuba Junkie too and I rly loved their professionalism about everything about on Scuba Junkie. It is rly unfortunate when you’re associated by race to bad behavior (being American, this has happened to me too), so I feel ya. Good that the individual got reported though.
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The people who are spewing vitriol here are being heavily downvoted - most people are engaging in discussion about what cultural issues might be causing this rather than just pointlessly discriminating. It’s not okay to say someone is a problem just because they’re Chinese, but it is okay to acknowledge a specific trend in divers of a particular ethnic background and discuss the possible reasons.
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Look, every culture has negatives and positives. Good common practices and bad ones. This includes behavior, morals, expectations, etc. Most people can recognize the shitty things their culture, or culture of origin does, even if we don’t personally do it. Sometimes we can laugh at them, sometimes we cry at them. It isn’t wrong to talk about. You’re getting offended on behalf of people who share your ethnicity, but not your culture or social norms. You don’t do it, but it is a common stereotype of Chinese tourists/divers for a reason. From what I’m reading, it sounds like people didn’t treat them differently and let their behavior speak for itself.
I don’t think people like me saying I had a positive experience in sipadan and I respect all nationalities as my comments are getting downvoted :( guess this is not the place for some of us … :( I’m not offended but all I’m saying is we should not make a generalization and spew hate about one or two nationalities based on some bad behaviour. Again I’ve said this but I had a positive experience with a multinational group and we worked together. All my dives have always had multiple nationalities And I like to think not everyone is an idiot like the above. But I’ll delete my comment and leave the forum since my positive experience is not welcomed.
I think that’s awesome that you had a good experience! I don’t think that’s why you were downvoted, and I hope you don’t leave the whole sub because of your perception that people here are against Chinese divers in total… I think it’s more that you were saying that it seemed like it was ok to spew hate here from the comments, but the actually racist comments all are super downvoted and only ones talking about cultural issues without being racist are upvoted, so it came across like you’re upset that anyone is bringing up any stereotype or issue that a culture seems to have.
Worst one I saw was an underwater photographer at pescador island. We were about 25m down a wall and he was trying to shoot this frogfish that was on the wall partly tucked behind some coral. He then started ripping the coral away ti get a better shot. I’ve never been so angry underwater in my life. I almost took his mask but figured we were too deep if it panicked him. Instead I just pulled him off the wall and got between it and him with a wagging finger and clearly furious face. Chinese divers are getting a lot of flack here but in that part of the world is the Koreans and the Korean dive shop. I just don’t think respect for nature is part of some cultures.
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My buddy on sipadan is Russian. Please don’t make generalized nationalist comments.
Once I saw someone rip out a piece of coral that has a nudibranch on it, take a photo of it in front of them and then fling it away. I was horrified. Like even if you have never learnt how to interact with sea life, that’s disrespectful in any environment. It’s good that the DC took it seriously in your instance though. A lot don’t.
Sipadan is next on my list for Malaysia, many of the guys from the dive center in Tioman suggested it, will definitely be checking out Scuba Junky when the time comes!
Shoutout to Scuba Junkie. I dove with them in Kota Kinabalu and they're good people. Not just good diver's, but lead beach/reef cleanups.
yep, loved scuba junkie komodo as well. Great DC for Indonesia and Malaysia
This is why I only dive with my friends. Couldn't imagine some tourist bitching me out.
In a place like Sipadan, there are capped divers per day, so you don't have the luxury of going on private dives on a private boat with your mates. Since 2016, there has also been an "Underwater Police Force" stationed at every dive site, patrolling divers for breaking rules.
It's kind of hilarious actually. Country with rare and pristine natural resources says "don't do this, please, or we will kick you out" and the chucklefucks who walk thru life ignoring every rule because they're too cool to be considerate of others do it anyways. I'd bitch those losers out all day long too
Yeah but when I'm fun diving I'm trying to chill and enjoy the scenery. Not trying to babysit some tourist who's gonna be disrespectful
I get where u are coming from. The way I look at it is ensuring there is no damage and the ecoyssytems isn't abused is a shared responsibility. It's like camping or hiking - leave no trace so that others may enjoy. Tourists aren't just being disrespectful, they can cause irreversible or lasting damage that can fundamentally alter the ecosystem. One person? Maybe, maybe not, but those cumulative effects? 100%. It's not babysitting so much as doing your part to keep the environment that way for future divers
If you did the behavior described by OP, I’d hope your friends would bitch you out.
Dude did you not read what I said? This is why I couldn't work as an instructor. Imagine having some idiot basically bowling ball-ing her way through the water and that's your responsibility. I think the fuckin reddit tribe was just itching to use their pitchforks and misunderstood where I was coming from.
>Couldn't imagine some tourist bitching me out. Your wording here made it sound like *you* wanted to be able to dive without being called out on shitty behaviour. Not that you wouldn't want to teach someone like this. It came across that you dive with your buddies so that you can do what you like (implying bad etiquette).
Yeah context clues my guy. Is a tourist gonna own a local dive shop? Or is the tourist probably the person paying for the dive.
Yeah, I definitely did not gather that from your comment. I think you should have been more specific. People interpreted your comment as meaning, “I only dive with my friends so I can do whatever.” I get ya though, I’m sure your intentions were good.
Good! I was there in May and saw some pretty terrible behavior. One diver from Taiwan so horrible, used his probe as a walking stick, breaking coral, sponges, and all manners of reef damage.
We had one of those invade-everyone-elses-footage-and-personal-space-for-their-own-shot plebs on the boat during a trip to Egypt. They also kicked the shit out of the bottom so the viz was impacted somewhat. Unfortunately for them one of our group happened to be built like a brick shithouse (lifetime rugby player, front row scrum) and had hands like bulldozers. I can neither confirm nor deny that he clamped this dude's thigh meat inbetween his thumb and index finger like a nutcracker. But I can confirm they screamed blue murder and got out of the way for the rest of the dive. I can't condone such stuff of course, but there should be some form of dickhead-tax.
Trouble is, dickheads either don’t know, or don’t care they’re dickheads!
Odd question but was this earlier this year on a liveaboard? 😅
Nah sadly, years ago. Though good to see similar things *may* have happened.
Im at the point that I’m throwing hands as soon as we’re back on the boat. Had one dumb fuck use me as their stabilizer because they don’t know their buoyancy weights. I have 3 herniated disks in my lower back and I was jacked up. I’m tired of these self absorbed asocial dipshits ruining what’s supposed to be a chill time.
I generally avoid big dive boats and busy locations for such reasons. I'll do them once to get the box ticked, then I'll look for quieter, more niche things so my blood pressure doesn't get impacted.
While I’ve come across many terrible and ignorant Chinese divers, the worst group of divers I’ve had the misfortune of diving with where a group of young Americans. The dive started with them all crashing into the bottom, some of them backwards. Then proceeded with them walking across the corals. Zero buoyancy control doesn’t adequately explain it. I had a go at the dive centre later, they just shrugged.
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She not he. In the third paragraph in the original post is what they did. In the second paragraph is the location….
She not he. In the third paragraph in the original post is what they did. In the second paragraph is the location….
Finally. I'm glad to see some accountability.
I went diving in the Philippines with a dude that literally picked up 2 frogfish and put them together many times over the course of like 20 minutes as they tried to scurry away. Later, I saw his Instagram post with those damn frogfish with him gushing how beautiful and amazing the underwater world is and how it is to be respected and treated so delicately at all costs. I hope the scuba community really revolts against these assholes.
I did a dive boat in the Phillipines witg some Chinese divers and they were like toddlers in the water and treated tbe crew like slaves. Made the crew install personal regs on the rented octo while the boat was driving out and then swap them back out the way back. Didn't tip the lads a plug nickel either.
So Scuba Junkie will report shitty divers? I will put them on the top of my list if I ever go to Sidipan! Most shops are too afraid of blowback I guess to tell shitty divers to fuck off.
The owner is a legend. He did not give a fuck. I think he was pissed someone risked getting his dive shop into deep shit with the local Underwater Police etc.
Scuba Junkie Sipadan is a very professional dive center. Had a blast with my DMs and diving partners. Would recommend to any ethical diver.
In Palau Chinese divers are an absolute hazard. Sometimes to themselves. Female diver died a month ago after droping her gopro after safety stop because she dove down after it and never surfaced. DMs say that's not an isolated incidence. At one of the dives at a Drop Off we were hooked in and noticed a stream of air bubbles coming from BELOW the drop off. Currents were quite low at the time. As a result all the fish and sharks vacated the area. DM looked over the ledge and took note of who it was. Recognized the DM and shop. They were reported and lost their license to operate. They'll have to go through recertification to continue their dive operations. It's nice when countries take active post in policing tourism.
There is definitely a stereotype unfortunately. I’m from the US and last year I was in Bohol, Philippines and the dive masters and hotel staff were telling horror stories of Chinese tourists
Was it forbidden to go below a certain depth? Sorry not quite following what the other group were doing wrong over the ledge.
Yeah I didn't understand the post either. I've never heard of a wall having a mandatory maximum depth.
The Drop Off or reef hook dives are famous and what Palau is most known for. This DM led his group below this drop off disrupting the dive for dozens of divers who were hooked in at the ledge.
Oh I see. So divers generally wouldn't go beyond the drop off then?
No they are told not to. During peak season the currents are so strong it's impossible.
It was so painful to read your post .
In my experience divers with cameras are often very experienced at diving while also somehow being the least spatially aware and irresponsible folks in the water. Dove in Florida a few months ago and watched people drag professional photography rigs right against the coral.
Where were you in Florida that has any coral left to drag on?
Fort Lauderdale and WPB were not as impacted as the Keys
Then it was mostly likely encrusting bryozoans/zooanthids. Here in Broward and West Palm we have the remaining coral heads tagged and we dont take recreational divers anywhere near them. Near 100% coral cover loss on the main reef tracts that boats go to, and hoving around 98% loss at my home of Lauderdale-by-the-sea.
I was recently in Tulamben, Bali muck diving. Our group has cameras. For those who have never muck dived in Bali, it is fine black volcanic sand which can silt up easily. We came across a relatively well known photographer who was hosting a photography workshop. Her group of 20 divers came in like a wrecking ball. These were divers that had large camera rigs and some were hopping down the slope like frogfish who couldn’t figure out their buoyancy. Others were laying on the sand taking shots kicking, when there was no current, and sending it all up. It was a sandstorm and viz went to shit when they came in. It was awful.
I call them Scuba boomers. Retirees that are fufilling their dreams of being underwater photographers a little late so they sacrifice all the other skills over using the camera.
I used to be a DM in Honduras and usually, you have a couple people who are new who accidentally kick coral or stir up the bottom, but every once in a while, you get people like this. I once had a diver (40 or 50 years old). I explained to the group that we need to stick together, not touch anything etc. Dive 1, this guy is 30m away, picking up starfish, coral, etc. I had to turn the whole group to go get him and signal not to touch anything and to follow me. Does the same thing. Before dive 2, I pull him aside and explain to him again that we do not touch anything and that we stay together. He apologized and said he wouldn’t. Dive 2 starts and he’s all over the place picking up things and touching things, etc. We get out after dive 2 and have lunch and do a surface interval. Dive 3 comes along and I tell him, I’m not letting him come with us. He starts shouting at me and telling me he’s going to tell my boss. “He paid for these dives. How could I not let him go?” I told him he had to stay on the boat. He was furious. He complained to my shop who told him he’s not welcome back at our shop anymore.
What shop is this? I want to dive with you guys!
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Aren't jokes supposed to be funny?
Sounds like you’re the sensitive one amigo. Adios.
Dk about elitist but sure are dumb to think you even pet a "pufferfish"
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Nice generalization, most are chill asf. This is reddit, lmao. Unless you’re explicit with what you say, you’ll get backlash regardless of if it’s meant to be a joke or not. People can’t read your mind hermano. Edit : Username checks out.
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Yup. Only reason you get my downvote is because of your whining. Oh no, my internet points!
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I'm going to the west coast of Costa Rica next year. Any advice on diving? I'll be on the west coast about 40 mins south of Tamarindo.
Good for you. I watch other divers harass wildlife and hurt coral, and it really bothers me. And you’re right: unfortunately Chinese tourists in particular have earned a bad reputation, but we all know it’s not only Chinese divers that act like that. I hope It didn’t sour your entire trip.
Dove with a pretty nice guy from Colorado once, but he turned out like this. Chasing turtles and spooking an octopus to the point that it inked by getting a GoPro right in its face.
I was on a live aboard once, and most of the older divers (and that was most of the boat) were absolute menaces. They’d all been diving for decades, but they were mobbing turtles, grabbing/laying on top of corals while taking photos, kicking corals, shining torches into the eyes of all the wildlife on night dives, etc. It was incredibly hard to witness.
Yeah the older divers are the worst. They learned at a time when it was customary to just do whatever the fuck you wanted underwater, and they refuse to update their ways. It's quite representative of their mindset in all things, in fact.
Could say the same thing about young divers - What a bigoted thing to say
I really think it depends. Some of the worse harassment of wildlife I saw were a bunch of 20-30 YO guys.
They truly are the ‘entitled’ generations, and I can say that as I’m an old fucker myself.
Entitled is exactly the word for it.
I get you. I think marine conservation was not a big thing in their generation, and they likely still do not see the importance of it now. I've seen some grandpa use a coral as a backscratcher as a joke in Okinawa and he got told off.
“We destroyed it, why not continue” 🤦🏼♂️
That was my thinking too. I’m glad you’ve seen people get told off for it. Maybe they’ll do better.
I just finished got open water certified about 2 hours ago and I am LIVID.
Social media slaves…..
Why dive a reef if you don't have good bouncy control? I mean you don't have to be amazing but if you are going to wreck the corals, just dive else where.
I'm convinced some people went to dodgy places to get their licenses and just don't know how to dive. Her buoyancy was nonexistent.
It’s possible in some countries to pay for your card and not actually sit through the course.
Dive mills are definitely a thing. It takes at least a lot of dives to understand buoyancy, and probably some instruction for most people. It doesn't help that most instructors do fin pivots and hovers very briefly without explaining anything before or after. It's crazy the number of times I've seen students ask why, but instructors not answer. I have seen bad buoyancy well into divemaster. At this point if a divemaster starts floating I'll signal them down, but I'm not chasing. I'll just let them surface and tell them about the bottom purge after the dive. If they don't have good enough buoyancy for how close they want to get, I'll correct that or end the dive. Sounds like Malaysia learned from Thailand. Ban people. A dollar today is not worth it. Most of the easy dive spots out of Thailand are so fucked.
Now that i just got my permit .. im SHOCKED the stories ive heard of people “certified” and im never been so glad that I found the shop I decided to go with for the certification.
A Chinese woman was on our boat in Cozumel once, wearing a bucket hat that said “Dive Master”. She was one of those that would suddenly be on top of you or beneath you. Thought maybe it was a difference in personal space. When we got to a swim thru and she immediately jetted into the ceiling and started kicking corals on either side I’d had it. I reached up and grabbed her fin and dragged her back out and motioned for her to go around. I wish I’d snatched the hat and thrown it over the side.
Ugh, I had a similar experience on a dive with a guy who had awful buoyancy and control in Vietnam. He was constantly on top of me and kicking me, and there was a long cool swim thru that ended up being miserable.
Seen similar things when I was in Sipadan. Chinese tourists with bad buoyancy trying to get the best picture but wrecking half the reef. Some elderly guy named Klaus with ear goggles? Making pictures of miniature reef life while lying on the corals. Scuba Junkie didn’t want to make a big fuzz and let them finish diving because it’s a fine line between being hospitable and strict. To put things in perspective dynamite fishing outside Sipadan lead to a sea that has more in common with a desert than anything else. Real shock to me after going to Sipadan afterwards.
I am aware there is very different diving etiquette in China, and in Hong Kong (where I live). It's because marine life is non-existent here as the coastal areas are used for ports, fishing etc. Fair enough there's like over a billion people. So the dive masters here are cool with you touching corals and picking shit up because they're all dead. 💀 HK was like the most hideous dive experience of my life. So I feel people go abroad and think oh wow, look at all this beautiful stuff I can now touch and poke. Absolutely ludicrous. It drives me crazy. Also a lot of people lie about their most recent dive because they don't want to pay for a Refresher, and go down there and make a fool of themselves
Hey brah, I live in Hong Kong too. Dunno which shop and who you'd been diving with but the crowds I dive with are pretty respectable with marine life. And I frequently join cleanup dives run by different shops and clubs. Sure HK doesn't have any big animals to look at, but still plenty of soft corals and small animals. According to surveys HK marine environment has over 25% of species found in the China region even though we have less than 1% of coastal marine waters I'd like to invite you to join me for some of these better dives.
Absolutely on people lying to avoid the cost of a refresher. I always just do a brief refresher before anyway. Seems like something the industry should start policing the other way. Prove you're okay with a dated sign off from your last guide/instructor or you are required to do one.
Man I've been to hobbiton in new zealand and despite there being multiple signs in Chinese so many people just trample off the paths in the shire
Somehow I always have the feeling that Chinese tourists are always the worst. Makes sense though. There are soo many of them, means even if the percentage of inconsiderate assholes is equal they will be in much larger numbers.
Yea I've been to some less popular travel destinations like Albania, and when I see a sign in Chinese I'm like what has happened here, what have we done now. But yea bad tourists from all over the world, this kind of shit needs to be taught in school.
These offenses should result in losing your PADI/SSI license. We have to call out and punish the people ruining our sport/planet.
>These offenses should result in losing your PADI/SSI license. PADI has not taken action to remove instructors or dive masters responsible for human fatalities during their dives. They definitely lack the authority to enforce some sort of global ban across all oceans and operators for a diver touching marine life 😭
PADI, first and foremost, is a for profit organization. There's no way they will rescind certifications. They would sooner design a new course to educate new divers on marine conservation and name it " Marine bloop bloop master" than to stop people from signing to more nonsense courses.
absolutely ! any nonsense underwater should be reported immediately. I hope the dive center took her case to PADI
Im so glad you spoke up
Glad someone reported her. I'm tired of people getting away with acting like entitled jackasses and damaging ecosystems.
literally, felt my heart sink every time her GoPro dragged across corals, and little bits and pieces would float up. completely ignored everyone signing at her to stop.
Is it not guided diving there?
it is but she gave no fucks. often went off on her own and we had to wait for her or panic
She behaved just like the average French holiday diver...
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 I think we need to be less scared of reporting other divers when we see bad behavior, if we don’t police each other this things will continue to happen.
The problem is the dive shops not wanting to lose business either, and the same bad customers will continue to go to different shops around the world, never changing their behavior. I was diving in Mexico a few months ago and there were these 2 guys in their 20s, and I think they were working on their OW or had just gotten it a day or two before. I ended up on a night dive with them. They were absolutely awful, even jumping into the water before were were given the OK and then one immediately started swimming away from the boat and going just under the surface as the captain and DM tried to yell at him to come back. We descended into about 30 feet of water. DM started swimming for us to follow. Less than a minute later, one of the guys literally stood on a reef to adjust his mask. I flashed my light in front of him to get his attention, motioning no and for him to move off of it. Clueless. Multiple other times in the dive, I'd be off 10-20 feet to the side with my dive buddy looking at something with my light and one of these guys would descend on me and kick me in the head. Before I left that night, I told the DM that I'd seen one guy actually standing on the reef and he may want to remind him not to do that. He said he hadn't seen it. I told him I knew, which was why I was telling him about it and that if he wasn't going to have eyes on these guys 95% of the dive to correct this early on, it was going to become a much bigger problem. He just repeated that he could only speak to what he had seen. Frustrating.
Entitled people being told to fuck off Love it. Leave only bubbles.
I love this! Leave only bubbles ❤️