I did a dive last week on a small triple deck boat at the dive park in the local lake; this is part of a popular dive site and divers drive for hours to dive here.

The boat rests in around 42 feet of water and while dark the visibility is usually a good 8-10 feet. I noticed that the vis was not the best this time; but it doesn't take much in order to follow a line to the boat and normally once you get below the thermocline things really clear up.
On this dive the vis just kept getting worse and worse until I was right up on the wreck. I ended up with about 2-3 feet of vis and I was wondering just WTF was going on since I have never seen it that bad in this spot. As I was going down the port side I almost had a fin hit me in the face and it ended up that there were three divers exploring the top of the wreck. Two of them were in the completely vertical dive position and kicking like crazy to stay up off the bottom, the third was not having to kick; but he was also in a mostly vertical position. They were stirring up all kinds of crap off the boat itself and off the bottom and even though I have a decently strong light they did not seem to notice me. I watched them for a minute or so and they didn't seem to be having issues, that is just how they were diving.

This is the second time that I have been within 5 feet or so of Rec divers and even with me signaling with my light to ask if they were OK they have not seen me. From my limited diving experience it seem that those who are aiming towards the tech side or those who are already into tech seem to be way more observant and generally have their shit together all around. Is it normal for Rec divers to not pay attention to anything around them, stir shit up all around, and to be all over the water column or am I just starting to get a chip on my shoulder and need a reality check?

I'm really not sure just why this bugged me so much and I am wondering if I am falling into the "us vs them" mindset or what.

Technical diving costs a lot in terms of time, money, and training. The standards are much higher, and the margins for error significantly smaller. This tends to create divers who, by design, are much more aware of their surroundings, have a much higher skill set, and tend to be much safer when executing all of their dives, even simple recreational dives.

In contrast, recreational divers tend to skate by with little in the way of foundational skills, poor problem solving, a general lack of situational awareness, and perhaps worst of all, an ignorance as to exactly what those problems are and how serious they can become. It's not their fault, they truly don't know what they don't know. It's a product of recreational agency standards, lax instructors, and business driven cost cutting decisions rather than emphasizing the production of good divers, despite lower margins.

It doesn't have to be this way. Yesterday I went diving with 7 co-workers. Myself (technical, cave, ccr, and a scoobydoo DM), another who is a Master Instructor for several agencies, and 5 open water divers who had no dives beyond their training dives. 4 were PADI trained at a shop up the coast. The other was RAID trained. The disparity in skill set between the single RAID diver and the PADI divers was incredible, and it's due to the time spent on foundational skills prior to even throwing on gear for the first time. When your first day of instruction is nothing but an entire pool session spent on buoyancy, trim, and propulsion sans gear, there is a significant difference in terms of baseline skill set.

While everyone had lots of fun, when comparing the list of things observed by the divers while filling out their log books, when comparing air consumption, comparing dive time, it was clear that the diver with superior foundational skills, despite having the exact same number of training and open water dives, had a much more fulfilling day of dives than those who were held to a weaker training standard. I was fortunate enough to be the solo diver in the group, and the discrepancy in skills was plainly observable from both up close and afar.

The cost for this is more time spent on foundational skills, a focus on doing all skills in trim, neutrally buoyant, and in mid-water. When an instructor expects this level of performance from the student, they start off as good divers from the beginning. Most instructors are poor teachers in the first place, and are often incapable of teaching students other than parking them on their knees on the bottom and performing the skills by rote mimicry. Unless this changes, new divers take responsibility for finding competent instructors, and agencies change their focus to producing good, competent divers, as opposed to the standard cash grab, basic scuba training will continue to produce divers such as those you recently encountered on your little excursion.

I'm a long-time rec diver (45+ years) and rec instructor (albeit retired).

When I was teaching, I used half of each pool session for buoyancy and finning technique training; the first open water session was spent doing buoyancy skills and then a short reef tour if the class had enough air (I surfaced my students at no less than 800 psi).

I saw and continue to see instructors just pushing students through with barely enough knowledge to assemble their gear and use it correctly, and let's not even discuss using a dive table in the computer age (batteries never die unexpectedly).

IMHO, the tech aspect of diving is something of a gimmick, but sadly, it's a needed gimmick if divers want to enhance skills that should have been taught to them from the beginning.

Before I get my head bit off about the above statement, I have sat through tech classes. A good friend teaches tech diving and I have helped him on numerous occasions in the past; I just never felt the need to get the certification card.

Rec diver here, almost exclusive solo
Your experience on that dive reads noob vs. experienced rec diver to me.  New divers  are easy to spot and are usually over-weighted and ride the bike.

Two years ago you would have described my wife and I the same way. 80 dives later we are trim and manage ourselves in the water very well. No question that more could be taught in OW or AOW, including a lot of focus on proper trim and buoyancy when diving. Having said that, I watched a tech diver make what I consider to be several basic mistakes in the water and in preparation a few weeks ago. IMO it has more to do with new than any particular discipline or agency. YMMV of course. 

I'd agree it's being new and/or not giving a shit.

I'm certified not quite a year. I know some things still need a lot of work. They're being worked on. But from what I see at our local quarry is that a lot of divers don't seem give a shit. Their console and octo are all over the place, their tank is hanging extremely low, and watching them assemble their gear is highly entertaining.

And the sculling...OMG.

As experienced divers....What do you feel new divers typically need to work on?

I am not a dive instructor....But I have taught a variety of non dive topics for years. One thing I have seen is people want to get right to the high speed stuff before they have mastered the low speed stuff. And, another way to look at it is "advanced techniques are simply the basics, mastered".

You can't walk if you can't crawl and you can't run if you can't walk.  Gotta master the basics first.

So, what do you think new divers should master before trying more complex techniques?

Buoyancy control is the single biggest issue I ever saw new divers face.

Once that is good, most everything else seemed to fall into place.

I never saw someone with good buoyancy control failing at fundamentals.

I can't imagine PADI still teaches buddy breathing (aka sharing one reg) instead of OOA diver  breathing off an octo.

Most rec divers are readily noticeable around here...

Then again, there are some "tech divers" I've seen around here that have the skills of a grapefruit. Breaking chunks of shit off the cave walls, stirring up silt clouds, advocating clawing their way across silt piles and clay banks to fight flow instead of learning a proper way of diving that particular cave, etc.

42ft seems like a place your gonna see alot of new divers . I myself have shitty bouyancy but at least i know and im getting better slowly. i avoid other divers as much as possible i dont wanna ruin anything for someone else.

Some of us take longer than others. Took me ditching my drysuit and diving wet for at least a month before I got it. Turns out it wasn't the drysuit. It's just me!

I think some of you guys have forgotten what it's like to be a new(er) diver. I got certified a year ago this week. Did dives 86-87 today. Buoyancy is good, although I have issues in shallower water. Today was probably the first day I had trim consistently good throughout my dives.

I have been diving nearly every weekend since our local quarry opened April 1. All those dives had made a huge difference. At the beginning of the season I was scared to go down to 40ft. Now I have no problems doing an 85ft deep wreck on Lake Huron.

Next up is frog kick. I may kick up some silt since I wear long Atomic splits. Bad knees make them a necessity. I'm working on frog as well as modified flutter. That will be my major project for pool time over the winter. In the meantime, since my buoyancy is much better, I'm trying to stay further off the bottom.

Do what I did and got commercial then you don't have to worry about it, no rec divers at 200. (you get to have bigger chips too )



But for real... what's in a name? Rec divers should concentrate on not dying first and foremost. Then worry about floating smart and not killing viz.

It still cracks me up to see claw marks of people pulling themselves in clay in orange stink of all places.

I'm no professional by any means, but some of the videos I see people posting are like

I'd at least edit out the really bad shit first

I think it is a training issue.  Or if they were taught better, a practice issue.  Or a gear issue.

I had a friend who plowed through the water column at a 45 degree angle, whipping the corral to shit.  I stopped him and slid his tank up as high as his head would allow to no avail.  That night we put 4 lbs on pockets we got after the dive and his problem was immediately fixed.


I also have to remember that I had an entire semester of dive training for my OW card, by a great instructor and an awesome DM.  

I also think the difference is in mindset.  Some people just see diving as the way to see fish swimming around, its a means to an end.  Others, myself included, its more about the trip than the destination.  So I try to do it to the best of my ability and always strive to learn more and dive more.  It's consuming!

I know it's much easier for me to set someone up in the water equipment wise after taking cavern and intro to cave. I pulled a mix matched bunch of shit outta my garage from my pile and my girlfriend's pile and went single tank diving one day - everything was set up perfectly within five minutes of getting in the water and off I went. No way I could've known what fins matched with what weights, with this tank or that tank, and which wing, etc. before that.