Lately I’ve been coming into contact with a lot of people from other countries and as you chat and talk about hobbies, life etc diving inevitably comes up.
Though it seems a common train of thought is: "I’ve always wanted to try that, you can take me and show me." Even when I tell them that A) I’m a newbie and B) I’m not an instructor they think it’s not a problem.
Is it an under appreciation for the sport of diving that people just assume it’s so easy to kit up and go? Put reg in your mouth and off you go?
And then they still have the audacity to get upset because you say NO. But I’ll be happy to refer you to a good dive school in the area. And I’m not talking about one or two people, this a number of people that could keep a dive school busy for a month! But when they learn that they have to learn how to dive and pay for the knowledge they get all iffy.
I know I’m ranting, but it’s annoying when people have such a lack of knowledge and to me it seems a lack of respect for the sport of diving. The part that does worry me a bit is that I’m sure there’s some person out there that is a diver, but isn’t qualified to take an unqualified person diving. But they’ll do it anyway, because it’s "easy to kit them up and throw them in." Not realizing that whether it’s 5m or 50m, it’s still dangerous.