I went on a dive with a nice young couple. Our instructor was Scott. From the very beginning, Scott had a very self-centered & condescending demeaner. During our training Scott voiced the importance of not touching any wildlife or disturbing anything in the water. I’ll get to that later.
The woman on our dive had never been scuba diving before. I had to ask the couple their names & where they were from; Scott seemed not to care. Once we got into the water & started to practice our fundamentals, the woman voiced that she was having difficulty breathing. Scott kept saying “Relax, it’s just your brain telling you that breathing underwater isn’t normal, you’ll be fine.” Upon the woman telling him several more times that something was wrong, he realized that he didn’t fully open up her air tank!!! He had a chuckle and said: “Oops, that’s my bad.” That should NEVER happen during a dive & is literally the first thing you should check before you get into the water. Irresponsible & unprofessional is an understatement.
Back to not disturbing the wildlife. During our dive, Scott proceeded to take a hook on his key chain & dangle it super close in front of an octupus that was hiding in some coral. I watched him touch coral several times throughout the dive and at one point, he flipped over a giant shell on the seafloor. As if things couldn’t get any worse, on our drive back from the dive the woman asked Scott if he can ever tell when people in his group may not be suited for scuba diving. He responded: “Yes, there are certain ethnic groups who can’t swim, and usually I can tell who they will be when I see their last names.” ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
I tipped Scott $20 at the end of the tour because he’s gonna need it while he finds a new job somewhere very far away from the ocean. I’m thinking the DMV will suit him well.