It would be interesting to see a DM trying to get the crowd in this group to
head for the surface just because his PADI dive planner said they should.

Here's a suggestion for you.  Get to know a bunch of people in this group.
When you think you can get a couple dozen or more of them to join you, plan
out a trip to Cozumel.  The last time I was there, I stayed at the Bahia.
Unless it's changed a lot, I recommend it for your group trip.  If it has
changed a lot, some other reasonably priced, conveniently located and
relatively plan establishment will do fine.  For the most part, we're
divers, not prima donnas.  Schedule some dives for everybody with one of the
operators that uses a number of small, relatively fast boats.  When you do,
you'll find that your group owns the boats.  The DMs dive when, where and
for as long as you say, not as long as they say.  Money talks in Coz.

An interesting story, just to change the mix of diving posts to non diving
ones.  One of the people involved is no longer speaking to me and the others
don't read here, so I claim the right to poetic license.  I think I'll be
close, but who knows.

It was a Coz trip, much like the one you describe.  Bob Ling, the same Reef
Fish that I find so obnoxious these days was an organizer.  He did an
excellent job, by the way.   He structured the trip more or less as I've
described above except he only booked a few of the dives.  We booked the
rest ourselves.

This was one of the dives Bob booked with Scuba Du (slow, larger boats, used
only to allow us to do a couple of group dives).  On one of our two tank
trips, Jayna (my wife to those that don't know), Mika (an excellent German
diver who first showed me what a DIR setup looked like), Andy (a relatively
new but still very talented UK diver) and I had like interests and skills.
We tended to dive in a loose knit group.  At the beginning of the first
dive, the DM gave detailed instructions about the site, where we would go,
how we should follow him, how deep we were allowed to go and how long we
were allowed to stay.  We all listened politely and then proceeded to do
just what we wanted.  We didn't see the DM between the time we hit the water
and the time we returned.  OK, so we were a bit cocky, but you have to
understand.  Jayna and I are SIS Master Divers.  Mika trained with JUJU back
before there was a GLUE  and Andy, well, Andy was still a very talented
newbie.  It was a very nice dive.  Some on the boat followed the DM, some
stayed shallower and the three of us went deep, long and someplace else.

When we returned to the surface, the DM didn't say a word.  We owned the
boat that day.

When dive two was ready to start, the DM started his canned speech and,
about half way through, stopped and looked at me.  He said, are you going to
do what we say this time or am I just wasting my breath.  I looked at the
other three, who nodded their agreement.  I told the DM we'd behave.  He had
asked nicely and we all liked him anyway.  He then asked if 130 feet was
deep enough.  Again, I looked around, again I got the nod.  Yes, I agreed,
130 feet is fine.  He than asked how long we'd like to stay.  He learned
fast.  I responded about an hour.  He said "no really, how long."  I again
responded "about an hour."  Jayna looked at him and said "he's not kidding."
Nobody said anything more, we didn't have to.  Every one of us did almost
exactly the same thing.  We descended directly to 130 feet and started a
slow ascent.  I could look up our average depth, but it's enough to say that
it wasn't near our maximum depth.  Rarely have four divers been so in sync
after so few dives together.  Every one of us controlled our energy output
and our depth to extend our dive to, you guessed it, about an hour.
Actually, every one of us was down between 1 and 3 minutes over an hour
before we broke the surface.

When the dives was done, Jayna said to the DM, "I'll bet you thought we were
kidding."  He smiled and said "Yes, I didn't think you'd be down more than
20 minutes.  It's a good thing we surfaced when we did, I was almost out of
air."  Andy, always a quick wit, responded "That's OK, Mate.  You could have
come to any one of us.  We'd had plenty of air to share."  We all got a
laugh out of that, but the 4 of us knew it was true.  Every one of us had
1,000 psi or more left in our tanks.

At any rate, this is one of those fun stories that experienced divers get to
tell in Bars like this.  In all the important elements, it's true.  Some of
the details have undoubtedly been changed.  It was a few years back.  Oh
yes, one more thing.  They were 3,000 psi 80s.

At any rate, the moral of this story is that diving with a group like ours
gives you the financial clout to dive however you like.  Let me know when
you put the group together.  I think Jayna and I might like to revisit Coz,
if only to see how bad it is since they increased their cruise ship
capacity.

Lee

gotcha.

I've personally never had that problem there.  I know it happens.  But
then I have been diving with the same shop for 5-6 years.

"To Arms!!" <toarms_removespam@yahoo.com> pounded away at his keyboard
resulting in:

When the dive is called depends on a number of things.  In some, but
not all cases, the dive op plans a 2 dive, 4 (or 5 or 6 or so) trip.
Anyone who wants more bottom time badly enough to pay for it could
probably find someone willing to sell it.

Dan Bracuk
Is it my imagination, or do Buffalo Wings taste like chicken?
The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/

Just got back from Coz.  I went with Blue Angel, and thought they were very
good.  Small fast boats and great service.

Dan