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The dive guides are friendly and rental equipment was of good quality, BUT:
1. There were OWD divers in the group, some had previous dive >1 year ago. The dive guide took us through an underwater tunnel (~10 meters long, pretty wide, at <5m depth). No instructions regarding safety procedures provided. Also we went through narrow clefts between rocks.
2.The dive guides harass sea creatures for entertainment, like catching an octopus and not letting him go for 10-15 seconds while it makes ink clouds.
Upd.:
I appreciate your response and your willingness to discuss the issues in a constructive way.
1. I agree that the tunnel was wide and at shallow depth. I've edited the review to include this info. I also confirm, that in the briefing you talked about the importance of staying close to the dive leader, tips for buoyancy, communication, signals, and mentioned the tunnel and small cavern.
The problem is that I've completed training only for open water environment and I don't have neither knowledge nor practice of handling emergencies in the overhang environment. What do I do if I'm out of air and my buddy doesn't notice it? CISA is not option. What do I do if I loose my weight belt due to an accident and end up pressed against the ceiling? There are probably other scenarios I didn't think of. And I'm sure many other divers wouldn't know what to do either.
Regarding canyons, I agree that it's unlikely to get stuck at the bottom, but in some places I think I could get stuck if I needed to swim up in emergency. Also, unlike the tunnel, there are turns and I sometimes didn't have visual contact with the dive leader, who went just in front of me.
It's my fault as well. I should have asked about the details and reject going into the water if I was uncomfortable with the dive plan.
If you are sure you can provide safety and will continue doing these dives I'd suggest at least:
- Describing dive parts out of scope of OWD/AOWD on the shore, so anyone who's uncomfortable could opt-out early.
- Before the dive, actually going through potential emergency scenarios and discussing how to behave in each of them.
2. I saw some good divers gently interacting with aquatic life, and I'm ok with it. You might know how to hold an octopus without injuring it, but you still trigger the fight or flight response which is pretty taxing for many animals. I'm not an expert here though. - via 