Risk management is a big part of life You may not even realize when you're weighing decisions based on risk. You may not have the RiskMaster 3000 that Reuben had in Along Came Polly, but you've been weighing options and deciding on a course of action (right or wrong) your whole life... Reuben may have wanted to run "Will my wife shag our scuba instructor on our honeymoon?" through there before he got married, but that's another story. "Look, look we had a scuba, we drink some white wine, we talk about life and we cannot help it. It is like love at first sight. She make like the fire in my trouser." The fire in my trouser. Awesome.

I'm not an active scuba instructor anymore, but that's what brought me down to Cayman in the first place nearly ten years ago. I had about three or four years as a heavily active scuba instructor, racking up 1000s of dives, over 1000 certifications of various levels from Discover Scuba Diving (three hour resort course) all the way up to staffing Instructor Development Courses. Most of my work was Open Water Scuba Divers and referrals from people who had taken the course at home and wanted to finish off the practical side of things in warm water.

With that amount of volume (at one point I was logging over 100 dives per month) the law of averages says that there are bound to be a few "bad apples" in a barrel that size who really shouldn't be there. Usually these people KNEW it and were "only taking the course because my husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/dad/mother/alien love child wants to do it and we're doing it to be together" I've had my share of people I've had to counsel and convince them that there was plenty of things to do on this island other than diving. Every now and then however, you run into a cowboy who thinks the laws of physics don't apply to them. These people think they know more than their instructors do, and just can't wait to be rid of all the "limiting factors" their instructors put on them. Things like depth limits and caution.

There are few sports more unforgiving than scuba diving. If you have an accident while ice skating, you'll end up with a nasty bruise, or at worst a concussion. Unless you're "dropping in" onto an interstate, there's really not many things you can do skateboarding that will permanently damage you. Skydiving on the other hand, if you have an accident, you're pretty much fucked. Scuba diving comes in right below skydiving on that list.

Statistically, scuba diving ranks below bowling for chance of having an accident. It's an old wive's tale that's been handed down from generation to generation of scuba instructors. It's a good quotable for putting people at ease who may have some slight trepidation about taking up scuba. IF you happen to win the lottery and have a scuba diving accident, the odds are slightly in the house's favor... unless you're Steve Irwin and take a stingray barb right into the heart. Then your odds are 0. :)

Depth and time limits are absolute. I used to go "Viper" all over people who broke their profiles. "Top Gun rules of engagement are written for your safety and for that of your team. They are not flexible, nor am I. Is that clear?" Dive instructors come off as, ahem, mavericks, but there's 100's of hours and 1000's of dives of experience behind those sunglasses that the average bear just doesn't have.

If the divemaster on the boat breaks profile to go after a punter who's decided to check out a little further down the wall than he's supposed to, it's a calculated risk. What you DON'T see is that guy pounding down the water and staying out of the ocean the rest of the day to try and off-gas the excess nitrogen and losing out on revenue and tips. This is what the cowboy doesn't see.

Part of the risk management of being a scuba instructor (and believe me, a major part of the Instructor Development Course is risk management) is knowing when NOT to give someone a certification. In the "blue bold" of the old pre-digital instructor manuals, when we had to cart around big heavy binders and update them every month, one of the ethics bullet-points was about when to withhold a certification. You can't withhold it for any personal reason, but you can withhold it if they haven't paid up yet. As long as the person demonstrates mastery of all the skills taught in the pool and demonstrated in open water and passes the final exam, there's nothing stopping you from giving them a certification, which is good for life. SOMETIMES, you just have to cut the course short and stop someone before they hurt themselves.

Safety is drilled into the heads of students from the first page of the manual and first scene on the videos and throughout the whole course. Redundant equipment. The buddy system. Emergency procedures. Safe ascents. Depth & time limits. Some people can go through the whole course dotting i's and crossing t's and not learn a single goddamn thing. They're going to get their certification, and go out there and go as deep as they think they can go. It may not happen to them on their first dive, or their 50th, but eventually they're going to make the wrong decision and not come back. Why is this my problem? Because their certification is for life. It does not expire. They're going to continue pushing their luck and one day it's going to run out.

When that happens, the first person they're going to point the finger at is me, the instructor who's name is on the back of the card. Then the certifying agency, then the equipment manufacturer, and probably the captain of the charter boat, any divemasters or deckhands on-board, the owner of the charter company and anyone else who happens to be around. The statute of limitations is currently seven years. That means anyone I certified up to and including July 31st, 2000 (which happened to be the peak of my instructional career)  is now officially not my problem anymore, but I have been strongly urged to keep up my liability insurance (at nearly $700 per year) just in case anything happened.

For this reason, and this reason alone, it is solely up to the instructor who gets certified and who sits on the deck telling stories. Even if the person can demonstrate mastery of all the required skills, if you know this person is a complete fuck-up who's only going to get themselves (and possibly a buddy) killed and have it lead back to you, it's your responsibility as an instructor to cancel the class/deny the certification.

Unfortunately, these kinds of people do eventually find someone who's willing to certify them, usually because they wave a credit card around and the dive shop owner smells a lot of equipment sales. Chances are he's going to go to another facility/instructor and try there, but at least your name won't be on his c-card and hopefully the next instructor can see the potential lawsuit coming and do the same as you did.