“We Don’t Care…”

There’s a bumper sticker popular in north-central Florida that proclaims, “We don’t care how you do it up north.” It refers to an attitude we sometimes see among visiting “Yankees.” I remember, in particular, being in line behind a woman from Pennsylvania at our local grocery store. This woman insisted that the check-out clerk bag her groceries by putting a paper bag inside a plastic one.

She kept referring to this as “…the way everybody does it in Pennsylvania,” as though the fact this peculiar convention came from north of the Mason-Dixon line somehow made it superior to anything southern. I wanted to say, “You know, you’re right, lady. All us poor rednecks know how to do is to try to actually conserve our natural resources.”

Unfortunately, this “our way is better than yours” attitude sometimes accompanies divers when they travel. As a dive boat captain, I’ve operated vessels in the eastern Caribbean, Florida, California and Hawai’i. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that every destination and every dive vessel is unique.

What works well on a pontoon boat in the dead-calm waters off Bonaire isn’t going to fly when diving the channel between Maui and Lana’i in what is, essentially, a Pacific Northwest salmon-fishing hull.

That’s why, when another captain and crew tells me what works best on their boat, at their destination, I’m inclined to shut up and listen. Some visiting divers, however, must be smarter than I am. They feel perfectly comfortable explaining to the local captain and crew what they are doing wrong, or continuing to dive in a manner the local operator advises against “…because it’s what works back home.”

Hopefully, you’ll educate your travelers about the importance of sitting down, shutting up and listening carefully to what the local operator has to tell them. After all, these guys only dive those waters, from that boat, every single day. What do they know?

And one more thing: Make sure your travelers understand the importance of tipping the divemasters and hotel staff. If they are like most of the dive professionals I’ve met while traveling, they earn every penny of it.

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