Re: PADI Training vs.. others

Popeye wrote:
"-hh" <recscuba_google@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There are "White Glove" places that technically will let you assemble
if you insist, but having used one extensively, what I've found is that
you had better be at the dock *extra early* every single day, becuase
they have a tendency to forget, particularly with crew rotations.

I gotta tell ya, we need to hang out more.

I don't know what a "white glove" operation even -is-, and that may be
part of the source of our PADI discord.

The Peter Hughes land operations (Bonaire & Cayman Brac) have probably
claimed to have been the "creators" of White Glove service some 25+
years ago. Personally, I've used the ones on the Brac for 15+ years
now.

Essentially, the way that "White Glove" works is as follows:

0) Customer does the normal check-in at the diveshop (C-Card, credit
card, waiver).

1) On each vacation day, the customer decides to go on a scheduled boat
dive. He communicates this intent to the staff by signing his name
onto a "sign in board" for the diveboat, and next to his name he writes
down his "hook number", which is where his dive gear is stored. Rules
vary on minimum leadtime, but its usually by 5pm the day before.

2) An hour or so before the dive (example here is a AM 2-tank dive),
the staff reviews the sign-in board to see who's going, goes to the
gear equipment shed and retreives the gearbags of the listed hook#s and
totes them to the diveboat, and loads them onboard.

3) The staff puts the appropriate number of filled AL80's onboard the
diveboat.

4) For customer#1's bag, the staff opens the gearbag and sets up the
BC & regulators on one of the AL80's in the tank. Whatever else is in
the bag (fins, maybe gloves, etc) stays in the bag and the bag get
stowed under the bench at the location where the gear was set up.

5) Staff repeats Step 4 for each customer, setting up everyone's gear.

6) Staff sets up his own dive gear.

7) Around 15 minutes before scheduled departure, the customers start
to show up, carrying the rest of their stuff - typically the "dry and
fragiles", but usually also their wetsuit and weightbelt, typically
also retrieved from the common gear storage/drying area.

8) Each customer locates where the staff set their gear up for them,
gives it a check over (in theory), sorts out their miscellany (fins,
mask, etc) then waits for roll call.

9) Roll Call & departure to dive site.

10) Water entry is as follows:

a) The customers take their mask/fins/WB & que up at the stern.
b) In turn, they point out their gear to the staff to retrieve for them
c) Customer sits down on the stern transom to wait.
d) Staff locates & carries customer's tank/BC gear to the stern
e) Staff helps the customer on with it the tank/BC & checks air
f) Now equipped, the customer stands up (with help from Staff)
g) ...and falls into the water.

At end of Dive#1,

11) Customer comes up ladder & sits down. Staff helps with taking the
BC/tank off. Customer stands up and leaves. Staff immediately swaps
out the empty tank for a full tank, then re-racks the gear in
preparation for Dive#2.

At end of Dive#2:

12) Exit as above. Crew pulls tank, puts regulator dust cap in place
and leaves BC/regs on deck, where the customer will retrieve it, put it
into his gearbag and shove it under a bench.

13) Return to dock:
a) Customers depart, taking with them their wetsuits/towel/mask, etc
b) Crew unloads empty AL80's; will also fill them later
c) Crew unloads customer's gearbags & freshwater rinses
d) Crew carries the customer's gearbags back to storage shed


13) At the end of the dive week, the staff will "thoroughly wash and
dry" the customer's gear and deliver it to the customer's hotel room.

That's pretty much the "White Glove" at a fairly typical tropical dive
operation.

The basic result is that the customer doesn't have to do any lifting of
tanks, or that much handling of most of his gear. Women in particular
tend to like not having to ever lift any tanks.

You can also read between the lines how the daily setup the dive
operation "protects the customer from himself" in terms of checking
over the customer's equipment as well as making sure it gets set up
properly daily. For example, if you go back and re-read, you'll now
realize that at no time is there a customer stumbling around on deck
while wearing a tank. Also note that I mentioned that as the staff
carries the customer's gear to them for a dive, they also checked the
air supply to make sure the tank valve's fully open too, thus
minimizing the error of an OOA due to accidentally leaving the air
turned off. They may also verbally call out the SPG reading as they're
helping the customer on with their gear.


FWIW, the hassle that I was alluding to was basically due to not having
a "lowest-denominator" simple set of dive gear, which caused the staff
to run into problems. Specifically, I was diving with a pony bottle at
the time, and a young DM who had never seen one before and didn't know
how mine set up...so he would "FIX" my gear each day so as to set it up
without the pony - - and I would have to "UNFIX" his "FIX" each day to
set it up with the pony.

And while I've never run into an operation that refused allowing me to
set up my own gear, this example by ignoring my requests came close:
the DM was a nice kid, and I think that he kept on setting up my gear
(incorrectly) because he was following his boss's orders that he was to
set up *all* of the sets of gear on the boat.


Secondly, most of the boats that I dive off of, anyone waiting around to
have their tanks carried or gear set up would be in for a big shock.

That's pretty typical for how a generic "Local Boat" tends to operate.
Its not necessarily still as typical for when you get into more
heavily visited "vacation/resort" regions.


Having crewed on a boat, having a "serious" diver go "high order" over a
squib leak they should be damn well busy fixing themselves would then
produce the shock of a lifetime.

The specific example is archived on Scubaboard, if you want to go read
their rant ;-)

I agree that that's appropriate for the DIY traditions of a local boat.
But with "White Glove" where the staff selected which rental AL80 to
set your gear up, did the gear setup, etc, etc, the customer
expectations can be shifted.

I'm not saying that one is right and the other is wrong, but merely
different, and with these differences in the amount of "customer hand
holding", at the very least, there's going to be variation in customer
expectations that logically follows.

For example, I'd say that in most cases, its the staff who replaces a
blown O-ring. But since they are their rental tanks, and the "White
Glove" approach is extensive hand-holding when out of the water, people
would be naturally predisposed to expect this from the staff.


-hh

.

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