Go to just about any main stream tropical diving destination and the standard format for a dive is several buddy pairs being lead round the reef by a guide. The numbers can vary, from small groups of 4 or so to trains of 20 divers or more, but in essence the principle is the same. All divers are guided.
Even as an experienced diver, I sometimes have to make quite a strong case for being allowed to dive with my buddy outside of the officially guided group. I admit that a dive guide knows the area better than me, and may be able to show me some cool stuff, but I nearly always prefer to do my own thing and be able to take photographs without masses of other divers being in the background. Besides, one of the reasons I dive is for the freedom it offers to plan my own dives and make my own decisions.
Other divers who have less experience, and dare I say it, cannot flash a business card and say they are a professional photographer, are left with no choice. If they want to dive they will have to follow a guide. But just a minute, the same dive centres that are insisting on guided dives are also the dive centres that trained these divers to “Open Water” standard in the first place, a qualification that supposedly enables a pair of divers to dive together.
Having trained a diver, the dive centre does not consider that training good enough for a diver to be responsible for their own safety!
If you are expecting an argument from me on this point, I am afraid I am going to let you down. In many ways the dive centres are perfectly right. Someone who has done four or five dives and only knows some basics about buoyancy control, mask clearing and coping with an out of air situation should not be let loose on a wall that descends well past 20 metres in a current. With customers wanting to do the more exciting and spectacular dives, the only way to stand any chance of getting a newly qualified diver safely through such a dive is as part of an escorted group.
The point I really want to make is that for many dive centres the escorted group has become too much of an ingrained way of diving. The need for escorted groups has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Resort qualified divers are paired up and escorted as part of a group by a divemaster or instructor. Because they are escorted, the guide does most of their thinking for them. They don't have to worry about navigation. The guide monitors depth and time. The guide monitors air. If they have a problem, they turn to the guide rather than their buddy. Even if they run out of air and use their buddy's octopus regulator, the guide will close in and take over. After all, that is what the guide is being paid to do.
By continuing to dive in such a group divers never get to develop or practice the skills needed to become fully rounded and capable divers. They end up as underwater sheep.
Even as they climb the qualification ladder gaining more badges that say they are advanced divers, rescue divers, and long lists of specialities, as soon as a course is over it is back to the group. Baa. They are now highly qualified underwater sheep.
I have been on live-aboard boats that allow total diving freedom. Having given a safety briefing at the start of a trip the policy is that anyone can dive how they want. Even on the most adventurous dives customers can dive with or without a guide, in a buddy pair or even solo. The decision is left to the divers.
I don't think that such boats have a higher incident rate than those with totally escorted groups. Maybe it is because divers going on such trips tend to be more experienced.
Or maybe not. Bonaire is an island with a universal policy across all dive centres of complete diving freedom. Yet many of the divers were not that experienced.
When unsure about a dive a less experienced pair of divers could follow the guide, then as dives got shallower through the day they would decide and even be encouraged to do their own thing. More experienced divers would forgo the guide and do their own thing from the start.
There was no restriction about a guide even being present while you were diving. Anyone could rent some cylinders, jump in a car and drive off to pretty much any of the island's beaches and take themselves diving. They could go as deep as they liked, stay as long as they liked, and do as many dives as they liked. Divers were responsible for their own actions.
As far as I know the incident rate in Bonaire is no higher than anywhere else.
Maybe some destinations have a bigger share of idiots than others. Divers who want to hit 70 metres on every single dive. Divers who don't watch their air. Divers who are a menace to themselves and their buddy. But stupidity is not the same as inexperience. There are experienced divers about who manage to sneak away from the group and disappear into the depths despite the fact that they are supposedly being escorted by a dive guide. There are dive guides and instructors who have a fascination with depth on their days off. Personally I have seen enough divers worldwide to think that no-where has an exclusive claim to more than its fair share of idiots.
A new approach to guided diving is needed. A program of dives with and without guides need to be planned over a number of days, to encourage all divers to develop a fully rounded set of diving skills, with the objective of training divers who can be trusted to make their own decisions without having to follow a dive guide all the time.
Apart from the immediate benefit of being allowed this freedom, the long term benefit will be more competent divers with better skills and the ability to look after their own diving. Surely that is what diver training is all about? Or is it about making money?