Near Miss on the Marissa Dive Boat (5/15/11) - San Diego

[drbill]

I have never dived the Marissa, but have observed Nicole and her husband diving here. As Lynne said, they are not newbies as suggested by the individual (so cal diver) who apparently recently joined to post his or her "thoughts" on this incident. I wish that individual would post his or her status relative to the dive boat so we can evaluate his or her objectivity in the matter.

What I would comment on is the assumption that a dive would only be in the range of 45 minutes. I don't ever remember being told to keep my dives that short. 60 minutes is acceptable time IMHO (although I have dived much longer than that on occasion).

I know Carl, former co-owner of the Marissa and find him to be a thorough person in my experience. As far as I know he was not associated with that vessel in May. I have heard many good things about the Marissa, and would certainly give them a shot despite this incident.

 

[ligersandtions]

There is always two sides to a story and my experiences with the Marissa have been extremely positive - PM me if you want to sell your "shares" and I will throw in an extra $100.

Dwayne

I've already sold what credit they would allow me to sell.


It's not so much that we were left out in the ocean for 27 minutes that frustrates me (don't get me wrong, that was a very frustrating experience, but I've cooled down about it by now), but the fact that the owner/crew seems to think this was acceptable and doesn't think that beefing up on safety procedures is worthwhile.

If they had said, "The mooring line broke and we didn't realize it. Once we realized it, we picked you up as quickly as possible....we're sorry about the incident and here's what we're going to do to ensure something like this does not happen again", I would have been willing to give them another chance. But all I got were defensive excuses about the whole situation.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Well' finally Dr bill words I can trust, I have to go out on a limb to get answers.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Why Did it take almost two months for Steven and Nicole to put up this post.
Must be over the money, and the communication gap of them and owners.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Why Did it take almost two months for Steven and Nicole to put up this post.
Must be over the money, and the communication gap of them and owners.

Yup, it probably is about money to some extent.

People make mistakes all the time, its how you own up to it the matters the most since no lasting injury was done.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

grumpy, I just pulled info off Marissa charters web site. They stand hold on a good charter, wondering why this even happen, if so they should answer or change there website to, we will drop you off int he water, and we will pick you up if we can see you.

I am sure all charters could do with out Steven and Nicole, to complain this far along.

 

[ligersandtions]

Why Did it take almost two months for Steven and Nicole to put up this post.
Must be over the money, and the communication gap of them and owners.

It took me almost two months to put this up for a couple reasons....first, we left for a two and a half week vacation a few days after this incident occurred. Second, I was trying to work with the owner of the Marissa to come to a resolution we could both agree on, but many times, it took nearly two weeks for me to receive a response from the Marissa (often with a reminder email from me). Third, I didn't want to post when I was angry -- emotional posts never convey the correct message, so I wanted to take the time to make sure I was calm and collected.

I didn't ask for money back initially. I asked that they consider changing their procedures. Lora offered to credit my account for the charter fee, but gave excuses as to why they wouldn't change procedures. It was only at that point that I started asking for a refund and/or to sell my credits. I'm not interested in going to court over this....I was really just hoping that they would beef up their safety procedures to ensure any future incidents are resolved in a timely manner.

 

[Jax]

VooDoo, you're barking up the wrong tree. For someone to work with a business for a while, giving that business an opportunity to make it right, speaks well of the complainant.

Fact- the boat broke away from the mooring ball.

Surmise - for some reason, no one on the boat realized they broke away. Could have been the trouble of getting the class on the boat, who knows.

Fact - The Captain is responsible for everything that happens, or fails to happen, on that boat.

Fact - divers were left as the boat drifted away, and the boat had no idea.


THAT, alone, says that the charter should have bent over backwards to make things better.

Because they instead went defensive makes me concerned whether they would do all they could to help in a problem, or simply cover their A55. That reason alone is enough that I will not dive with them.

 

[Codyjp]

Regarding the OPs situation:
Regardless of how the situation went down it amazes me that they weren't willing to admit anything went wrong nor learn from their actions. Seems that the handling of things post situation was an absolute abomination.

I was on a boat last year doing a drift dive when the current switched directions. We ended up a long way away from the boat but after a few minutes the crew noticed us about a half mile away and then picked us up. They were expecting us to go east, but instead we went west. The captain said very frankly, "Wow, that's never happened in all the years I've been doing this, I'm really glad you guys used your SMBs and stayed together. That could have been really ugly with less experience divers." Fair enough, things went wrong, we all got on board, no harm no foul and we all learned from it. No need for the crew to cover things up and act like nothing happened.

Its unfortunate that this happened this way. It seems like things fell apart after the divers got back on the boat, not before. Had the Marissa handled this incident with a level head this post most likely never would have gone up. I've only been on the boat once and had a good time but there are 3 other boats to choose from. No need to deal with this outfit.

 

[Rainer]

Yes, we should weigh equally the word of a poster (ranting and raving) who joined yesterday (without any clue as to who they really are) to that of someone who has been positively contributing to SB for over three years. Makes a lot of sense...