I thought I would mention that STINAPA appears to be actually going to dive sites and asking for proof of the new park entrance fee. This happened to me earlier this week. This is the first time in a number of years that I have actually been visited by STINAPA on a Dive site and asked for my permit.
Since moving to the paper format, it is important to keep a copy of that in your vehicle.
I had a long pleasant conversation with the STINAPA lady and a learned a few things. The tags purchased for a particular year are good thru 15 JAN of the next year. So the tag I purchased in Jan 2019 was actually good thru 15 JAN 2020. She seemed upset by the fact that the diveshop forced me to buy an new one for 2020 when I didn’t really need one since I was leaving on 12 JAN 2020. She more or less demanded to know what diveshop did that and I wasn’t about to argue with her.
If I heard her correctly, only people who purchased the permit earlier in the previous year at the beginning of DEC 2019 were only given until OCT 2020. Since we purchased ours at the end of DEC 2019, we were not suppose to expire until 15 JAN 2021.
Not totally sure if that is all consistent.
To add insult to injury, the diveshop wrote down that my tag expired before the end of 2020. So since I was required to buy it on 29 DEC 2019, I would have only received 9 months of use. She wrote a note on my paperwork that that was not correct and I actually had until 15 JAN 2021.
I am likely to come again before the new permit expires, but some divers may be in a situation where they are being forced to unnecessarily purchase new permits.
It seems like some of the dive shops do not understand how the process works.
Since moving to the paper format, it is important to keep a copy of that in your vehicle.
I had a long pleasant conversation with the STINAPA lady and a learned a few things. The tags purchased for a particular year are good thru 15 JAN of the next year. So the tag I purchased in Jan 2019 was actually good thru 15 JAN 2020. She seemed upset by the fact that the diveshop forced me to buy an new one for 2020 when I didn’t really need one since I was leaving on 12 JAN 2020. She more or less demanded to know what diveshop did that and I wasn’t about to argue with her.
If I heard her correctly, only people who purchased the permit earlier in the previous year at the beginning of DEC 2019 were only given until OCT 2020. Since we purchased ours at the end of DEC 2019, we were not suppose to expire until 15 JAN 2021.
Not totally sure if that is all consistent.
To add insult to injury, the diveshop wrote down that my tag expired before the end of 2020. So since I was required to buy it on 29 DEC 2019, I would have only received 9 months of use. She wrote a note on my paperwork that that was not correct and I actually had until 15 JAN 2021.
I am likely to come again before the new permit expires, but some divers may be in a situation where they are being forced to unnecessarily purchase new permits.
It seems like some of the dive shops do not understand how the process works.
