(31 MAY 05) DOM REP Incident

[getwet2]

when they put your gear in a box and give it a tag number and say they will ensure it is on the boat to save you carrying you have to take them at their word until proved otherwise



i never took mine so they couldn't trash it.



you obviously haven't travelled with a child!

1 verge large case, 1 large pelicase, 1 large rucksack with the camera and lenses and filter and batteries and flash and portable hard drive and chargers, 1 large sports bag as second hang luggage and a buggy, there was physically no way to take my regs and bcd.

we also found out the checking guys and girls were on commission, i.e they were really strict on the weights and some people paid over £100 excess baggage.



thats why we did ours, but the shop never pushed it!



it was the last dive, very shallow (snorkel depth) and i had given up complaining because the shop was so useless.

this was run by brits/yanks who should have none better, in the UK HSE would have a field day on these guys

why are you flaming me for telling everyone how it was?

enough said!

Obviously NOT enough said..

If you took it as a flame that's your problem, I was just pointing out some of the things that seem very obvious to me that are easy to avoid. It also sounds like you are just whining about things that you shouldn't have to be told to do in the first place and things that you can avoid by using your own gear.

My point with the gear was.....If you are going to trust them to take care of your own personal gear for you while you are there, then why take your own gear with you in the first place. I guess it's just a personal preference but if it's my gear I'll take care of it myself thank you very much.

The amount of luggage you stated that you had would seem like a lot if you were travelling all by yourself but if you were taking a baby with you, now I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assume that you were not going on a dive vacation with just you and a baby because who would look after the little one while you were diving, certainly not the DO. So I still see room for an extra checked bag that you would probably not be charged for, plus you can always fit a few extra DIVE related items in it. BTW what airline were you flying with?

I agree that airlines are kind of sticky about the size and weight of carry on luggage but I think that's because it's more of a safety concern. (IE: Falling on peoples heads.) If you end up having to pay a bit more for extra weight in your checked baggage then OH well, you obviously needed the items or you wouldn't have packed them in the first place. Just add it to the price of the total vacation and it won't really seem like a whole lot more.

 

[Web Monkey]

As for weight allowance. Most airlines will give you extra allowance for sporting equipment, just ask them what that allowance is or check their website under baggage allowance. You will need to put that equipment in a separate bag but you should have more then enough room for everything you want to take, including all your baby stuff in your other bags.

Checked luggage usually has some sort of weight restriction, however you can carry on a small regulator bag with doesn't count against anything.

Terry

 

[barc802]

Sorry about your dive trip Clive, but a reg bag is no bigger than most pocketbooks. When I travel I check everything exept my reg bag, so if my luggage gets delayed I can still dive. I will rent anything but a reg!

I have never seen or heard of a DO not allowing you to carry your own gear on the boat. I am sure everyone's gear is at least $1,000, mine is about $2,500 I never let it out of sight.

If the regs were in that bad of shape, what were the tanks like? When was the last inspection; VIP, Hydro? Are you sure you weren't breathing fungi or rust?

 

[getwet2]

Checked luggage usually has some sort of weight restriction, however you can carry on a small regulator bag with doesn't count against anything.

Terry

Everytime I have flown your carry on has had to be the correct size, weight and it had to be in one bag. One camera bag and one reg bag would not be allowed, if the reg could be fitted into the camera bag then that was OK. It doesn't make any sense to me but I don't make the rules. I usually check with the airlines before I fly because everyone is a little different just to make sure but they have always said ONE piece of carry on, within the restrictions. Now women are allowed to carry a purse as well as one piece of carry on, go figure????

On my previous trip the baggage allowance per person was 2 pieces of checked baggage at a total weight of 44lbs combined and 1 piece of carry on at a total weight of 22lbs. BUT they allowed you an extra 65lbs over and above the other weight, free of charge for scuba equipment. Usually the airlines have a list of baggage allowances on their websites you just have to look it up.

There was still available wieght in the bag so I packed in sandles, bathing suits, lotions and anything else that I considered to be for SCUBA use. They had no problem with it because it was within the weight allowance.

 

[MikeFerrara]

No sense in trying to learn deep diving before learning shallow. Unfortunately doing a 100 ft dive on your 5th lifetime dive is within PADI standards.

 

[ScubaMarine]

So... I don't want to post just to get chewed out by more experienced divers, because obviously as an inexperienced diver I wouldn't know that we passed the limits. On my 5th dive I was also going for my AOW. We went to a wreck that was sitting in 120ft of water, the Tortuga out of Miami. The captain told us to stay on the deck and "Do Not" go down to the sand. The DM took me and another student down and their were two other divers on their own. We did not go to the sand, however we did swim down into the hull of the ship. Our max depth was 114ft, over 30M we were only down 11min. Furthermore 2 of our check out dives were done in 20 feet of water in biscayne bay, where it may be zero vis but its calm and shallow.

I guess my deal here would be that as new divers we don't know that we should perhaps hit 20M a couple times before dropping to 30M. Also we follow the DM, if he goes down we follow. I think this probably happens more frequently than an experienced diver would like to think. Its a learning process and unfortunately shortcuts are taken to make the process move faster.

 

[barc802]

So... I don't want to post just to get chewed out by more experienced divers, because obviously as an inexperienced diver I wouldn't know that we passed the limits. On my 5th dive I was also going for my AOW. We went to a wreck that was sitting in 120ft of water, the Tortuga out of Miami. The captain told us to stay on the deck and "Do Not" go down to the sand. The DM took me and another student down and their were two other divers on their own. We did not go to the sand, however we did swim down into the hull of the ship. Our max depth was 114ft, over 30M we were only down 11min. Furthermore 2 of our check out dives were done in 20 feet of water in biscayne bay, where it may be zero vis but its calm and shallow.

I guess my deal here would be that as new divers we don't know that we should perhaps hit 20M a couple times before dropping to 30M. Also we follow the DM, if he goes down we follow. I think this probably happens more frequently than an experienced diver would like to think. Its a learning process and unfortunately shortcuts are taken to make the process move faster.

1st The DM should be shot for taking a new diver with 5 logged dive to 114fsw and make a penitration to boot!

2nd A OW c-card is just a license to learn. It is your responsibility to stop the DM if you are unsure of the dive at any point.

3rd If you were working on a Deep Dive cert then you should have been taught about the affects of nitrogen at depth and should have been working on a couple of simple problems at depth to show the affects of being narced. Training stardards state that at no time during a training dive will a student be placed in a overhead enviorment. Further more DM can't take a Training dive w/o an instructor anyway.

I am a SSI Diveccon and a PADI DM I would be keel hauled for doing the things that DM did.

You are not at fault for anything other than saying "Stop I should not be here b/c I have not been trained"

I hope you don't feel that i am berating you b/c I am not, I am berating your DM!

I hope you take the classes needed to make the dive you want to do and dive safely.

 

[Shasta_man]

Clive, next time, just say "The rental regs used by dive op X were bad and they didn't care about fixing them though I pointed it out." That's it.

Explaining it all left way too many holes on how your whole way of life is wrong. What were you thinking, trying to warn us?

I have just returned from 2 weeks in the DOM REP (Sosua)

while there i signed up with Northern Coast Divers (Sosua) for 10 dives.

During their presentation they came across as very professional and so they should they are a 5* company.

did my first dive at 5 rocks no budy checks and a limited dive brief, it was a complete waste of a dive, silted up, poor vis and no fish life.

next dive was at paradise 1 or 2 and that was better, but again no budy check.

anyway next dive was on the zingara, a wreck at 36m, now they knew i had my rescue but they never checked if i was deep dive qualified (AOW only takes you to 30m).

no budy check, limited brief, in we went (after our own check) and down we went.

25 mins later we surfaced and were immeadiately told to get in the boat quick.

my first thoughts were not another bloody tsunami, how lucky could i be?

any way back in the boat, a guy was on the floor on O2.

apparently he had trouble breathing ripped out his reg took a big breath and shot for the surface from 30m.

straight away we said why did you wait 20 mins for us, why not go back and send another boat to get us?

why no emergency recall?

the diver had just completed his OW and was doing his AOW, this was his 5th dive and they took him to 30m, everyone of us (rescue divers or DM's) said why take him to 30m on his 5th dive that is crazy.

they said it was his deep dive for his AOW, yeah we said so what was wrong with 19m or 20m?

it was all down to the cost of putting out two boats.

any way the next day i dived the reg seemed a bit funny, but i didn't really think much of it, until i hit the water that was.

the deeper i got the harder it was to suck some air, so i returned to the surface and had a play, but switched to the octopus.

back on the boat i complained and got the its rental kit so you are not going to get the best stuff!

next day i went diving and had the same or another crap reg (scubapro's) that got harder to breath the deaper you went, again i complained and received the same answer.

the next dive was zingara again so i checked the reg and it seemed ok, i got to about 20m and it felt like someone had turned the tank off, i ripped out the reg and used the octopus and stayed on the line for a couple of minutes to steady myself, and i almost shot for the surface myself, because you keep trying to breath thinking it will get better!

after the dive i complained again and refused to dive, so they changed the reg set.

the new reg worked fine, the hoses had perished through and you could see the inner braid!

now i never got to speak to the diver that bolted to the surface, but i wonder if he had my regs, or more to the point i ended up with his!?!

if this is the case it was no wonder he did what he did.

analysis of this is don't use these guys, not if you value your life!

apparently PADI and Thomson holidays did an investigation and found no problems - every diver on the boat said in a report that it was too deep too soon.

so either the dive shop didn't submit the reports or PADI ignored it.

either way, my confidence in PADI as a professional outfit has been seriously dented and we are all sending an official complaint to them.

 

[mrobinson]

Clive - you're learning about diving (and posting) in a negative fashion. I'm sorry more people are not making their points a little more constructively.

Please don't be too disheartened. I think your experience can be told by many on this board - they're just too afraid to say their worst experiences because of threads like this.

I'm sure between refreshers and more training you'll be on your way to enjoying diving more.

 

[ScubaMarine]

1st The DM should be shot for taking a new diver with 5 logged dive to 114fsw and make a penitration to boot!

2nd A OW c-card is just a license to learn. It is your responsibility to stop the DM if you are unsure of the dive at any point.

3rd If you were working on a Deep Dive cert then you should have been taught about the affects of nitrogen at depth and should have been working on a couple of simple problems at depth to show the affects of being narced. Training stardards state that at no time during a training dive will a student be placed in a overhead enviorment. Further more DM can't take a Training dive w/o an instructor anyway.

I am a SSI Diveccon and a PADI DM I would be keel hauled for doing the things that DM did.

You are not at fault for anything other than saying "Stop I should not be here b/c I have not been trained"

I hope you don't feel that i am berating you b/c I am not, I am berating your DM!

I hope you take the classes needed to make the dive you want to do and dive safely.

First of all, thank you for not bashing me on this. I agree and had I known things like a student should not be in and overhead environment I would have declined to follow. I was also unaware that 114 ft exceeded the depth at which we should train. We had a lot of training in the classroom setting for OW and very little for AOW. We did discuss the problems caused by ascending from depth too quickly and how to figure out which way is up, etc... I thought they did a good job and I feel confident as a diver, however it concerns me that I may have missed important info.