duskdiver:
Diving is business....:shakehead
And in business, there is something to be said for satisfying the customer. That means being responsible for things you should be able to control, accepting what you cannot control, and
knowing the difference.
In October, we took a very long boat trip around Yap to get to Miil channel, which is supposed to be one of the greatest places to see Mantas in the world. We were told that it was an iffy proposition that time of the year. When we got there, there was a bad current, and the visibility was so bad we could barely see each other, let alone any mantas that might have been next to us at the time. Tough break. No one's fault. It could have been great, but it was bad. No one complained.
A couple of years ago in Cozumel I was signed up to dive with an operator that has the biggest fleet on the island. I had requested one of the small, fast boats the get to the farthest reefs fastest rather than the bigger and slower boats. Each of the small boats pulled up to the pier and called on people according to their manifests, and when the last boat left, I was alone. I quickly contacted he operator, and they realized that I had been mistakenly left off the manifest of the boat I was supposed to be on, a boat by then well on its way. A quick switch wsa made, and I was placed on on the only boat still available, a big, slow one. It turned out to be a pretty good set of dives. I enjoyed myself, and I offered no complaints.
When I settled up at the end of the week, I was not charged for the trip. "You asked for a small boat, and we made a mistake," said the owner. "You should not have to pay for our mistakes."
I had done a lot of dives for this operator, and I was also reimbursed when a DM misread the current and led us on a dive over sand. The DM should have been able to get that right. It was not rocket science.
On a night dive once, we were going along fine when all of a sudden there was a disturbance in the water. Within a couple of minutes, the current had done a complete reverse, and we went back the way we had come. No problem. That happens.
Most people dive on vacations. They look forward to them, and they plan them carefully. Many people spend all they can reasonably afford for this diving adventure. If bad weather or unusual conditions crop up, they say, "Too bad." If , on the other hand, the operator makes what appears to be a rookie mistake and then shrugs and says, "Oh well," then that operator is not going to get repeat business from that customer.
