Bad news from Galapagos, Aggressor 1 Liveaboard is out of service 06/13

[Roshenamin]

Listed above are several operational issues reported by passengers - though I think Roshenamin meant did not have a functioning GPS. But surprised the ship did not have a redundant system of some sort.



I was referring to the Galapagos Aggressor to which picked us up hours later...
she unlike GA 1 did not have a malfunctioning GPS etc.
our crew clearly told us that GPS was malfunctioning when we asked why we had hit the rocks

 

[Scared Silly]

I was referring to the Galapagos Aggressor II to which picked us up hours later...
she unlike Galapagos Aggressor I did not have a malfunctioning GPS etc.
our crew clearly told us that GPS was malfunctioning when we asked why we had hit the rocks

Thanks for the clarification. I read that out of context, now it makes sense.

 

[Roshenamin]

I have read many of the posts here and the common thread seems to be the extremely poor attitude of the Aggressor/Dancer fleet owners.
Each time I open this link I am greeted by their advertisements to come and dive with them.
I did that once and it has cost me my peace of mind and almost our lives.


As a group of survivors of their Aggressor 1 wreck, we have collectively and constantly been asking them for answers, for compensation for lost and stolen personal items, for information. However their response is brief. They are investigating .....and until then we must wait.
They seem to have no sense of ownership for anything we have experienced.
We signed on to an Aggressor trip that cost each of us over $5000 a head, never mind the airfare from India which cost more than that. We as a family of 4 spent more than $50,000 for this experience.
That it turned into a nightmare is entirely their fault.
However they obviously do not care, neither for their passengers nor their reputation.
During a time of crisis you expect the head or senior executives of an organisation to step in quickly, to do everything they can to smoothen and sort things out. Taking decisions and
facilitating the process. Neither Wayne Brown nor Wayne Hasson have done any of this.
Their attitude has been pretty appalling.
I read with interest the Siren fleets response to their customers, and I appreciate that they did THE RIGHT THING.
Aggressor as a company, from the moment we stepped back on land were unhelpful, uncaring and frankly shameless in their unconcern for us who had gone through hell, due to their unsafe sailing procedures.


on the comments on theft and looting...
we were stolen from. Theft is theft. The captain was on the boat with another crew member after we left.
He remained there after we headed into deeper water. I am sure by then he was aware of where we might be in location.
we were informed by the crew later that all our laptops, iPads, iPhones, cameras, underwater cameras, dive computers, cash, watches, had been stolen from the boat.
By who?
i thought a captain is in charge of his boat - if looting, theft, salvaging are common in these waters, then we should have been told to grab what was important. We waited nearly 25 Long minutes, huddled nervously in one corner as our boat kept sinking more and more, while they were trying to free the zodiacs.


some of us asked to get back on the boat to recover these things, but we were not allowed.
fair enough.....then compensate us for those lost items.


Again a Captain's decision is his to take - keeping the safety of the passengers and crew as paramount.
i would have thought, that knowing his depth gauge was broken( he told us that the day before)
his one and only GPS was broken( they told us that openly when we asked - the next day)
the rudder problem (a quiet remark from a crew member the next day) he should have chosen not to sail on through the night.
Or, we could have stuck closer to the Aggressor 2 and sailed with her.
There were light houses around, surely he could have plotted his course. Even after evacuating the boat, we headed further out into the dark, moving into deeper water in an overpacked dingy.


i agree with those who have said that there are things we should do but don't.
i should have have known exactly where the life vests were. And I should not have been listening in a rather perfunctory way to the oral safety brief. They never showed us where the life rafts were, and anyway they never deployed. It was the zodiacs that they finally managed to work free.


i had a brief chance to get to my passport and valuables when I ran back to my cabin to locate the life vests.however in my panic I could not open it with the key. I struggled, even cutting my hand trying to force the key in the lock. I was unable to push the required numbers on the lock as I could not see properly. The crew had set a common number for all of us and told us to use the key as well.
it would have been better to have had one or the other.


I would do many things differently today than before this trip.
I would firstly research thoroughly on the liveaboards reputation .
checking what other fellow divers and passengers say with regard to safety, experience, and attitude of the company.
If I had researched ahead of time, about the AGGRESSOR owners behaviour when things had gone wrong in the past, I would never have booked with them.


I would certainly keep a bag with passports, documents, a torch and valuables close to me that could be easily grabbed in an emergency.
i would keep suitable shoes and clothes close to hand. I would double check my life vest, that its clips were not broken( another passenger)
i would ask to see the life rafts and would check that they could be deployed quickly.


Moreover I should have read much more before about diving in the Galapagos.
its a case of bolting the stable door, after the horse has gone!
diving in Wolf and Darwin was extreme. The currents were very very strong. The water was much colder than I have ever been in. I was wearing a 7 mm wetsuit for the first time. I had to carry an extra 9 kg of weight.
my buoyancy went to pieces on several dives. With a longstanding equalisation issue with my ears, I twice got separated from my buddy. I surfaced alone on 2 occasions, in a state of anxiety at being alone in the deep blue, with 3 large sharks circling below me. On that occasion despite all my years of recreational diving I skipped through my deco stop, preferring the option of being out of the water on the boat perhaps risking whatever, than being alone with them with my legs dangling near them! My fault entirely. I was lucky.


Fear and anxiety do different things to different people.


many of us in our group, including myself and younger son had never dived with nitrox before. we had mentioned that in our forms saying we would dive with air.
We had also sent them a completed list of the equipment we wished to hire.
On the first day while doing a check dive, they said their ground handling office had not forwarded it to them!
on the second day the Dive Leader informed us we would all be diving with nitrox and that would be that.
i honestly hadn't any idea what he was talking about with 29 and 32%
.i don't know about the others.


On returning to India, we have received so much support from friends, family and loved ones it has been an eye opener.
we often take relationships and people for granted, never really saying things that are important or appreciating those close to us.
This has taught many of us not to take things for granted any more.

 

[tracydr]

Roshenamin, I'm so sorry you had such a harrowing experience all around. Galapegos was the trip of a lifetime for me (despite issues with Aggressor) but it certainly isn't a place for somebody not experienced in cold water, currents, or fear of sharks.
I hope you're able to come to peace with everything and also hope that the Aggressor company makes things right with all the passengers. I know things like precious photos and hard drives ( hopefully all but this trip was backed up) can never be replaced, but do wish for you peace in the future.
As far as nitrox, you were not in any danger and probably safer by using it. The dives in Galapegos that I remember, we stayed about 80-100 feet in depth, perfect for nitrox. Hopefully, you can take a nitrox class before a future dive trip as nitrox really is a good thing when you are diving a lot every day. Didn't any of the other, more experienced divers on the boat at least spend 15 minutes explaining the basics of nitrox to you?
I'm very thankful that nobody was seriously injured or killed on this trip. You must have had an angel watching over.

 

[mike_s]

sounds like Agressor handled this SO BADLY, that it reminds me of how Peter Hughes ignored the survivors of the Wave Dancer (when it sunk).


I'm thinking less and less of Agressor as a whole with every thread I read about them.


Maybe they still have a few good boats to go on, but a huge grey cloud now hovers over their entire organization.

 

[RJP]

Moreover I should have read much more before about diving in the Galapagos.
its a case of bolting the stable door, after the horse has gone!
diving in Wolf and Darwin was extreme. The currents were very very strong. The water was much colder than I have ever been in. I was wearing a 7 mm wetsuit for the first time. I had to carry an extra 9 kg of weight.
my buoyancy went to pieces on several dives. With a longstanding equalisation issue with my ears, I twice got separated from my buddy. I surfaced alone on 2 occasions, in a state of anxiety at being alone in the deep blue, with 3 large sharks circling below me. On that occasion despite all my years of recreational diving I skipped through my deco stop, preferring the option of being out of the water on the boat perhaps risking whatever, than being alone with them with my legs dangling near them!

Seems like you were on the wrong boat right from the moment you booked the trip. Were you at all familiar with Galapagos diving before setting foot on the boat?

 

[Woodiver]

With the Aggressor business model, the experience and reaction to issues really depends the owner of the boat. I've haven't had issues with the boats managed by Live Dive Pacific in the Pacific but I'd choose a owner operator boat any day over an Aggressor or Dancer. Seems like the Siren fleet, if they have local owners, has better control the response to issues during the cruise.

 

[DandyDon]

With the Aggressor business model, the experience and reaction to issues really depends the owner of the boat. I've haven't had issues with the boats managed by Live Dive Pacific in the Pacific but I'd choose a owner operator boat any day over an Aggressor or Dancer. Seems like the Siren fleet, if they have local owners, has better control the response to issues during the cruise.

It sounds like good owners & skippers would have good reason to leave the Aggressor fleet.

 

[Roshenamin]

Many thanks for your empathy. I am convinced that we did have a guardian angel that night.
i understand the advantages of nitrox, I just would have liked to have gone through the process of certification ahead of time, so that I understood it more.
regarding diving again in the future....hmmmmm that involves water and boats, two things I've lost my nerve for right now.

---------- Post added July 1st, 2013 at 10:04 PM ----------

Seems like you were on the wrong boat right from the moment you booked the trip. Were you at all familiar with Galapagos diving before setting foot on the boat?

As I said in my very first post, i am the only woman in a family of four .....the advantages are many...one is slightly coddled, sheltered, well taken care of by 3 strapping, chivalrous boys/men. You either join them and complete the family group, on an outdoor, adrenalin boosting trip, or you stay home alone.
so other than watching some videos, reading briefly from a geographical, historical perspective...(Darwin etc) hearing that the water was going to cold etc..... No.
i admit that freely..... But I could have been a passenger and still the boat would have sunk.
why do you think I said I've learned lessons from this.

---------- Post added July 1st, 2013 at 10:41 PM ----------

THANKS for posting that up and confirming the order in which dinghies and life rafts were deployed. In my mind the crew DID NOT follow proper safety protocol for abandoning ship. A life raft should have been deployed first followed by any dinghies.

BTW Out of curiosity when you all entered the dinghies did any of the passengers have any signaling devices like their Nautilus Lifelines? Did the crew have a rescue pack containing an EPIRB?

I don't know about the crew having a rescue pack, maybe they did.
however we did not have any Nautilus Lifelines with us.

 

[jmsenger]

With the Aggressor business model, the experience and reaction to issues really depends the owner of the boat. I've haven't had issues with the boats managed by Live Dive Pacific in the Pacific but I'd choose a owner operator boat any day over an Aggressor or Dancer. Seems like the Siren fleet, if they have local owners, has better control the response to issues during the cruise.

Agreed. I dove last year, and am going again this year, on the Carpe Vita (Explorer Ventures) in the Maldives. The local owner was on board, and everything went smoothly. Any issues or problems were handled immediately.