That’s Adam and Maggie’s business.
I wouldn’t dive them again and that decision predates this video. Unlike many of the glowing reports on Facebook and other SM, my wife and I did not have a good experience with Starfish Scuba.
Adam assured me he had a pool scheduled for my wife and daughter’s OW pool sessions but in reality did not. The pool was undergoing scheduled service on one day and was closed on another day so we racked up two extra days‘ hotel costs while Adam worked out an agreement at the last second with another shop to use their habitual pool. I communicated and coordinated the schedule months in advance with Starfish Scuba with sustained communication along the way to keep the focus fresh. I think having a primary and alternate pool should be standard practice if you don’t own your own training pool, especially when the customer is flying in from out of the country specifically to patronize your business.
Adam told me his Newton (the one you see in the video above) would be the one we take out for OW dives but in reality it wasn’t. His boat had been hauled out for service and had been for weeks. We had to wait around in uncertainty while he sourced another boat. We hitchhiked on some crummy catamaran with a crew more interested in stoner talk and the nobleness of marijuana legalization battles than being a proficient crew. I think I give off plenty of indicators in my personal conduct and communication style that suddenly getting into the spirit of Spicoli while on vacation is not likely. So, I don’t think he read his customer very well and his idea of a suitable back up boat and crew was inconsistent with our communicated expectations.
What constituted a drift dive for Adam was hardly more current than what I get on the second half of a routine shore dive.
What constituted a “totally intense” wreck dive was nothing more than some odd timbers strewn about in shallow water. The only thing we penetrated on my dives was my wallet.
Maggie coached my daughter not to drink water in the morning or while on the boat so she wouldn’t have to urinate while diving. “You should never pee in your wetsuit.” I can’t make this stuff up.
In the end, we ran out of time and returned home without my wife and daughter getting certified. Rather than quibble with Adam over pro-rating the cost, something I knew would result in a fruitless expenditure of energy, I wrote off the course costs. However, what really, really irked me and put me in a posture to clobber them was the fact that Adam and Maggie wouldn’t respond to my formal requests to return my wife’s medical clearance form signed by a physician. Shame on us for providing the original (based on the assumption that we were going to get a first-rate experience) but to take a couple of months to send a medical form back to the customer so the customer can pursue a course closer to home is petty. When all it takes is an envelope and a cheap stamp to close out the customer’s experience, I concluded Adam and Maggie are more focused on dabbling in a lifestyle than running a business.
In contrast, my dives with Jupiter Dive Center were top shelf so it’s not like I’m one of those impossible customers that simply can’t be satisfied (although I probably seem that way to Adam and Maggie).
The video of the Starfish’s broadside roll and the captain falling overboard does not surprise me. That much said, I don’t wish people ill-will or hope their business fails. I hope Adam and Maggie can learn from the incident and sharpen their focus, procedures and practices.
