Boat Mishap in Cambodia

[JaneyK]

There are many fishing vessels which ply their trade between the mainland at Sihanoukville and the island of Koh Rung Samloem and with the recent monsoon rains and unregulated dive centres, it is not surprising that there was a pretty bad accident here. The Eco Sea Dive Centre boat crashed into a fishing vessel as the dive boat was returning to the island. It is the 2nd of their boats to be wrecked this month with their other one sinking, moored to the pier after a bad storm in the night. On the most recent occassion, their DM requested assistance in salvaging not only a lot of expensive equipment, but also their passenger's belongings. The wreck was then raised after only 18 hours, but got many local villagers talking about karma, understandable to me when the same boat had, on my first day's diving in Cambodia, split my dive group when they raised their anchor off the coral on a local reef, forcing us to get out of it's way.