Dive gear didn't make it onboard.

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all4scuba05

all4scuba05

Contributor
Messages
1,444
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Location
Wallingford, Connecticut
# of dives
100 - 199
I'm telling this story for those that might one day plan on taking backplates on a cruise.

So I flew to Los Angeles. I go to the Cruise Ship Terminal at Longbeach. I hand my luggage to the porter and board the Carnival Paradise. One Smaller bag for clothing and one larger bag with dive gear. They'll have my bags in my room by dinner.
We commence our voyage soon after. During dinner, I get a call on my cell phone(first stop next day is Catalina Isalnd so we still have a signal). They tell me that one of my bags never got onboard. I finish dessert and head to the pursers desk. They ask,"Do you have a knife in your luggage? Hell no I don't"
"Well we don't know how it happened but somehow we forgot to call you and get you to go back downstairs to open the bag because something showed up in the xray machine for your bag. What do you have in that bag?"
I told them it was dive gear and they say "so you have a dive knife in there?"
"No I don't. I have two pieces of metal in there." I then explained what a backplate was and what an STA was. It didn't matter. I'm on the ship and the bag's in California.
Anyway, they said that when I get off in Catalina Island next morning I am to go to some Island Express office and pick up my bag. They opened at 9am and told me they don't receive their first packages until the afternoon. By now I'm fuming.
"I WILL dive Casino Park if it's the last thing I do" Hmmm maybe I shouldn't say that. I only had my reg set and mask. So much for diving dry. I headed over to Scuba Luv and paid about $60 for wetsuit and rest of gear. Joined diveguide Bryan and 2 other BOW divers. Bryan was nice enough to take me as far down as some wreck at 83'. But I was cold after first dive in 7mm. No second dive. Got some pics though. Plan on going back for more dives later on this year.
By the way, water was calm, vis was about 20'. Suface temp was 62F, bottom was 53F.
 
I can see the headlines now. phycopath captured after killing cruise ship luggage handlers with Scuba diving ?back plate? :shakehead

I guess your lucky it wasn't something embarrasing in that luggage. ;)
 
I had BP setup dismantled in order to keep wing and drysuit away from metal during flights and baggage handling. My guess is that the STA must have looked like a very fat rectangular knife?
 
That sucks...Did the cruise people at least try and make it up to you. I mean even a monkey can tell the difference between a knife and a backplate.
 
My first dive trip back in the 80's to the BVI I had a similar experience but it turned out for the better. At Kennedy airport in NY, I carried on my reg and gauges. Back then it was way more relaxed than today. When I went through the metal detectors at the terminal I was stopped and the guards wanted to search my regulator bag. They called about 6 cops over and pulled me to the side. I told them it was a regulator a gauges for diving. No one believed me. I was really sweating bullets thinking I was going to miss the flight and have to go downtown etc. Luckily they called over a supervisor and he was a diver. He looked at my set up and said "where you going to dive?" I said bareboating in BVI. For the next 10 minutes he explained to his group that it was a not a bomb but a regulator. He apologized profusely and called to the gate to hold the plane and then escorted me and my friends to the plane. It was dumb luck he was a diver!

So why didn't they search your bag? TSA does that all of the time even when I don't have gear with me. If you use the TSA locks they won't destroy your bag and are pretty good about repacking things.
 
SkullDeformity:
Morons. How does a backplate look like a knife? It doesn't.
Click to expand...

Probably the same way the TSA agent thought my tank valve was a gun.

Terry
 
It's sort of silly policy anyway, isn't it? If I order a steak in the dining room...they usually give me a big knife to cut it with and it's not always serrated. If anyone wanted a knife to take over the cruise ship...just wait until after dinner.

Or, just walk behind the buffet line and take that samurai katana away from the 90 lb guy cutting up the prime rib. Perhaps snapping the blades out of my cheap-o disposable razor and then either taping, gluing or melting them to the end of my toothbrush. Nasty little surgical tool. Or any other number of improvised weapons a little time and some twisted little mind like mine could contrive on a cruise ship with all the stuff laying around, or even on a plane. Perhaps they were afraid you would sharpen the edge of your BP with a piece of day old bread and then attach it to a broom stick or mop and then have a pole arm!

A firearm would be different, but worrying about a knife...silly. We miss the point often that it's the people we should be watching...yes maybe even profiling. I said it! Not concentrating on whether or not the 90 year old grandma has stuffed her walker full of plastic explosives.
 
Had a similar experience a couple of months ago. Waited all day for the gear to show up, finally called the desk on the ship at 1AM. They made me come down and unpack two bags worth of gear because I dared to bring a scuba tool with me.

Buncha morons, generally speaking.
 
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