I do find it sad that a handful of individuals use and abuse what I consider to be the best scuba website on the internet to continually post personal attacks against a dive op that has earned so much respect because of the way she apparently runs her business. I say apparently as I have no personal dive experience with Blue XT Sea having been a long time and loyal customer of Living Underwater. While I have no desire or intention of leaving Jeremy, this board has helped me form the opinion that several other dive ops in Cozumel, including, but not limited to Christi and Aldora, would also fit my needs. The value of web based reviews and critiques is that one can look at the preponderance of posts and discount the ones that seem overly filled with too much cheerleading and those that appear to only be vendettas and rely on the opinion of the majority to help make a decision.
I follow several sub-forums on ScubaBoard either because I have dove there or intend to and, in each of them, value the diversity of posts from either other divers or from dive ops that actively participate. The dive ops that I respect the most are the ones who offer up advice and recommendations without blatantly promoting their own shops. It does not bother me when, from time to time, a dive op defends the type and style of service they offer as long as their posts are balanced and recognize that everyone has different needs. I have seen that balance with posts from Dave from Aldora, Christi from Blue XT Sea and, on the mainland, Dennis from Diablo. It is rare that you would see a post from Christi that does not acknowledge that the group of boutique or valet dive ops includes more than her operation. Indeed, in the limited contact I have had with her (my wife and I dropped into her shop to say hi as fellow ScubaBoarders on the last trip) she has never tried to entice me away from Jeremy and has simply promised to say hi on a future surface interval. It was during this visit last Saturday that I overheard her making arrangements for one of her customers to dive the east side with Aldora so I can certainly attest to her claim that she is not afraid to refer customers elsewhere when Blue XT Sea can’t fill a need.
As for not referring a couple of newbie divers when she believed they fell short of the necessary skills for dives that Aldora (at least at the time) called for experienced divers…completely understandable. Both her professional reputation and her legal liability rest on the integrity and accuracy of those recommendations. It is no different when I respond to a reference request from a former employee seeking new employment. If I provide a recommendation beyond what I perceive as the individual’s skill set I risk my reputation and a lawsuit. We never stop learning as divers and one of the first and most important lessons is that we should never dive beyond our capabilities and that there is always room for improvement. At the end of each dive trip with Living Underwater, Jeremy asks me what improvements he can make as a dive op and I, in turn, ask him what I need to do to become a better diver. I can guarantee you when I had nine dives under my weight-belt that no credible dive op would have sent me to sites beyond my limited capability.
Ironically it appears that Bill hasn’t had a bad experience diving with Blue XT Sea and he lauds them in several previous posts. Nonetheless he seems hell bent on slamming her reputation on the basis of what he believes to be a slight. I think it is time to develop some maturity and move on. That doesn’t mean that people should not make posts about negative dive experiences with any dive op…keep them coming as this is how first timers will ultimately determine their choice as to where to spend their money. I would expect that most of the better dive ops would welcome criticism from time to time to prevent their service levels from slipping. The negativity in this particular discussion is petty. If a dive op shorted you time because they surfaced everyone based on the lowest common denominator…valid, if they seemed to compromise safety…even more important, if they didn’t send you to another operator because they believed you not to be ready…that is their right and probably their obligation.
As for the placement of posts and the TOS of this board…those are the rules. Personally I think that the Trips and Local Marketplace sub-forums are generally under-used and infrequently visited and it really wouldn’t bother me if solicitation posts were allowed in the main forum. I would like to think that I am intelligent enough to differentiate between enticement and endorsement but, since I don’t make the rules, it is what it is. On both the Cozumel and Playa forums I see posts that contain words like “come dive with us” and it actually lowers my opinion of the dive op when they troll for business. If you look at the majority of the posts from Dave and Christi you won’t find those words but, instead, great advice and helpful knowledge. No doubt their credibility is enhanced and it is beneficial to their business because of frequent postings but they play within the rules and the forum is available to all ops and not just advertisers.
I come here for knowledge, insider information on restaurants and hotels, constructive and valid criticism about dive operations and balanced reviews that recognize different strokes for different folks. I don’t come here for peeing matches…that I can do in my wetsuit all by myself.
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