Do you have any dive travel regrets?

[NYCNaiad]

My step-sister just sent me this article on travel regrets & asked if I had any. It's a fantastic & honest article.

Here's what I told her my travel regrets were (all dive-related as well as embarrassing & cringe worthy):

1. Not researching what extreme dive conditions I could run into in a new location or how to deal with them. (Whirlpool downward currents in the Maldives. I'm lucky I survived.)
2. When I took my best friend to do the open water part of her certification to a place I liked as a diver, but hadn't researched in terms of how well they did their training. (They were ok, but I did her a disservice.)
3. A shark feeding dive, a dive chumming for sharks, a sting ray feeding dive & a semi-captive dolphin dive.
4. Continuing to dive the rest of the week with a shop that made 2 big mistakes.
5. No travel insurance on an expensive dive trip.
   
6. Only wearing insect repellent 1/2 of the time at a dive resort instead of 100%. (I was struck down with a bad case of dengue. I thought I was safe since there weren't a lot of mosquitoes, I was only bitten 5x in 2 weeks & while dengue is in the Philippines, they had never had it on this particular island before.)
7. Not taking a carbon monoxide/oxygen analyzer or Nautlius Lifeline with me. (I breathed bad air at 1 place & was left by a boat at another.)

What are your dive travel regrets?

 

[Reku]

I regret not bringing more gas.

 

[Stoo]

I regret not bringing more gas.

Try the burritos...

I can't honestly say that I have any horrible trips or regrets. Some were better than others of course.

If I had to choose one, it would be a liveaboard I did in the Bahamas MANY years ago. It was on a huge cat, but I don't think it was the current Aquacat... too long ago.

The boat and crew were great, but we joined a dive group from the midwest. As I recall, most of them worked in the Budweiser plant there. Almost without exception, they were really bad divers... no ability to control buoyancy so kicking the crap out of everything. Almost everyone was obese so sucking air like crazy and most struggled in the currents. And they wanted to stay up every night getting sh!t-faced until 2 AM which is a bit problematic night after night.

The crew rightfully tailored the diving to them, so we ended up spending the week avoiding walls, waves and currents... Mercifully, the crew took pity on us and took us to a couple of nice walls in a tender, which we really appreciated.

Oh then there was a time there was a woman on a liveaboard who was "certifiable". The night watch crew found her butt-naked on the deck in the middle of the night, chanting at the moon. On several occasions, people woke in the middle of the night to find her in their cabin, staring at them while they slept. Naked. ;-)

The Captain called in a sea-plane and she and her friend were flown back to town, out of fears for her safety, and possibly ours!

Now that I think if it, that might have been on the same trip as the Bud-Buddies...

 

[Reku]

Try the burritos...

I can't honestly say that I have any horrible trips or regrets. Some were better than others of course.

If I had to choose one, it would be a liveaboard I did in the Bahamas MANY years ago. It was on a huge cat, but I don't think it was the current Aquacat... too long ago.

The boat and crew were great, but we joined a dive group from the midwest. As I recall, most of them worked in the Budweiser plant there. Almost without exception, they were really bad divers... no ability to control buoyancy so kicking the crap out of everything. Almost everyone was obese so sucking air like crazy and most struggled in the currents. And they wanted to stay up every night getting sh!t-faced until 2 AM which is a bit problematic night after night.

The crew rightfully tailored the diving to them, so we ended up spending the week avoiding walls, waves and currents... Mercifully, the crew took pity on us and took us to a couple of nice walls in a tender, which we really appreciated.

Oh then there was a time there was a woman on a liveaboard who was "certifiable". The night watch crew found her butt-naked on the deck in the middle of the night, chanting at the moon. On several occasions, people woke in the middle of the night to find her in their cabin, staring at them while they slept. Naked. ;-)

The Captain called in a sea-plane and she and her friend were flown back to town, out of fears for her safety, and possibly ours!

Now that I think if it, that might have been on the same trip as the Bud-Buddies...

Lol crazy person onboard.

 

[Stoo]

Lol crazy person onboard.

Not being a Psychiatrist, I am reluctant to diagnose her as such but she was a bit "out there" for sure. I spoke to her a few times at meal-time (as one is inclined to do on liveaboards) and she struck me more as a new-age, vegan, Wiccan, crystal-loving sort, and quite harmless, but then she never showed up in my cabin at night. (Nobody locks their cabin doors on liveaboards in my experience.)

I think the Captain was concerned that she would fall overboard at night, and when folks told him about her coming into their cabins, that was the final straw. I don't think he had any choice really. I often get up at night to take in the stars when I am at sea and nobody has ever tried to send me home. But them I wasn't naked. Or chanting.

 

[Kharon]

Two trips stand out. Both to "fabulous" destinations, both my own fault - I believed the hype.

The first could have been fine - even great. But the club I traveled with let two supposed "experts" decide all the dive venues. As a result we dove the same dead rock, virtually devoid of fish, coral, and sponges over and over. I'm told that the destination has great sites - just not the ones we went to. My bad - I should have rented a car and gone my own way.

The second was to a resort that is highly touted on SB. It was a supreme disappointment. Very bad vis, beautiful soft coral & bryozoans - but little hard coral and no mature fish. In fact few juvinile fish and not much diversity among those. Dive sites were indistinguishable one from another. And the food was - well Boy Scout summer campish. Two weeks at 4K before tips and travel for their least expensive room ... After 3-4 days I wanted to be back home.

 

[dlofting]

No dive travel regrets at all, except at this point in our lives we can only afford one trip per year.

 

[Skulmoski]

Avoid Orca Diving, Mirbat, Oman. Lovely diving, but the operator was unsafe. We quit diving after 5 of our 12 planned dives.

GJS

 

[Fin Finder]

Great topic, NYCNaiad!

I regret diving in just board shorts whenever I found myself in warm tropical waters. Then I started to wonder why I kept getting sick half way through my trips. Now I take at least a neoprene vest or 3mm shorty.

I regret not realizing sooner that the second trip back to a place is never as good as the first. It’ll be just new destinations for me from now on.

I regret wasting time looking for U/W photo ops. Now, when I travel dive, I leave the camera topside. It's now about looking all around me, living in the moment, and trying to absorb the beauty of the underwater world with just my eyes.

Nays

 

[Lorenzoid]

@Stoo, so what would you have done differently to avoid booking a liveaboard with a bunch of people you don't want to dive with? Only book a liveaboard as a member of a known group who book the whole vessel?

On one dive trip, there was a loudmouthed female diver who went on and on about her vast experience, and shared her wisdom that "on every liveaboard there's always that one diver that everyone else finds annoying," etc. My wife and I whispered to each other that SHE is THAT diver but doesn't know it.

But I see no practical way of avoiding being on a liveaboard--or a day boat for that matter--with THAT diver (or a group of them, as in your anecdote).