Lost At Sea In Cozumel

[Ron Brandt]

I recently returned from Cozumel. We dove with Blue Bubbles also known as Ecodivers. The first day our Capitan took a while to find us drifting because he was too busy fishing. The second day we had to endure him vomiting from a hang-over between dives. The best, is the third day when he lost us and left us drifting at sea for 45 minutes. Finally after kicking 1.5 miles, we reached another dive boat. Our capitan arrived 15 minutes later after we called him on the radio.

This should be moved to the Cozumel forum for all to see!

I am assuming you were diving at the north end of the island???
If you were a safty tube is required.
If you were not at the north end, the boat captain..let alone being drunk was in violation of park rules by fishing. This boat captain could have caused Eco Divers to be shut down.

Personally I went on a "solo drift" as well a few weeks back...no big deal,it was my fault and the boat captain and dm decided to pick up the group befor me......worried no. There are proceedures in place that if you drift too far off, signal a near by boat and tell them who you are with. You will be picked you.

I do find hard to believe that the boat captain was fishing.

Ron

 

[diverjeff]

Methinks the OP is given to exaggeration, and probably inexperienced. Six knot current - no way! 45 minutes and 1.5 miles - don't think so! Fishing? - in the Marine Park? - any captain knows that would cost him his job! Let's hear from Roberta. She runs an excellent operation.

 

[tjmills]

<<<<<<<as Previously Posted>>>>>>>>

BS Meter is in the RED


Somebody is sitting back laughing at this one.

 

[Cacia]

It could be reality as he experienced it. Sometimes people's perception when they are new is different..... I know I have waited 45 minutes in high seas right here in my backyard, and it can get a little freaky. One day I was with JB and Piratediver and the swells were high enough that we could only see the boat ....once in awhile on the peaks, very far away. Well, I started shrieking at them after about a half an hour of drifting to get their sausages up higher...They both were laughing at me and I told them they were too stupid to be worried.....Your personality can transform a little "out there". Later, when I told the captain privately, "Hey I was getting worried!" He said.. "you were worried? I was out of fuel!" So, now, I always ask him how much fuel he has before we drift!

 

[countryboy]

..."you were worried? I was out of fuel!" .....

Now that is poor gas management...

 

[BadeInBulverde]

As we all suspected ... there's more to the story ... once I get Roberta's permission to post her comments I shall do so ...

Bade

 

[micahjt]

Roberta and her husband run a great dive op! Wouldn't hesitate to go there again and again!

Sol, I gotta say about that.

Had the opportunity to take a trip to Holbox with the group and it was a fabulous experience. Highly recommend it, the car ride was almost as much fun as the whale sharks! (posted a movie clip)

 

[Christi]

As we all suspected ... there's more to the story ... once I get Roberta's permission to post her comments I shall do so ...

Bade

Of course there is more to the story as most of us suspect. The OP I think has been written off as a troll and/or just someone trying to cause trouble. Like my other post says...if she was running a flim-flam operation...she wouldn't have been around for all of these years.

 

[BadeInBulverde]

... Roberta is replying to both RonFrank's note mentioned above and to my request for her permission to post her initial reply ...
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Hello there Ron -

Thank you very much for contacting me. A very good customer of mine has also E-mailed me with this information. So, I am including him on this response. Even though I already told Bade quickly the story yesterday, I think that I have formed a more "formal" reply. BUT, on the other hand, how to you respond to this without lowering yourself to the same level - he said/she said. Which Robert (my husband) and I are wondering if a response is even necessary. I will leave that for you to decide.

Scenario - 4 guys prepay for a private charter for diving while they are in Mexico. Their dive shop works with us and set up the diving. They had 3 days of a private boat chartered and decided that they wanted to go to Punta Sur. As you know, Punta Sur is an advanced dive and the divemaster/instructor and I talked long about allowing this group to go because 1 of the divers was more nervous than the rest. I told the DM that I had no problem telling the group that we did not think that the ENTIRE group was up to diving these advanced dives. But he had been diving with them and thought that the nervous diver would be able to do this with extra attention from the DM.

Dive Day - Boat departs and goes to Punta Sur. The currents were weird and the visibility was less than 40 feet. They decide to go to Maracaibo. A deeper reef. The dive briefing is given and it was decided that if any one of the divers was unable or taking too long to descend, that they would return to the boat and abort the dive. No second chances. This is standard operating procedure for either one of the advanced dive sites. Everyone goes in...... and the nervous diver has problems going down, (according to the instructor shaking because he was nervous). As per the dive briefing, the divemaster after a few minutes and the diver both signal to each other that the diver will go up. The diver returned to the boat and asked for more weight to try and go back down again. The captain should NOT have given it to him, but he did. And then the captain stayed with him while the diver attempted to descend again. After another couple of minutes, the diver decided to abort the dive, and return to the surface, where he got onto the boat again. As you know, the currents and winds can take the boat away from the group, so while the captain was care of this diver, he then lost the bubbles of the group. Once the diver who aborted was on the boat, the captain went back to look for the group. Underwater, the currents were moving much faster on he bottom than with the boat on the surface, so the boat ended up south of the group. In addition, on the safety stop, the current took the divemaster and all of the divers out over the blue water. So, when they surfaced, they were way away from the reef and of course, other dive boats. It took exactly 30 minutes for them to finally get a boat to see them and then come and get them. 35 minutes by the time that everyone was on the boat. Our dive boat was farther south still looking for the group. During the time on the surface, the divers began to get nervous. And the subject of the movie "Open Water" came up. The divers asked the DM if he had seen the movie and told them no. And the guys then explained about it and how they were getting very nervous. The DM then commented on how he had seen "Jaws" many years ago and that still did not make him nervous so as to not continue diving. I am not quite sure that the humor in the joke was appreciated. They began to ask if they were going to get lost, how many divers were lost a year, how many we lost a year, how many Cozumel lost a year............basically they started to panic. At this point in time, according to the divemaster, since the divers were so nervous, he decided that he would make them swim towards the shore. To help keep their minds off of the movie, etc. After about 30 minutes on the surface, floating along the coast line of the island, swimming towards the island, another boat spotted them and got them on board. This took 35 minutes in total This boat then called to our boat, using the standard call 06 channel. During all of this, the captain from our boat began to get nervous since the time for the dive had terminated and he was unable to find the group. He was radioing to our other boat that was also diving Maracaibo, and talking on another "talk" channel, not the call channel. As well as searching for the divers with the engines running. It took our captain about 10 minutes to finally get on the right channel at the right time to hear the boat that picked up the group.

Return - When the divers returned at the end of the dive trip (after they made their second dive), the group of divers came to me and told me that the captain lost them for 1 hour on the surface and that they were floating out to sea. I immediately went our captain and asked for his version, times, etc. As well as the divemaster. When I returned to talk with the divers, and requestioned them about the amount of time on the surface, it was then to 30 - 35 minutes. We also discussed the fact that neither the captain NOR the diver who returned to the surface followed the instructions of the dive briefing. And that was how the captain lost the group. Of course in all of this, I apologized but was not willing to put 100% of the blame on the captain. Yes, part of it was his fault.

Net result -
1 - yes the captain made an error trying to help the 1 diver who was unable to descend, came back to the surface and asked for more weights. At that point in time the captain should have told him NO and got him back on the boat, but he did not. So, when he attended to the diver until the point in time when the diver decided to abort his dive, the captain lost the bubbles. Both the diver and the captain disregarded what was specifically explained in the dive briefing.
2 - An additional dynamic to this situation is how peer pressure can coax people into diving at locations where they really do not feel comfortable.
3 - This is also an example of how damning the movie "Open Water" is to the dive industry.
4 - If this was truly that scary of a diving incident, why did the group come back and dive the next day with us. They did end up going to Punta Sur and all divers were able to make the dive.

And this is the whole truth and the facts. I have no idea when the fishing was added into the story. The vomiting because of a hangover is not true. This captain no longer drinks. Where the 1.5 miles comes into play, no one knows. I did not realize that there is 1.5 miles between Punta Sur and Maracaibo - and they picked up the divers outside of Punta Sur.

So, Bade, you know me very well, and I trust you to know what to include or not include. I don't really think that any of the content of this E-mail is any different than the one I E-mailed you yesterday. Just maybe a bit more thought out and more carefully worded. Any editing that you might think is necessary is fine by me. As well as for you Ron. I am not sure if a reply is necessary or what.... or if some of the things that I wrote are my own personal comments or opinions, then maybe you will need to eliminate that so that the bare facts remain.

Thanks so much for helping out. We really appreciate it.

Happy Diving 000~)-)
Roberta Cwiertnia PADI MSDT #36805

 

[RonFrank]

I think we have just heard a much more fact filled version of the things that happened. The original poster remains at one post, and now it appears that his version of the story is highly exagerated, and he completely left out a large amount of details that explains what happened, as well as exagerating a number of things like the swim, the current, the number of dives they were not picked up, and the fact they basically chose to do some very advanced dives with a buddy who was clearly not capable of even knowing what amount of weigth he needed to decend, much less likely handle any issues that could occur during an advance dive.

Once again it certainly seems as if the diveOP had their act together even if they made a couple of mistakes no doubt in the interest of good customer service.

I would be interesting to hear a response from the original poster, but I'm guessing that his hand has been called, and he has nothing. I'm glad that we persued the DiveOp to reply as a public attack was rather uncalled for in light of the new facts presented.