My near-miss in the Galapagos

[cloudswinger]

For starters I would post thread inquiries right here SB on the appropriate forums paying attention to divers and not those with conflicts of interest. How bout Googling and making several phone calls as well. As discuused earlier live-aboards appear to be the way to go down there....

Well, her agent was a SB member. And all the research on the primary op doesn't help if they subcontract out. It's not like the subcontractor announced that they weren't the primary dive op. The second day was the primary op and apparently better run. Although I don't understand why both ops are sharing rental equipment, if that one rental bc was on both boats. Unless it was two different bcs, and two different problems. Or, I suppose, the one op supplied all the gear and was just contracting out the boat. I would ask for my rental fee back. I probably would have made the same decisions regarding continuing the dives, especially since I probably would only be going to the Galapagos once too. Although I'd go there when the water is warm, not in their winter like you did.

I don't think I would let them give me the wrong weight belt, or at least would have adjusted the weights. Those lead blocks are pretty easy to add up. Even if it is metric.

I have seen other threads talking about how bcs aren't super critical to diving, since for a long time they were not used in diving. Is that still the case here? And in the washing machine surface, I wonder if a snorkel would have helped, especially since you were out of air. OTOH, the DM was right there, unlike other dive ops where the DM was on the boat or nowhere near.

If the valve popped at the top, you fully inflated the bc. Which I don't, since generally if I'm at the top, I'm floating. Is that something I should be doing, fully inflating at the surface? The only time my OPV valve pops is when I'm testing it, I've never had it pop in the water.

And then the novices had no problems. So although it partially was luck of the draw, since they probably were renting gear also, but also I think that the intermediate levels have more to think about and do so too much sometimes. I'm pretty sure they'd all say that had a great time, and the dive op was great, at least for the second day.

I agree about the packaged tours, I've been on one, and while it was enjoyable, that one was enough. Did you do a loop tour with a side trip or an open jaw tour(where you fly in one city and out another)? If you did a loop, you could have stashed some gear to be picked up later. I was thinking about doing that for a trip I was planning. It was for both a snow area and a tropical area, so would have some of the same clothing/gear packing challenges. Although clothes are cheap, so I tend to pack less clothes and wash or buy along the way.

 

[hudson]

Since I haven't seen this addressed: the regulator inspection steps posted below can be (and should be) performed quickly in the field with the exception of steps 9-11, and maybe 7, for various reasons:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/4320058-post14.html

In the end, I think we need to remember where the BIGGEST failure was here...the dive op. I shouldn't have to worry that when I go diving with a dive op, they might give me bad DMs and bum gear. I should be able to trust that I will GET WHAT I PAID FOR. And not put my life in jeopardy.

I'd just like to add that while that's true, if we want to be realistic about it, our focus should be what us divers can do about it, because bad ops will always be out there.

 

[Scott L]

Well, her agent was a SB member. And all the research on the primary op doesn't help if they subcontract out. It's not like the subcontractor announced that they weren't the primary dive op. The second day was the primary op and apparently better run. Although I don't understand why both ops are sharing rental equipment, if that one rental bc was on both boats. Unless it was two different bcs, and two different problems. Or, I suppose, the one op supplied all the gear and was just contracting out the boat. I would ask for my rental fee back. I probably would have made the same decisions regarding continuing the dives, especially since I probably would only be going to the Galapagos once too. Although I'd go there when the water is warm, not in their winter like you did.

I don't think I would let them give me the wrong weight belt, or at least would have adjusted the weights. Those lead blocks are pretty easy to add up. Even if it is metric.

I have seen other threads talking about how bcs aren't super critical to diving, since for a long time they were not used in diving. Is that still the case here? And in the washing machine surface, I wonder if a snorkel would have helped, especially since you were out of air. OTOH, the DM was right there, unlike other dive ops where the DM was on the boat or nowhere near.

If the valve popped at the top, you fully inflated the bc. Which I don't, since generally if I'm at the top, I'm floating. Is that something I should be doing, fully inflating at the surface? The only time my OPV valve pops is when I'm testing it, I've never had it pop in the water.

And then the novices had no problems. So although it partially was luck of the draw, since they probably were renting gear also, but also I think that the intermediate levels have more to think about and do so too much sometimes. I'm pretty sure they'd all say that had a great time, and the dive op was great, at least for the second day.

I agree about the packaged tours, I've been on one, and while it was enjoyable, that one was enough. Did you do a loop tour with a side trip or an open jaw tour(where you fly in one city and out another)? If you did a loop, you could have stashed some gear to be picked up later. I was thinking about doing that for a trip I was planning. It was for both a snow area and a tropical area, so would have some of the same clothing/gear packing challenges. Although clothes are cheap, so I tend to pack less clothes and wash or buy along the way.

The SB member obviously had a conflict of interest. There is a tremendous body of knowledge and experience from which to draw from on SB and other scuba forums without having to rely on someone's opionion who has a financial interest at stake. Hey, I am not second guessing anyone. I am engaging in post trip analysis for which I have learned a great deal thanks to the OP putting her head on the perverbial SB cutting block. Good point about the DM's performance. As I stated earlier with her knowledge of scuba skills and the assistance from others she was never in grave danger IMO. Also good point about the use of a snorkel on such dives. I may have to acquire one agian. My last snorkel was made a fast moving projectile into Florida's Gulfstream current many years ago after my last PADI AOW dive. If this happened to be a tec dive (doubles rig) results could have been worse but as TSandMan indicates such divers do not rent equipment normally.

 

[Leejnd]

LeeAnne .... you certainly have a good attitude about flak given you here , you can readily tell that you have learned much from this, I have, and so can many others that come along later and read this thread

All your research into the dives, the area, the operators, all that work that you did would have seemed to be enough to know in advance what to expect .. the fact that it was not is .. not your fault, and not very encouraging ether

THANK YOU! It's awfully nice to have at least someone recognize that I HAVE been dealt a lot of flak in here. Some people seem to think that I haven't...or that I've been overreacting. Trust me, I have bitten my tongue from jumping in to defend myself more times than I can count. I knew my every action would get shredded when I posted this thread, and I thought I was prepared for it, but I have to admit it's been rather tougher to deal with than I thought. Hey, I have an ego like everyone else, and when divers jump in here and say "Oh I would NEVER let that happen to me!" they might as well just come right out and say "Well aren't you a moron, I'm so much better than you." At least that's what it feels like. I'm just trying to remind myself that allowing myself to be a dart board for everyone who thinks they are so much better able to handle things in the heat of the moment than I was, is ultimately for the greater good of the dive community.

But to all those people who have self-righteously posted that they would never allow this to happen to them...yeah, I might have said that too. Until it happened to me. Things often happen very fast - such as the DM's throwing a weight belt on me and then shoving me into my BC before I had a chance to count the weights, because the surface is such a roiling washing machine in Gordon Rocks that they don't gear you up until right before you are supposed to back-roll in and everyone has to roll in simultaneously and you find yourself in a situation where you just have to trust the guys you paid the big money to, that they are going to do the right thing to keep you alive.

And it's awfully nice to have someone acknowledge that I really did do quite a bit of research, and went with the option that seemed the best. I didn't just throw a dart at the phone book and pick the first dive op I saw. I researched. I read. I posted questions. I made phone calls and talked at length to people. I could not have predicted that this is what would have happened. But hopefully the next diver who is doing their own research will encounter this thread and make a different (hopefully better) choice.

 

[Leejnd]

Well, her agent was a SB member. And all the research on the primary op doesn't help if they subcontract out. It's not like the subcontractor announced that they weren't the primary dive op.

Thank you for pointing that out.

The second day was the primary op and apparently better run. Although I don't understand why both ops are sharing rental equipment, if that one rental bc was on both boats. Unless it was two different bcs, and two different problems.

It was the same gear. The DMs on the first day met us at the Sub-Aqua shop, and geared us up from their gear. We then proceeded to, evidently go and get on the Sharks Friends boat. The second day I again went to the Sub-Aqua shop, and from there they actually drove us to the other side of the island to board the Sub-Aqua boat.

I probably would have made the same decisions regarding continuing the dives, especially since I probably would only be going to the Galapagos once too. Although I'd go there when the water is warm, not in their winter like you did.

Thanks for saying this. As for the timing, we didn't choose the timing - that's when the tour was going. But I think I still would have gone at this time...the colder currents bring more life! As for the water temp, remember, I live in SoCal, where it's c-c-c-cold water diving all year round. That water in Galapagos was downright balmy to me!

I don't think I would let them give me the wrong weight belt, or at least would have adjusted the weights. Those lead blocks are pretty easy to add up. Even if it is metric.

That's easy to say in hindsight, but like I mentioned earlier, they were throwing gear on us so fast that we just didn't catch it. And not being familiar with calculating weight in metrics, it was just one more failure point. But...lesson learned.

I have seen other threads talking about how bcs aren't super critical to diving, since for a long time they were not used in diving. Is that still the case here? And in the washing machine surface, I wonder if a snorkel would have helped, especially since you were out of air. OTOH, the DM was right there, unlike other dive ops where the DM was on the boat or nowhere near.

I always inflate my BC to the max once I'm on the surface, just because then I don't have to work to stay afloat. Why not just bob on the surface and let the BC do the work? In this case, a snorkel probably wouldn't have helped because of the wild washing machine surface...the waves were slapping me in the face and were way higher than my snorkel would have been. I think a snorkel would have just filled up with water and made it worse. I did have my own mask with me...and it had no snorkel attached. I stopped diving with a snorkel because I do a lot of beach dives at home, and surf entries can cause a snorkel to rip your mask off your face.

I am definitely fortunate that the DM was there. If he hadn't have been, I do think I would have survived, though - I would have ditched my weights and possibly even my whole rig and then I would have been buoyant just by virtue of my 5 mil wetsuit, and I'm a strong enough swimmer that I'm sure I could have been able to keep myself from drowning on the surface, even though it was really rough. At least, that's what I'd like to think!

If the valve popped at the top, you fully inflated the bc. Which I don't, since generally if I'm at the top, I'm floating. Is that something I should be doing, fully inflating at the surface? The only time my OPV valve pops is when I'm testing it, I've never had it pop in the water.

I'm not so sure it was the OPV valve, which I believe is at the bottom of the BC. I believe it was the inflator tube. But this is pure speculation. I never did go back to look at the BC to see what was actually wrong with it.

I agree about the packaged tours, I've been on one, and while it was enjoyable, that one was enough. Did you do a loop tour with a side trip or an open jaw tour(where you fly in one city and out another)? If you did a loop, you could have stashed some gear to be picked up later.

It was not a loop. We started in Lima, Peru, and flew home from Quito, Ecuador.

 

[Leejnd]

since you can afford to dive around the world, screw the $170 and head to the cabana next time.

You know nothing about my financial situation. I work very hard for my money, pay for all of my travel with my own hard-earned money, and I sacrifice a lot of other things I could be spending my money on. I don't have unlimited funds, nor do I have unlimited vacation time. Every trip is hard-won, and every dive I do in an exotic location is precious and irreplaceable. Oh, and btw it wasn't just $170, it was twice that (if I'd bailed on the second day as well as my hubby, I had to assume we'd forfeit the whole thing.) But thanks for making assumptions about me.

Actually I would have stopped after the 1st dive.

So you say. You clearly are so much better and smarter than me, of course. :cool2:



(Sorry, but I'm starting to feel a little beaten down at this point.)

 

[Leejnd]

The SB member obviously had a conflict of interest. There is a tremendous body of knowledge and experience from which to draw from on SB and other scuba forums without having to relay on someone's opionion who has a financial interest at stake.

Not true. This person works with all the dive ops on the island, and did not have to send me to this one. She chose this one because they were going where I wanted to go that day, and because she has worked with them before and they did a good job for her. Since she learned of this, she has pulled several clients from them that she was planning on sending with them in the next few days.

I did rely on her opinion, because she is well versed in Galapagos diving and knows all the operators there. And I did take advantage of the tremendous body of knowledge on SB. After doing lots of reading, research, posting of questions in the South America forum, and talking to several people in IMs here on SB, I decided to work with her. So, I was already going to give her my business...she was going to get the commission anyway...it's certainly in her best interest to have a happy (and safe) client, don't you think? So where's the conflict of interest? She doesn't get any more of a commission if she sends me with one dove op over the other.

By the way, I should mention that I heard from her today (she's there now) that Sub-Aqua did, in fact, reimburse her for the amount she reimbursed me. So good for Sub-Aqua. I still would love to have them come in here, accept responsibility for their mistakes, and share with the dive community what they plan on doing to ensure this never happens to anyone else.

 

[annasea]

I've read the first post, and skimmed through the rest of the thread. A few thoughts...

Thank you, LeeAnne, for being brave enough to post your experiences, and moreso for continuing to post in this thread. Many times people post their negative experiences and wind up abandoning their threads due to the holier than thou, self-righteous, armchair quarterbacks.

Speaking of which, as has been mentioned before on SB, it is so easy to type from the comfort of your home or workplace what you would or wouldn't have done in similar circumstances. Logic (generally) prevails when one has time to think about the situation.

To those of you who know better than and relentlessly criticize the OPs of these types of threads, I hope you fare just as well in a real-life situation as you do onscreen.

 

[D_B]

Sub-Aqua ... I hope they do too

Your Trip Person .. Kudos to her and her forthright actions

LeeAnne ... for posting

(ps .. sometimes do you wonder if people read the first post at all? )

 

[cloudswinger]

I'd just like to add that while that's true, if we want to be realistic about it, our focus should be what us divers can do about it, because bad ops will always be out there.

Well is it really a bad op, or just not up to US standards? Regarding safety, other countries may be a bit more casual about safety than the US. Most don't have seat belt laws, or child seats, or drunk driving laws, or even smoking laws. I went to Vietnam and brought a booster seat for my 4yo daughter, but couldn't use it because there were no seat belts! It did help her see out the windows, but there was no safety feature involved. And they all wear helmets, but those helmets look pretty flimsy. OTOH, the speed limit is a lot lower than in the US, and they never really drive more than about 50 mph on the highway, and it probably maxes out around 35 mph in town. What's acceptable there may be completely unacceptable here, and they may not know better.