Question: What's the most dangerous/scariest things you've seen on a liveabord?

[divermatt]

Hi guys,

Been awhile, but I wanted to find out what the scariest thing you've seen on a love-abord scuba vacation. I guess I'm looking more for "the boat caught fire" than I am looking for a bullshark encounter, but hey, let it fly either way.

Oh, and no one is allowed to answer "The bill at the end of the week"

 

[NudeDiver]

I saw a newly acquainted pair having unprotected sex on the rear deck, about 2am at night.

 

[vladimir]

Unprotected sex is not that scary. It's not very tasteful on the deck, but it's pretty safe. The odds of HIV infection for people not in high-risk groups is estimated at 1-in-5 million. The probablility of getting pregnant (which might not scare some people at all) is about 3-5%, without discussing mitigation strategies. It does not bode well for on-board manners, however, so that might scare you early in the week. And it might be unappealing to watch, depending on who you are (and who they are!). So I guess it could be a little scary.

 

[rollerboi]

Unprotected sex is not that scary. It's not very tasteful on the deck, but it's pretty safe. The odds of HIV infection for people not in high-risk groups is estimated at 1-in-5 million...

... and there's all different kinds of crabs in them there waters... don't make your scuba trip the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[ronbeau]

I saw a newly acquainted pair having unprotected sex on the rear deck, about 2am at night.

Well divematt did ask about a "love-abord scuba vacation"

 

[NudeDiver]

The odds of HIV infection for people not in high-risk groups is estimated at 1-in-5 million

I was thinking more about the odds of getting someone knocked up and subjecting yourself to at least 18 years of financial servitude.

 

[jjhill]

I did not personally see this story but it is from a good friend of mine and a local divemaster/instructor. He was on a live-aboard in the Bahamas last year when two divers on the boat got into a deco situation on their dive. The divers believing the problem was just that their computers were too conservative and decided to ignore the computer deco obligation.

Once on the boat for fear of their computer locking them out for future dives they grabbed a rope and a weight from their gear bag tied their computers to it and tossed it overboard so the computer could finish the deco obligation and clear normally.

Needless to say my friend pointed this out to the captain and divemaster who had a few words with them. I believe both divers suffered no ill will from the experience but wow, that is quite the gamble.

 

[vladimir]

The trip director on one of my Spoilsport trips in the Coral Sea took a hit. He and one of the divemasters were free-diving down to the 100' bottom near the Yongala while the guests dove. We returned from our dive and never saw him again because he was locked in his cabin with an oxygen bottle for the trip home. I don't know how serious it was. One of the divemasters was crying, but I assume if it was really dire a medevac helicopter would have shown up.

On last year's trip to Cocos two people got mild hits towards the end of the 10-day trip and had to end their diving a little early. It's kind of scary to be a 36-hour boat ride away from a chamber and have decompression sickness.

 

[tstormdiver]

I would say form the 4 live aboards I've been on it is the drinking (alcoholic drinking to excess). Most live aboards make you stop diving once you start drinking & that's great, but I've seen some of these divers get absolutely smashed at night & be so hung over (dehydrated)the next day that they were "fish feeding" nearly every other breath. It's a wonder they didn't get bent. I don't mind drinking whilst on vacation, but I do try to keep it very moderate, so that I'm not dehydrated during my dives & not feeling run over by a freight train the next morning.

 

[WarrenZ]

By the end of day two we were watching our computers and no one had any signifigant time left in fact mine was down to 1 min at its lowest but we all had 2/3 of our tanks. I later developed the skin bends and had to sit out the next 5 dives to off gas and wait to recover. Kinda worry-some from my point of view.