mala
Contributor
"...the sole defining characteristic is a secondhand car or truck engine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tail_boat
brings a new meaning to the 3min safety stop.....
Six left at sea - Thailand
- Thread starter DandyDon
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brings a new meaning to the 3min safety stop.....
I noticed that the text says a dive instructor waved an inflatable "bouy", if this was an SMB and not an actual bouy, it never says it was the only one the 6 divers had.
Looking at the video I see a something slender & vertical in the immediate background and a yellow SMB in a guy's hand just 6' or so from the camera. That's would already be 2 SMBs.
On the other hand the thing in the background might be a genuine marine bouy (B&W bouy, as in N, S, E & W bouys). They are soft (bloody thick) plastic w/ air in them, so a noob could conceivably refer to it as an "inflatable bouy". Maybe the guide grabbed it and made its top wave back & forth. That's doable. It's very long & solid, probably has reflective tapes and definetely is not normally waved by nearly swimmers. See that & you gotta know someone wants your attension.
Otherwise I agree w/ what everone is saying about what they assumed happened here:
I do think it would be substandard if there were 2 instructors and each did not have at least 1 SMB. I never dive [nor let kids & their friends dive] any big water w/o an SMB. I'm not terribly suprised that many newly minted & rare-vacation divers don't carry SMBs and maybe don't even know how to launch one from underwater. Divers this inexperienced (very 1st dives since training according to the video), esp.young folks with the optimism and invulnurability of youth, have no idea how many potential risks or other issue of the dive have never even crossed their minds.
At this point I think the instructor finally caught someone's attension by waving a marker bouy (looks like white w/ black on top or B/W/B so that's either "North" or "East") and none of the six ever commented on how many SMBs they did or did not have with them. -Obviously one guy had a yellow SMB 'cause you see it in the video clip.
Looking at the video I see a something slender & vertical in the immediate background and a yellow SMB in a guy's hand just 6' or so from the camera. That's would already be 2 SMBs.
On the other hand the thing in the background might be a genuine marine bouy (B&W bouy, as in N, S, E & W bouys). They are soft (bloody thick) plastic w/ air in them, so a noob could conceivably refer to it as an "inflatable bouy". Maybe the guide grabbed it and made its top wave back & forth. That's doable. It's very long & solid, probably has reflective tapes and definetely is not normally waved by nearly swimmers. See that & you gotta know someone wants your attension.
Otherwise I agree w/ what everone is saying about what they assumed happened here:
I do think it would be substandard if there were 2 instructors and each did not have at least 1 SMB. I never dive [nor let kids & their friends dive] any big water w/o an SMB. I'm not terribly suprised that many newly minted & rare-vacation divers don't carry SMBs and maybe don't even know how to launch one from underwater. Divers this inexperienced (very 1st dives since training according to the video), esp.young folks with the optimism and invulnurability of youth, have no idea how many potential risks or other issue of the dive have never even crossed their minds.
At this point I think the instructor finally caught someone's attension by waving a marker bouy (looks like white w/ black on top or B/W/B so that's either "North" or "East") and none of the six ever commented on how many SMBs they did or did not have with them. -Obviously one guy had a yellow SMB 'cause you see it in the video clip.
Wingy
Contributor
Id like to see the shop named - looks like Maya Bay at Phi Phi but hard to tell. SMBs should be as mandatory a peice of your gear as your regulator.
I dont know that a personal transmitter would be of much good in Thailand especially as they were diving out of a long tail...have never seen a long tail equipped with any form of radio. Some of the boatmen are great skippers but some have been known to make decisions from a boat viewpoint not a divers in the water viewpoint.
I dont know that a personal transmitter would be of much good in Thailand especially as they were diving out of a long tail...have never seen a long tail equipped with any form of radio. Some of the boatmen are great skippers but some have been known to make decisions from a boat viewpoint not a divers in the water viewpoint.
If you have ever dived in a tropical tourist destination like Thailand, you will see that 99% of tourists do not carry a sub-surface launchable SMB's. Nor should they. Without being able to competently launch one, it can be very dangerous should it get caught on you, causing a rapid ascent. They do, however, dive with a divemaster or instructor with an SMB. It is mandatory here (both having a guide and that that guide carry an SMB)
If the captain needs to leave the area due to emergency, it's SOP for him to call for another boat and for that boat to pick up the divers, which is turns out is what happened here, but was conveniently left out of the story. Also the bit about sharks is just silly. We get black tip reefs, leopards, nurse sharks, and whale sharks here that are harmless to humans. Tons of irresponsible sensationalist journalism going on in this article and video. Here is the dive shop owners response in another thread:
"Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the American news or the daily mail for that matter.
I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.
So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.
During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.
The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organized another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.
This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.
The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.
There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.
So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!
When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.
As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.
We apologized to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"
I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in Thailand and to my shop.
Diving standard in Thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.
I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article. "
Ok this is quite a coincidence. I just found this forum and started lurking like a week ago and now I found this. I will be brief, gotta run soon and am typing from my mobile.
I went diving on Phi Phi a bit over a week ago. Picked a well reviewed dive shop (I'd rather not name them at this point). I dived with them on 2 days and everything went extremely well. Nice and easy fun dives with good weather and nice instructors.
Now this bit of news caught my attention cause of the mention of a hurt chin at the boat. Our instructor happened to mention, as I was booking and checking insurance options, that they can provide a per-day insurance that is very good, also covered a cut chin from a customer a few days back.
During a divetrip I also heard it mentioned that their usual captain was "out of order" and that our captain was not the one they usually had.
I just checked a short clip of that video (through a slow wifi) and sure enough recognize the place and 2 instructors.
I am not sure if it is appropriate to name the company though. From my experience (as well as many other people based on the reviews) they run a very good, reliable and high quality operation with good gear. The instructors all felt professional and I didn't see any corner-cutting. I am a novice diver with only 17 dives, and had a 3 year break before this so I also did my scuba refresh with them. the boat captain (a local as they usually are) obviously made a very very stupid move for whatever reason that I cannot understand. Apparently they did immediately shelf him. The captain we had with us did his job perfectly, I have no complaints.
I just dont think it is entirely fair to name, blame and potentially destroy a small professional dive shop's business for this. I would understand doing so if this incident hadn't immediately caused a reaction and changes. Apparently, however, it did. I mean when something likes this happens (their captain goes mental), what else can you expect them to do?
I hope a party involved in this incident would come out directly and explain more. Apparently the issue has been settled however, since the shop was not namwd in the news article.
Sorry for possible typos. On a mobile and in quite a hurry.
---------- Post added November 16th, 2013 at 03:10 PM ----------
Just a quick note more from me (now seeing the dive shop owners response):
Sorry from my behalf on believing the news article so literally. I was basing my response above too much on the news and apparently speculation. Point taken.
I went diving on Phi Phi a bit over a week ago. Picked a well reviewed dive shop (I'd rather not name them at this point). I dived with them on 2 days and everything went extremely well. Nice and easy fun dives with good weather and nice instructors.
Now this bit of news caught my attention cause of the mention of a hurt chin at the boat. Our instructor happened to mention, as I was booking and checking insurance options, that they can provide a per-day insurance that is very good, also covered a cut chin from a customer a few days back.
During a divetrip I also heard it mentioned that their usual captain was "out of order" and that our captain was not the one they usually had.
I just checked a short clip of that video (through a slow wifi) and sure enough recognize the place and 2 instructors.
I am not sure if it is appropriate to name the company though. From my experience (as well as many other people based on the reviews) they run a very good, reliable and high quality operation with good gear. The instructors all felt professional and I didn't see any corner-cutting. I am a novice diver with only 17 dives, and had a 3 year break before this so I also did my scuba refresh with them. the boat captain (a local as they usually are) obviously made a very very stupid move for whatever reason that I cannot understand. Apparently they did immediately shelf him. The captain we had with us did his job perfectly, I have no complaints.
I just dont think it is entirely fair to name, blame and potentially destroy a small professional dive shop's business for this. I would understand doing so if this incident hadn't immediately caused a reaction and changes. Apparently, however, it did. I mean when something likes this happens (their captain goes mental), what else can you expect them to do?
I hope a party involved in this incident would come out directly and explain more. Apparently the issue has been settled however, since the shop was not namwd in the news article.
Sorry for possible typos. On a mobile and in quite a hurry.
---------- Post added November 16th, 2013 at 03:10 PM ----------
Just a quick note more from me (now seeing the dive shop owners response):
Sorry from my behalf on believing the news article so literally. I was basing my response above too much on the news and apparently speculation. Point taken.
Strawman much? Nobody said DSMB. There is nothing remotely complicated about deploying an SMB at the surface.
All divers who dive in the ocean should have SMB's. There is simply no excuse not to have a US$15 inflatable rubber tube rolled up in the BCD pocket. S.urface M.arker B.uoys (aka Safety Sausages)
Sticking a reg in one and inflating it at the surface is not dangerous and will soon be part of the PADI OW course.
DSMB's which do require skills beyond those taught in typical OW courses.
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We always have to wonder how much fact is in a news story? I did wonder about being "Exhausted and freezing, Lexa collapsed and split her chin open," after 30-45 minutes of floating. I'm sure it felt like a long time, but too bad they let that stop them from diving anymore that trip. Her hair was lovely in the video - always good for camera time.
Still, every newbie should have enough sense to carry an SMB. Even I did when I was new, and it's been on every dive with me since. Good that Padi is going to start teaching those in OW next year.
Still, every newbie should have enough sense to carry an SMB. Even I did when I was new, and it's been on every dive with me since. Good that Padi is going to start teaching those in OW next year.
My apologies. I did not intend to create a "strawman." Here in Thailand everyone deploys them from underwater. DSMB seems to be the term you all are using. I have heard that term before, but it is not the common term here. We just call them SMB's. At least that is what I always hear them called. DSMB's are mandatory for guides (unless returning to the moored boat) due to the amount of boat traffic, and the fact that, sadly, bubbles mean nothing to boat captains here. I have had my DSMB run over by boats more than once here. But that is another topic.
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Vislor
Registered
I did my OW a little over 2 months ago and never was a SMB, sausage, DSMB, or anything similar even mentioned in the class (except maybe briefly in the classroom materials).
About a month ago I went I my first ocean trip to the Keys, I got my AOW on the trip and again, never was a SMB mentioned nor did the instructor or boat crew even ask / check if anyone had one. I actually did have one (and a line cutter, another item which was never mentioned in classes) because I'd done research on my own and determined that I wasn't getting in the ocean without one.
The first time an instructor mentioned to me that I need an SMB was when I signed up and did the classroom for the drift specialty, at this point it was said I'd need an SMB as they are required on drift dives.
In short, I'm not sure anyone should be surprised that new divers don't have SMBs as (from my experience with one of the certifying agencies) new divers aren't told about them and how important they can be. Of all the things I've done in my life that have required me to get licensed or certified my diving certifications have quite honestly been the most lacking.
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