Story of shipping cylinders for a week of diving

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I’ve shipped doubles mamy times with a shipping label on the bands and necks plugged with qc caps. Pack the valves and manifold in carryon or ship separately
 
I ship large switches and disconnects all across the country for jobs I do. UPS is by far the worst when it comes to reliability and time frame being met. Next time, try Fed Ex, both cheaper and shorter time frame. Hope you get your tank!
 
UPS = Useless Parcel Services

About 12 years ago the company I worked for shipped 15 Medical instruments from Madrid to Munich in their individual packing cases individual weight around 24Kg dimensions 33 x 46 x 20 inches.

Only 14 arrived and UPS could not find the 15th one!

About 2 years later some guy in Germany contacted our company offering to sell the "lost" instrument to the company, which he allegedly bought from UPS in an auction of lost / unclaimed items.

Since then I only use Fed-Ex and DHL as well as Aramex locally in the region where I work, and rarely have issues.
 
I literally just don't understand.. You went through all the trouble to ship tanks to what @The Chairman and others call "The Diving Capital of The World." No shortage of dive shops and tanks in that area.

One tank get lost in the process so now it's essentially going to cost you even more money. It just seems like a lot of trouble for very limited benefits when you could have just chosen another dive shop that rents HP100s and slung a pony. I guess it makes sense that you will not be repeating that experiment again.

To add insult to injury your tanks were not filled to capacity so as you stated yourself you only had an HP103 at that point. I'll give them that, they are used to filling AL80s so they might only keep their banks at 3400psi or something. I would also disagree with your assumption that short fills are common. Certainly this is NOT my experience anywhere else in the United States. In Florida, pretty much all of New England, North Carolina, California, New York/New Jersey they can all manage to fill my rental or owned tanks to ~3500psi just fine.

I'm not going to get into it about Rainbow Reef on this forum as there is very heavy bias here. Needless to say they are my least preferred dive shop anywhere, not just in Florida. I'm glad you had a good time with them (and let's face it..it's hard not to have a good time diving in Florida with family) but I implore you to explore other dive shops the next time you're in the area. I did read your other thread so I do understand the reasons why you choose Rainbow Reef in the first place..
 
I literally just don't understand.. You went through all the trouble to ship tanks to what @The Chairman and others call "The Diving Capital of The World." No shortage of dive shops and tanks in that area.

Here's the original rationale:

* I use more air than most divers. While my air consumption has moderated with experience, I still have a SAC rate of about 0.6 on most dives. This is mainly due to muscle mass -- I go to the gym, and I'm a big guy.
* My overall experience across many dive charters, when asking for oversized cylinders, is poor -- both in the Keys and elsewhere. In nearly all cases, what I am given is an AL100 that is filled to 3000 PSI, giving me 90 cf of usable air. I have also been given an overfilled AL80, by one operator outside the United States. I anticipated that my HP120s would be short filled, but that I would still get 100 cf of gas.
* A short-filled AL100 is fine, for me, for a shallow reef bimble. It is limiting, for me, for deep dives, especially on Nitrox, especially in current.
* I wanted to dive the Spiegel Grove on this trip, and wanted to have enough gas to properly enjoy the dive.
* I have 7 HP120s in my garage. They are typically what I use for local dives. I like the way they trim out. I am accustomed to them. They are DIN and match my regulators. I have shipped cylinders many times when purchasing or selling them.
* We had to ship some items ahead anyway because we did not believe we could count on having enough baggage space in our rental car for the 2-hour drive from MIA to Key Largo for 4 people including a week's worth of clothes and 3 sets of scuba gear.
* I am not aware of any operators in the Key Largo area that would rent me two HP120s (or any other cylinders that would hold at least 100 cf of gas at 3000 PSI) for a week. If there are some, let me know who, and I'll use them next time.
* There are a handful of charter operators that will provide HP100s that are actually full. There's one in Tavernier that I have used before. Because they charge for a guide, and have slightly higher base rates, it would have cost $525 more (plus tax) for me to use them, compared to Rainbow Reef. They were also quite a bit farther away from our lodging and we would have spent, over the course of five trips, another three hours in the car. And they have a less favorable cancellation policy.
* Round-trip shipping was around $100 per cylinder for an estimated total of $200.
* My crystal ball was on the fritz and I did not know that UPS was going to sell one of my HP120s at the next "unclaimed frieght" auction rather than, you know, delivering it to the address I gave them.

One tank get lost in the process so now it's essentially going to cost you even more money.

I typically pick off HP120s from craigslist or ebay for a delivered in-service cost to me of around $250-$300. I am also out the wetboots that I stuffed in the same box, but then again I didn't have to pay the return freight for the lost cylinder. Strictly from a dollars and cents standpoint, I'm still a few dollars ahead compared to using an operator that offers HP100s but charges more per trip.

It just seems like a lot of trouble for very limited benefits when you could have just chosen another dive shop that rents HP100s and slung a pony. I guess it makes sense that you will not be repeating that experiment again.

Keep in mind that I would have had to get the pony and its regulator to Key Largo and back. My choices would have been to check it as baggage and pay for a VIP (total round-trip including the VIP of $70), or send it via UPS and just pay for a fill (total round trip roughly similar).

To add insult to injury your tanks were not filled to capacity so as you stated yourself you only had an HP103 at that point. I'll give them that, they are used to filling AL80s so they might only keep their banks at 3400psi or something. I would also disagree with your assumption that short fills are common. Certainly this is NOT my experience anywhere else in the United States. In Florida, pretty much all of New England, North Carolina, California, New York/New Jersey they can all manage to fill my rental or owned tanks to ~3500psi just fine.

It has been my experience that I can get good HP fills from retail dive shops if I leave the cylinders overnight and check them with a tank checker when I pick them up. They will fill them, allow them to cool, and top them off. Every place I've used occasionally forgets to top one off or doesn't allow them to cool long enough, so I have to check them when I pick them up. Every place I've used has been happy to top them off again if they're below 3400. I have not found anyone who will fill them to, say, 3900 in anticipation that they will cool to 3442.

Charters that routinely handle HP steels -- like Aldora in Cozumel and the aforementioned operator in Tavernier -- have also given me good fills.

Without going through my log, I can think of three charters (two of them in Florida) -- in addition to Rainbow Reef -- that could not deliver proper HP fills when I asked them to do so.

I'm not going to get into it about Rainbow Reef on this forum as there is very heavy bias here. Needless to say they are my least preferred dive shop anywhere, not just in Florida. I'm glad you had a good time with them (and let's face it..it's hard not to have a good time diving in Florida with family) but I implore you to explore other dive shops the next time you're in the area. I did read your other thread so I do understand the reasons why you choose Rainbow Reef in the first place..

All the criticism I've heard of Rainbow Reef is from experienced, independent divers who wanted to be granted greater discretion to dive as they saw fit. If you want to dive solo, or incur a deco obligation, or plan to use your stage as an integral part of your gas plan, or breathe your back gas down to 300 PSI because your pony has your reserve, etc., then they are probably not the operator you want. I did my research and knew that going in.
 
I wanted to dive the Spiegel Grove on this trip, and wanted to have enough gas to properly enjoy the dive.

I think you are limited by the nitrogen loading more than gas capacity on that dive. It is probably hard to enjoy that dive without some light 10min deco, then I guess, you'd need more gas.
 
I think you are limited by the nitrogen loading more than gas capacity on that dive. It is probably hard to enjoy that dive without some light 10min deco, then I guess, you'd need more gas.

We concluded the dive when my instabuddy reached 1100 PSI after about 24 minutes of bottom time. I was on 32% and had plenty of time left before hitting NDL, and still had gas. I would have liked more time, but still enjoyed the dive.
 
The UPS rates usually favor single large packages over multiple smaller ones and I figured I'd save a few dollars.


UPS is pronounced Oops around here. I have seen them destroy so many packages that I won't use them. I've seen flat packages that looked like they used them for a loading ramp and other packages that looked like they used them for wheel chocks and forgot them and ran over them.

Sorry for your loss. I hope you get it back.
 
So, the rest of the story.

I made it back home, and UPS brought back my box of fins etc, and my box with the one remaining cylinder, without incident.

After a number of phone calls with UPS, they are not paying the claim. They have given various hollow reasons for this and have changed reasons when challenged. Among these, they claimed I didn't send in photos (I had), they claimed the photos didn't show what they needed to show (they did), that the boxes I used weren't approved for the gross weight of the shipment (57 pounds; they were rated for 65 pounds), and that internal packaging is required even for non-fragile items.

They also made several attempts to close out conversations with me by saying, variously, that they would have to speak to the shipper, or to the recipient. Since I was both the shipper and the recipient, this was beside the point.

I do not believe they made a good-faith effort to handle the claim in a fair or responsible fashion.

I also do not believe they have made a good-faith effort to find the cylinder, since it is clearly marked with my name, address, and phone number, and easy to identify.

I am chalking this up as being part of the overall cost of diving.

One conclusion I have reached is that there is no benefit to paying for the higher valuation, since UPS does not appear to be serious about paying their claims in the event of a loss. The valuation fees are substantial, around 1% of the value of the shipment.

I am considering the matter closed at this point but will report back if the cylinder ever shows up.
 
Sorry to hear this outcome. I had an experience with a lost shipment at UPS once, the agent on the phone asked me to describe the packaging in detail; before I had even finished my description, she breathlessly reported that they wouldn't pay the claim because what I described didn't meet their requirements. My recollection is hazy, but I think it was that I didn't say that I had fully taped every external seam on the box. One of the lessons, I guess, is to go read everything you can find on their "fine print" before having any kind of a telephone conversation with them. In my case, the UPS store had actually put the package in their post office drop instead of their UPS pickup area; the post office actually returned the undamaged package to me several weeks later.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom