This morning in Egypt ...

[Mike Walker]

I'm just wondering but have you been to Egypt before?

Three times. As stated above.

 

[ChrisDee]

I was doing some reading today. The Red Sea has a huge number of registered liveaboards. I tried to read about liveaboard accidents but the information is difficult to find. I found 9 Red Sea accidents, fire, ran aground, capsized. I was hoping to find a database on liveaboard accidents around the world, but found nothing.

This is the issue I have been harping about years. NO one has individuals interests at heart. We are on our own. Information from instruction to resorts to Governemnts is suppressed. Everyone except the victims has a vested interest in keeping quiet.

I was Roatan a few years back. When they had incident at the very Resort we were staing at. Not a one of us knew just 2 days before some one had passed. I was flabber gasted disgusted that I wasen't informed in the least. Not about the fact that I wan't informed, but more so that so many were told to not speak about and or go great lenghts keep quiet about an incedent.

Untill we have a comprehinsive reporting system, mostly directed at being able to self reprt DCS combined with a universally accepted "Report Form," as an example, combined with dive computers that can actually export relevant dive factors, as a further exsample. A reporting system that can also track these kinds of locations and the bad actors, it seems these kinds of incidents are just going to continue as well as the drive aways. Feel free to disagee except: Truth Aquatics Inc says it all. No one has learned thing!

The point is, research shows, these discussions do nothing as compared with good lawsuit. No one here actually going do something to educate, plan, or practice activities that our very lives depend upon. Who here has action plan to escape from fire? Who heere is now going to demand to inspect a boat or circumstances that affect them? Naw, eveyone expected to keep mouth shut and do as told, because others have back. God Bless the 3 Brits who paid for someone elses mistake with lives. Learn from this, do something.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

I wonder if liveaboards offer the option of sleeping in a dinghy tied off to the swim deck.

 

[berndo]

Three times. As stated above.

So have you actually been to Egypt or have you been driven from the airport to the resort/live aboard in an air conditioned bus three times?

You're essentially saying 'poor is poor' and that they are too stupid to do anything about it which is a horrible, foolish attitude.

I never said they're stupid. I used to work in Egypt and I can tell you that most of the guys that work in the tourism industry are form towns in the middle of egypt where there hardly had any access to education or any opportunity and are happy to have any job that lets them and their family buy food. They do what they know and can to keep the business running.
I feel very sorry for the victims and their families but I feel much more sorry for the countless locals in Egypt that live and die under very bad conditions every day.
The money that is spend by rich foreiners like yourself doesn't go to the workers, it goes to some rich a-hole.

You don't think CDWS and their membership don't occasionally glance at the biggest pool of free dive related market research in existence?

SB is mostly North Americans. Hardly any Americans go to Egypt to dive.

 

[O-ring]

I wonder if liveaboards offer the option of sleeping in a dinghy tied off to the swim deck.

Make sure to rig a breakaway on that line..

 

[DandyDon]

In the video it appears that there is smoke coming from the bow which is possibly from a forward hatch. The three passengers who perished may have been incapacitated or even killed by toxic combustion gases before they could egress.

Carbon monoxide can easily incapacitate a sleeping person and is a common occurrence with any fire. Battery-powered Smoke & CO alarms are cheap, lightweight, and easy to pack in luggage, but how many travelers bother? I do this for any overnight stay in the US, and I think that travelers should anywhere, but the deaths go on. It's the 21st century and Western travelers need to spend $20 USD on battery-powered Smoke & CO alarms, carry them, and test them every time they unpack, but I can't even convince my own daughter. I need to change my username to Don Quixote.

This is the issue I have been harping about years. NO one has individuals interests at heart. We are on our own. Information from instruction to resorts to Governemnts is suppressed. Everyone except the victims has a vested interest in keeping quiet.

Yep.

The point is, research shows, these discussions do nothing as compared with good lawsuit. No one here actually going do something to educate, plan, or practice activities that our very lives depend upon. Who here has action plan to escape from fire? Who heere is now going to demand to inspect a boat or circumstances that affect them? Naw, eveyone expected to keep mouth shut and do as told, because others have back. God Bless the 3 Brits who paid for someone elses mistake with lives. Learn from this, do something.

State Departments in Western countries could issue warnings about the risks, but then there are Middle Eastern politics. Western governments want to win Egypt over as an ally in defense to area threats.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

Make sure to rig a breakaway on that line..

i'm pretty sure the fire would take care of that.

 

[Sebs]

Three times. As stated above.

Then you would know that the things you are proposing will never happen.

 

[Mike Walker]

So have you actually been to Egypt or have you been driven from the airport to the resort/live aboard in an air conditioned bus three times?


I never said they're stupid. I used to work in Egypt and I can tell you that most of the guys that work in the tourism industry are form towns in the middle of egypt where there hardly had any access to education or any opportunity and are happy to have any job that lets them and their family buy food. They do what they know and can to keep the business running.
I feel very sorry for the victims and their families but I feel much more sorry for the countless locals in Egypt that live and die under very bad conditions every day.
The money that is spend by rich foreiners like yourself doesn't go to the workers, it goes to some rich a-hole.


SB is mostly North Americans. Hardly any Americans go to Egypt to dive.

You've missed 90% of my points in your effort to focus on the plight of the 'poor Egyptians'.

It isn't going to get better so long as there is a steady stream of customers accepting 'it is what it is' and continuing to do business with substandard operators. The attitude you are projecting is part of the problem.

Poor operators need to be documented, publicized, shamed and avoided. Their owners and management need to lose money and their staff need to leave or starve. That's business - and that's the only way things get better. For the customers, for the workers and for the country as a whole.

Right now the good operators - the ones making reasonable efforts on safety - have to compete with the bad ones. That isn't good for anyone. The Red Sea needs less boats, less divers, higher standards and higher prices.

But, I'll return to my original intended point: There seem to be small, low-cost things that could be done to improve safety based on a pattern of divers in cabins being unable to escape. The obvious is a secondary exit path that isn't blocked - this has been widely discussed and many people are checking that now and it's realistic to expect boats to remedy blockages if passengers identify and demand it upon boarding. Smoke detectors have often been discussed but knowing about the fire is only 1/2 the battle - the other half is knowing soon enough and a detector in your cabin isn't going to help. A 'proper' fire alarm system is probably not going to happen in Egypt - they are expensive and complicated to maintain. More important in my mind is some form of a central alarm and alerting system that can be done in a simple but still effective manner at a relatively low cost. A handful of buttons in key locations and a siren/bell in every room - push button, make loud sound, GTFO. This system would be useful for man-overboard situations as well. The hardware cost for this is trivial - even for Egypt - and it should be resilient to the inevitable poor maintenance.

And my second point: The people forgoing these basic safety systems are neither poor nor uneducated. They are the boat owners and boat designers and they need to be held to account even if their is some collateral damage to the industry and the workers therein.

 

[DandyDon]

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It isn't going to get better so long as there is a steady stream of customers accepting 'it is what it is' and continuing to do business with substandard operators. The attitude you are projecting is part of the problem.

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