Trip Report: Raja Ampat on the WAOW Liveaboard

[luv2getwet]

Wow...I am a fairly new diver and am just insulted by your remarks Joe..My name is Loree ...
Let me know when and where you will be diving so I don't have to later have you make fun of me for not being as wonderful as you are. Show others the respect they deserve, Joe.

And as for moonypixels (who obviously changed his name from his initial post in response to the OP), I would feel very inferior on your boat being a new diver. You obviously do not welcome the newbies even though they paid the same as the more experienced divers. I started diving at 50 years of age and my husband and I like to travel to the best destinations while we are healthy enough to do so, therefore I have been to some great places as a new diver and feel very fortunate to be able to do as such. I never feel like I hold up the group and I am very careful to never get close enough to the bottom to stir up anything. I have respect for the rest of the group.

If you were insulted or offended by the opening post, you should have contacted the OP via PM and handled it like a professional, not the way you did.

 

[TinPanMan]

Fair enough Loree. Criticism accepted. But please know that my objections to the OP's characterizations were caused, for the most part, by the denigrating insinuations about the CD's professionalism. Obviously, this is mitigated in degree by his unfortunate Nom de Scuba “mooneypixels”. Also, these social media blogs have a natural compounding effect that inspires a firm reply. I refer to the tendency for initial responses to a negative experience post to be sympathetic and associative. Please read the several posts following diversusans initial post to see what I mean.

Then there is also the rather inconvenient problem of facts. Blaming the sea or the boat or the cruise director for an unhappy experience that actually had different roots is simply unfair. Raja Ampat can be tough to dive. Most operations ask for an advanced rating. But an advanced rating is like 10 dives. Knowing how to save energy and air in current by using terrain and swimming efficiently is not a 10 dive skill for everyone. Some get it at 50, some never do.

The dive industry must share the blame for diversusans experience: you have the money, you are on the boat. The agencies are to blame, too. With PADI if you have a junior open water ticket are 10 years of age can make 2 dives and have the course fee then you will be an underwater photographer.

Later, when you have seen divers using their pokers as walking sticks skewering any unfortunate sponge or nudibranch that happens to be on offer so they can hold their camera high you may also see how preposterous the situation has become.

It may sound harsh but if you have paid the price along the way and earned the skills the hard way it is absolutely fair if after spending 10,000 dollars and multiple days’ of travel to be in an awesome spot to prefer to dive with divers who can deal with the situations and make the most of the investment.

 

[Zippsy]

If I'm reading this correctly, Jay (Moonypixels) was the CD on this trip? Also in some of the quotes here it refers to a "saynotomarinecops", who is this and where are their posts? (I feel like I'm missing part of the equation)

Jay originally registered the name "saynotomarinecops" to reply to this trip report. He has since changed it to Mooneypixels. My confusion was caused when Jay pretended to be a casual bysytander who heard that the trip report was all a lie and that the original author was a useless lying muppet scumbag. I mentioned that it was strong language for someone with second hand information. Then Jay said that he happened to be on the boat so he had first hand knowledge. He also confirmed "Jay's" professionalism. Then Joe came on and "called Jay out". I guess that means he revealed that saynotomarinecops/Mooneypixels was really Jay. I said "Oh my". Joe then "called me out" which I now understand to mean that Joe was saying that I am some sort of super hero great guy. How he figured that out, I'll never know but I congratulate him anyway for his uncanny perception.

Does that about sum it up?

 

[diversusan]

What's showboater on a liveaboard? It was not simple enthusiasm about dives. On every other boat I've been on, people may be really different, and maybe you know from the start that this is a person you'd probably not be friends with in your "real life", but everyone gets along. You at least have diving in common, and you can see that most people are trying their best and that they have a good heart. Not on this trip.

Who needs wifi on a liveaboard? The fact is that many of the guests did like to check messages, FB, whatever, and that some people were not able to completely detach from work for that length of time. Welcome to the 21st century.

My trip report was my opinion of my RA experience. I said my husband and I didn't care for the diving; I didn't blame WAOW for that. I didn't say the diving was absolutely awful, just that we've liked other places better and it was a long was to go for something other than fantastic. Other posters who love RA said it must have been a bad boat; maybe they're right, or maybe it was the luck of the draw that particular week, or maybe it's just our own personal preference. Joe and his wife arrived on the boat from an aborted trip to Palau, which they said was horrible. I know there are a lot of Palau enthusiasts on SB who would disagree.

I don't post on SB that often, but shortly after I joined a year ago I posted a glowing TR regarding the Wolf Buddy boat in the Galapagos. I've also had nice things to say in posts about other locations and operations. My (greatly exaggerated) poor diving skills haven't kept me from having many wonderful experiences elsewhere, including places known for challenging conditions. So…99% positive, and one bad experience: the WAOW boat.

If the overall WAOW operation has any professionalism at all, they should be mortified. Jay's response has proven the case against him more strongly than my lone opinion ever could.

 

[TinPanMan]

"one couple was not very nice… with lots of showboating". I don’t know how you see it but to me that is more an ad hominem attack than an objective bit of trip reporting. Sure Mooneypixels can defend himself but Zippsy is right that he should remain in the background owing to his position. I think you inaccurately and unfairly characterized him and by extension the boat and crew. I stand by my statements.

 

[diversusan]

I don't know who Zippsy is. From some private-joke type comments made in recent posts, it sounded like you (Joe) and Jay did. But I don't and I've never made any comment regarding his "true identity". I know him only as a poster who has admonished Jay for attempting to post anonymously and as if he had been a third-party; I have no idea what real-life position Zippsy holds.

In my original TR the reason I mentioned at the end that there had been an unpleasant vibe on the boat was because it only seemed fair to do so. Three components came together to make this not our best trip: 1) the diving was not our favorite (which was not necessarily WAOW's fault, or not entirely anyway); 2) the WAOW cruise director was not the best (this, obviously, a WAOW issue); and 3) the overall guest dynamics on the boat were not great (not something that WAOW could control).

Jay is an employee of WAOW in a public role. He can be identified in a trip report. I did not identify in any way the couple we found distasteful. No one on the internet had any idea who you were. You came on the board two days ago and proudly owned up to being one half of this couple; that was your choice.

Anyone who chooses to read all of this back and forth can come to their own conclusions about whether I am a trustworthy source, or Joe is, or neither. But I don't think Jay can ever repair the damage that his angry, attacking, and unprofessional responses and reactions in this thread have done to his reputation and to WAOW's.

 

[Quero]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

This thread has been cleaned up to remove flaming and insults.

I have made every effort to leave as much as possible of the personal perspectives of the two divers who have contributed trip reports to the thread as well retaining as much as possible of the response by the operator, which I flagged with a moderator post. However, I did edit the posts of all three principals to remove some excessively nasty, personal, or snarky bits. As a result I also needed to edit a number of posts made by other users in response since they referenced some of the bits I had removed. Finally, I deleted a number of off topic posts.

I will not be sending individual PMs to all users who have had posts edited or removed, nor will I awarding any infractions at this juncture, but I would counsel all parties involved to take a step back. It's fine to have negative opinions about an experience, but it is not fine to cast aspersions on the motives, personality, or character of another user simply because you do not see eye to eye with him/her. Continued flaming will not be tolerated.

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[gee13]

Quero perhaps consider locking this thread. Im not sure there is much to be gained from this point on.

 

[Wingy]

All that ive gained from is it is....why I am not a fan of liveaboards.

 

[Zippsy]

All that ive gained from is it is....why am I a fan of forum boards?