Just giving a warning out to everyone that Jolly Dive in Antigua employs a dive master/boat captain who sexually harassed me for about 45 minutes. I have already posted my story on reddit and I was urged to spread it around to other forums, I’ll link my original post here but I will also copy and paste what I wrote!! I just want to warn everyone so no one has to experience what I did!
Warning: Do NOT dive with Jolly Dive in Antigua, boat captain named Paul sexually harassed me : scuba
Post Reads:
This is a bit of a darker post, but I (20F) feel it’s important to get the word out and warn others so no one else has to experience what I did. When I arrived to Antigua today I expected just a day of diving, nothing out of the ordinary. I had been experiencing ear problems the week before while diving, but the issue had seemed to clear up and I was excited to dive one last day on my trip. Unfortunately, nothing went as a planned.
The first dive of the day went normal, no incidents, just a slight ache in my bad ear as I did my safety stop but nothing major so I wasn’t concerned. While we were waiting on the boat to do our second dive I observed that the boat captain seemed to be a bit sexist after hearing a few comments he made and immediately I knew I wanted to do this second dive because no way did I want to be stuck on board with someone with that kind of attitude. However, within a minute of trying to descend my ear began to hurt more than ever and the pain spread to that entire side of my head, and when I say it was excruciating I mean it. One of the female dive masters brought me back up to the surface and back to the boat. As soon as she was gone, the boat captain (whose wife was also a dive master, but not the one who brought me back) made some weird comment about finally being alone with me. He then proceeded to ask me how old I am, and I responded that I’m 20. He was probably in his 50’s or 60’s, definitely significantly older than me.
As soon as I told him my age he made a lewd comment about how I was just barely old enough to consent, then proceeded to continue making inappropriate comments that were extremely sexual in nature. He also encouraged me repeatedly to remove my clothes as I must be cold in my wet clothes, but the tone and the vibe were clearly insinuating the clothing removal would be for a different reason. All I really could bring myself to say was no thank you. I wrapped myself in my towel, trying to conceal my body as much as possible as he continued to make comment about how “I’m a sexy young girl distracting him” and how “I must have both boys and girls wanting to **** me all the time” and more comments similar to that. He then said he wouldn’t tell tell anyone if I didn’t and I kept ignoring him as he kept repeating that idea over and over. Eventually I said my fiancé would not appreciate that. His response was that we could keep it a secret and asked if I would tell him. I made it clear that I tell my fiancé everything so yes he would know.
Over and over again he kept making these super sexual comments towards me, even going as far as putting his arm around me and rubbing my back, letting his hand graze around my chest as I clearly flinched away from him. He kept turning everything sexual and brought up how celebrities shouldn’t take naked photos of themselves because otherwise they get leaked and somehow he was able to twist that and he said “no one would wanna see a *my name* and Paul video of us having sex on the boat.” Throughout all this I continuously would stand up and move to a different seat if he got too close.
There was more sexual things said, but this was the majority of it. I kept either ignoring what he said or saying no thank you. By the time the dive ended I was about 3 seconds away from jumping into the water and swimming away, but I saw my brother pop up on the surface and the second he got on board I told him what happened and he passed it along to my dad. After we got off the boat I informed my mom what happened and she ended up calling the police (who were wonderful and super professional and super good to deal with) and they took an official report down and gave the boat diver a written warning and now it’s on file that he spent almost an hour sexually harassing me.
I cannot begin to explain the panic and fear I had during this entire experience and the whole time I was terrified it was going to escalate and there was nowhere I could go as we were pretty far out on the water. It’s been about 4 hours and I’m still shaking. He was extremely inappropriate and it’s disgusting to me that I had to endure this. It makes me wonder if he’s done this before, but my main concern now is insuring that it never happens again. So please, if you’re planning on diving in Antigua (and please do it’s beautiful there) don’t dive with Jolly Dive. I am under the impression they aren’t going to do anything about this. PADI has received an email about what happened and hopefully I hear back from them soon, but in the meantime ESPECIALLY if you have young daughters diving with you, please don’t dive with Jolly Dive.
Warning: Do NOT dive with Jolly Dive in Antigua, boat captain named Paul sexually harassed me : scuba
Post Reads:
This is a bit of a darker post, but I (20F) feel it’s important to get the word out and warn others so no one else has to experience what I did. When I arrived to Antigua today I expected just a day of diving, nothing out of the ordinary. I had been experiencing ear problems the week before while diving, but the issue had seemed to clear up and I was excited to dive one last day on my trip. Unfortunately, nothing went as a planned.
The first dive of the day went normal, no incidents, just a slight ache in my bad ear as I did my safety stop but nothing major so I wasn’t concerned. While we were waiting on the boat to do our second dive I observed that the boat captain seemed to be a bit sexist after hearing a few comments he made and immediately I knew I wanted to do this second dive because no way did I want to be stuck on board with someone with that kind of attitude. However, within a minute of trying to descend my ear began to hurt more than ever and the pain spread to that entire side of my head, and when I say it was excruciating I mean it. One of the female dive masters brought me back up to the surface and back to the boat. As soon as she was gone, the boat captain (whose wife was also a dive master, but not the one who brought me back) made some weird comment about finally being alone with me. He then proceeded to ask me how old I am, and I responded that I’m 20. He was probably in his 50’s or 60’s, definitely significantly older than me.
As soon as I told him my age he made a lewd comment about how I was just barely old enough to consent, then proceeded to continue making inappropriate comments that were extremely sexual in nature. He also encouraged me repeatedly to remove my clothes as I must be cold in my wet clothes, but the tone and the vibe were clearly insinuating the clothing removal would be for a different reason. All I really could bring myself to say was no thank you. I wrapped myself in my towel, trying to conceal my body as much as possible as he continued to make comment about how “I’m a sexy young girl distracting him” and how “I must have both boys and girls wanting to **** me all the time” and more comments similar to that. He then said he wouldn’t tell tell anyone if I didn’t and I kept ignoring him as he kept repeating that idea over and over. Eventually I said my fiancé would not appreciate that. His response was that we could keep it a secret and asked if I would tell him. I made it clear that I tell my fiancé everything so yes he would know.
Over and over again he kept making these super sexual comments towards me, even going as far as putting his arm around me and rubbing my back, letting his hand graze around my chest as I clearly flinched away from him. He kept turning everything sexual and brought up how celebrities shouldn’t take naked photos of themselves because otherwise they get leaked and somehow he was able to twist that and he said “no one would wanna see a *my name* and Paul video of us having sex on the boat.” Throughout all this I continuously would stand up and move to a different seat if he got too close.
There was more sexual things said, but this was the majority of it. I kept either ignoring what he said or saying no thank you. By the time the dive ended I was about 3 seconds away from jumping into the water and swimming away, but I saw my brother pop up on the surface and the second he got on board I told him what happened and he passed it along to my dad. After we got off the boat I informed my mom what happened and she ended up calling the police (who were wonderful and super professional and super good to deal with) and they took an official report down and gave the boat diver a written warning and now it’s on file that he spent almost an hour sexually harassing me.
I cannot begin to explain the panic and fear I had during this entire experience and the whole time I was terrified it was going to escalate and there was nowhere I could go as we were pretty far out on the water. It’s been about 4 hours and I’m still shaking. He was extremely inappropriate and it’s disgusting to me that I had to endure this. It makes me wonder if he’s done this before, but my main concern now is insuring that it never happens again. So please, if you’re planning on diving in Antigua (and please do it’s beautiful there) don’t dive with Jolly Dive. I am under the impression they aren’t going to do anything about this. PADI has received an email about what happened and hopefully I hear back from them soon, but in the meantime ESPECIALLY if you have young daughters diving with you, please don’t dive with Jolly Dive.
