Which Scuba Destinations Do You Consider Rather Dangerous?

[Lorenzoid]

The really really low odds are due to the statistics taking every worldwide location into one percentage. I imagine if you broke it down by individual location and for instance run statistics for 1000 US and European tourists taking a vacation in Syria for 7 days the really really low odds may change dramatically. Statistically one's chances of being attacked by a shark are infinitesimal but I don't see too many posts from people doing Great White dives from outside of a cage. Common sense is a factor here.

How about, for the sake of being realistic, we limit the geographic range of statistics to common dive destinations around the world? The odds are higher in some places and lower in others. As I see it, among all of the thousands of world traveler divers, it averages out. I'm no more likely to be the victim than another one of those other world traveler divers. Sure, you can skew the whole issue by limiting statistics to divers who dive nowhere but the Sinai and Papua New Guinea. One can be a world traveler diver or one can stay at home. Metaphorically speaking, in my city I know the odds of me getting hit by a car are higher when I cross the busier streets and lower when I cross the less busy streets, but that doesn't stop me from making my daily rounds walking all over town. I still don't view the risk of visiting places that have been the subject of recent terrorist attacks as the equivalent of me attempting to run across a busy 8-lane superhighway.

 

[gkrane]

How about, for the sake of being realistic, we limit the geographic range of statistics to common dive destinations around the world? The odds are higher in some places and lower in others.

I thought the whole point of the thread was to speak about individual places and not to group everything together. Grouping everything together skews the data.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I thought the whole point of the thread was to speak about individual places and not to group everything together. Grouping everything together skews the data.

I see your point. But I'm not sure I can gauge the risk of any one place in isolation, as though it were just one trip by one diver who never has and never will dive anywhere else. As I see it, I should be judging where a given destination fits on the scale of risk among all of the popular dive destinations, taking into account the number of people who are going to those destinations. Every place I go poses SOME amount of risk--nowhere is risk-free. For all I know, a weekend spent diving in Egypt poses the exact same risk, statistically speaking, as a month spent in Indonesia.

 

[kelemvor]

The purpose of this thread is NOT to bad mouth or be a cheerleader about any destination or operator but to have an honest conversation. I personally think the chances of the average person being a victim of crime or a Terrorist attack is about the same as the chance of winning the lottery! Sometimes your number does come up, in which case you really don't care about the averages anymore.

You can do a couple things to change the odds.. buy a ticket or not buy a ticket... assess the odds and make an informed decision

Heck, if what I've read about scuba related marketing is accurate, then posts here indicating a location as dangerous may attract tourism. I've read several places that agencies like padi paid a bundle to determine this was the case. While a destination may scare me off due to potential risk of things like a volcano, that very same risk might attract two others.

 

[drrich2]

It seems strange to me that some seem a bit bothered by the thread, even though discussion has for the most part been reasoned and reasonable. Whether you change travel plans due to 'regional unrest' situations or not, some may, and many people would like to know where the hot spots are, even if they don't ultimately avoid them.

As for absolute risk & the rationality of risk avoidance, many of us routinely take precautions against low-risk eventualities. A guy leaves for work in the morning, he locks his door. What are the odds someone would've otherwise burglarized the home that day had he not? Probably very low. Yet he locks it. Leave it unlocked every day for several years, your luck may run out.

It may well be that your bathroom is far deadlier to you than ISIS, and coconuts a bigger hazard than sharks. But as someone else mentioned, most people on great white dives stay in the cages. And we often put rubber mats in the bath tub floor, to reduce the risk a bit.

Even in a 'bad part of town' that locals avoid, one could probably walk through in broad daylight without being robbed, beaten or killed. Yet people tend to avoid bad neighborhoods unless they have reason to do otherwise.

Some people take non-diving family along, and may be more risk-averse where they're concerned. And there's the family at home...ironically, DirtFarmer isn't a big fan of this thread, yet had to put up with his wife's (irrational?) fears.

One last point: when I was a kid, lots of people read the newspaper, watching the evening news and basically kept abreast of current world events (at least the major stuff deemed relevant). Nowadays when many people spend a lot of time online, I suspect some of us don't follow mainstream news media as much, there seems to be so much one could follow, and people travel more (not counting military deployments) so at a glance, I don't know what's going on where. Whether you believe it should intimidate someone or not, maybe a trip to the Red Sea warrants a little more attention to the news nowadays than one to Bonaire?

Richard.

 

[gkrane]

Well stated Richard.

 

[Lorenzoid]

. . . Whether you believe it should intimidate someone or not, maybe a trip to the Red Sea warrants a little more attention to the news nowadays than one to Bonaire?

Sure. But how does reading the news help one decide whether to visit a dive destination because it is "safe enough" or to not visit the destination because it is "too dangerous"? What criteria should we be looking at in the news or elsewhere? What should be our threshold? I don't have the answers--just the questions! My personal concern is to try not to have too much of a knee-jerk response to anything I read in the news, automatically eliminating a potential dive destination just because it has been in the news in an unfavorable way. I am trying hard to look at the bigger picture. The sensationalized news media does not make it easy. I love Bonaire, but I really don't want to dive there exclusively if other divers are traveling all over the world to dive and surviving.

 

[gkrane]

Sure. But how does reading the news help one decide whether to visit a dive destination because it is "safe enough" or to not visit the destination because it is "too dangerous"? By educating oneself on current world events. How does reading a dive review on a location help you decide to travel there or not? The same logic applies. What criteria should we be looking at in the news or elsewhere? This would be a personal decision. What should be our threshold? Again, a personal decision. I don't have the answers--just the questions! My personal concern is to try not to have too much of a knee-jerk response to anything I read in the news, automatically eliminating a potential dive destination just because it has been in the news in an unfavorable way. I am trying hard to look at the bigger picture. The sensationalized news media does not make it easy. I love Bonaire, but I really don't want to dive there exclusively if other divers are traveling all over the world to dive and surviving.

Most of this is common sense, I'm not sure what else to say.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Most of this is common sense, I'm not sure what else to say.

If we all agree that deciding what destinations are "too dangerous" should be entirely subjective ("personal decisions") in the same way that deciding what dive destinations appeal to each of us is entirely subjective, then why have this discussion at all? Surely there must be some objectivity involved for it to be useful.

 

[gkrane]

If we all agree that deciding what destinations are "too dangerous" should be entirely subjective ("personal decisions") in the same way that deciding what dive destinations appeal to each of us is entirely subjective, then why have this discussion at all? Surely there must be some objectivity involved for it to be useful.

We have this discussion so we can possibly gain some insight into a location that we are interested in traveling to, but unaware of any potential dangers. The same way someone would want some insight into the diving conditions at a destination such as current, vis, depth, etc, to see if they are compatible with their abilities and personal level of comfort. After all the only one who can prevent you from traveling to a location regardless of your individual perception is your government. Well, on second thought your spouse may be able to prevent you as well, or at least make your life so miserable it would not warrant the effort.:cool2:

---------- Post added November 20th, 2015 at 01:58 PM ----------

To give you an example, while researching the CI, I found that Little Cayman is much more suited to us than Cayman Brac because of depth. My son is an 11 year old certified diver and the reefs at LC start much shallower than the reefs at Brac. I avoid finding things out the hard way whenever possible.