I'm a solo / tech diver with 14 years and 1000+ dives. I was taking a family vacation in Destin and was given a last minute kitchen pass to go do what I really wanted to do: Dive the Mighty O. I called the company a few days out and Captain Doug answered. He said Wednesday was a no and Thursday was open. I told him I'd check with my wife and call right back. I called back 5 minutes later and got no answer. I sent him several emails and tried calling him multiple times over the next couple of days. I had packed some of my gear but needed to get a 5mil and 2 AL100's with 32% by 5PM. I finally got ahold of him at 4:45PM. In my emails to him I had clearly spelled out who I was as a diver and what I was looking to do. He hadn't read any of it. So I get there at 6:50am (the Marines taught me if you aren't 10 minutes early you are late) and then proceeded to wait for 2 hours because other divers were running late. There is a dive shop 10 minutes down the road and they seem to use this as a crutch instead of making everyone get their act together the day before like I did. After everyone arrived they went back not once but twice to the dive shop to get air tanks for divers they thought were nitrox certified and to replace a broken rental regulator. See, this charter doesn't collect money until the trip is over and it seems to me that puts them in a bad spot as if they leave divers behind they lose money. All in all, on the day I dove it was poorly organized.
So I'm on the boat with back plate and wing, 200 CF of 32% and an AL40 for redundancy. That's when they break out the "NO SOLO DIVING" form. There are 2 DM's on the boat but it seems they were only for the guys that I just sat around waiting 2 hours for. Instead I'm told that I must dive with a guy that has 37 dives over 14 years and is trying to get 60 dives in so he can be DM.
I'm not happy about this but I decide to go along as I'm still trying to feel the crew out. My new buddy and I do a quick pre-dive brief and splash. 11 minutes into the dive he calls low air. I look at my SPG and I've got 2500psi. WTF? I don't want a dead buddy on my hands so I go up the line with him. As we get back on the boat the captain says "Back already?" and as he sees our SPGs he looks at me and goes "Oh..."
During the surface interval DM Chris tells me "Man, I would have sent him up the line". I wanted to say are you crazy? That's a good plan for experienced divers who are self-reliant but not for this guy. Instead I just replied "*YOU'RE dive plan briefing didn't give me that option."
So for the second dive the Captain announces that my buddy will go with the DM and their team and that I'm just going to go "do my own thing". Finally, what I wanted to do in the first place. I splash and ignore the boat rule of 100' on second dive since I was barely in the water for the first dive and have a long surface interval. I got 45 minutes in on this dive and had a nice time.
So the reason I'm writing this review is that 1) the captain offered no apology or discount for forcing me to dive with someone that wasn't at my level and 2) he ignored subsequent emails to him to discuss the issue.
So if you are just a diver going with a group and some leader is handling the details you'll probably have a good time on this boat. I saw another review here where someone's charter was cancelled without any communications. So I have the feeling that this happens regularly and that there are hopefully better charters out there to use. I heard the crew bad mouthing another diver who had a complaint about his charter so I expect to be bad mouthed in the future if anyone ever actually reads this. So be it...
I'm giving 2 stars because I got on the boat, blew some bubbles and came back to port safely. read more
