Commercial Dive Boats

[RJP]

I am a rookie diver taking my AOW this weekend. Me and my son are going to dive off Del. Md. coast on our own boat...

Are you going to have surface support on the boat while the two of you are in the water? Including emergency O2 available?

If not, perhaps you oughta consider being PASSENGERS on that charter dive boat!

I really don't want to read a "trip report" from you in the Accidents and Incidents forum...

 

[Paleface]

Are you going to have surface support on the boat while the two of you are in the water? Including emergency O2 available?

If not, perhaps you oughta consider being PASSENGERS on that charter dive boat!

I really don't want to read a "trip report" from you in the Accidents and Incidents forum...

Thanks For your concern RJP, I will do nothing to jeopardize the well being of my son. The first several times that we go I will have my Instructor with me. I also experienced friends that will dive with us. To answer your question yes someone will always be on the boat that knows how to work everything.
BTW I will go out of the Indian river inlet, Jersey is not that far. Keith

 

[fnfalman]

I don't know about the finer points of the laws, but break out a couple of Mossberg shotguns loaded with Breneke sabot penetrator slugs and see if the dive charter would make you leave the area.

 

[sabbath999]

Not sure about MD or DE but in NJ we would give him the finger.

Truth, but that applies to everything up to and including somebody just saying "hello" to a NJ native on the street.

 

[sabbath999]

Thanks For your concern RJP, I will do nothing to jeopardize the well being of my son. The first several times that we go I will have my Instructor with me. I also experienced friends that will dive with us. To answer your question yes someone will always be on the boat that knows how to work everything.
BTW I will go out of the Indian river inlet, Jersey is not that far. Keith

Now, about that oxygen...

It is important to have both O2 on a boat and at least two people who are trained to use it. I have vowed never to go onto a dive boat that doesn't have it (not couting zodiacs that are supporting a larger boat which DOES have O2). I am sure the instructor is O2 trained, but what if it is him or her that is hurt.

It really is THAT important to me.

 

[RJP]

Truth, but that applies to everything up to and including somebody just saying "hello" to a NJ native on the street.

Q: How many divers from NJ does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: ***K YOU!

 

[kanonfodr]

I like the paintball option, but that could cause some legal ramifications of one sort or another.

If they have no more legal rights to the mooring ball than do you, in other words if they don't own it or anything like that, I would call the Coast Guard and tell them that some dive boat is threatening to ram you in open water.

Peace,
Greg

 

[cdreamer]

We don't have mooring balls around here. It's first come first served.
Which wreck were you on Paleface? For many of them there is room
enough for more than one boat.

 

[scarefaceDM]

up here we have mooring buoys. They are private property and belong to the charter association or the wreck preservation society. They ALLOW private boats to tie off them when the charters are not around. But if one does pop in you have to untie yourself and then tie off on the charter boat. Also depends on the size of boat. If you happen to be bigger then they tie off you. They ask permission to do so and vis versa...The charters guys are friendly but you do have a few that think they own the place...There are usually two buoys to tie off on...so one would move to the other one....

The charter ops also have the right to refuse you to tie off them. Especially if you came in aggressive and such. You also have to be ready to untie yourself to go after a diver adrift.

Also, if a private boat refuses passage to the charter OP...then all is fair...the private boat gets untied and left to drift so they can start there boat up and leave..in a huff but they leave. I had to do this a few times. We come in, dead slow, Bow into the current, approaching from port side, asking if they would allow us to tie off them and if they had divers in the water...we were told to F off and go somewhere else. This was a 50 foot cruiser, bigger than our 25 foot RIB....so we gently came in, swung around to put the stern into the current, I was at the bow, slipped in the water and drifted to the mooring, untied the mooring line from under the mooring( it makes a loop so boats can just loop there line in) and let the private boat drift off, all the time we were advising them of our actions and contacted the harbor police boat to come have a look see...The private boat got a few words and they left...fingers in the air....waving I think.

It is all in the approach...

 

[Paleface]

Thanks CD, This was a question my dive instructor asked me and thought I should know the answer. I think he had this happen in NC and wanted to know the law here. I still have not got a return call from the CG. Keith