Dahab Diving; How do they get your money?
- Thread starter copter53
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
There are 50 plus shops in Dahab that are on or very near the water, why do you ask that question?
macrobubble
Contributor
The only reason you have to pay for a guide in Egypt is because you have to pay for a guide...
No - that was too cynical! My dive centre does allow people to dive independently but we do require a check dive of some sort (this might just be a fun dive with a buoyancy check), then preferably a day's diving with a guide and then - for the experienced diver, they can dive independently at certain locations. For the diver with extensive local experience, they can pretty much do what they like. Yes, of course, this process is about covering one's legal posterior, but then I could wander into any shop in the world and say "I have money, give me this", and the shopkeeper will say "show me the money"
Hmmm maybe using money as a metaphor was misguided but if I'm going to let you dive independently with my shop's gear, I'd like to check that you can actually do this, sorry!
Don't be put off by Dahab as a destination because you might have to go through this process, but for sure once you show you can do it, there are centres which will allow you dive without a guide - but then you also kinda need them to ferry you to the dive sites. You can of course, walk - or take a camel - to the Blue Hole, carrying all your equipment but hmmmm ... there is no "road" as such, and you technically need police permission to enter.
In America, you have to tip the bell boy 10 bucks for doing nothing. In Egypt you have to tip the police (and generate an inordinate amount of paperwork whilst doing so) to go to certain places.
Welcome to Egypt, have a nice day!
C.
Edit - PS - I got outed - malesh - please understand that I am here for me, not for them, and what I say does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the organisation I work for. Except the good things, of course!
My arse is sufficiently covered, thanks for listening, although I feel I am losing my air as an international man of mystery...
Off topic for a second here, if you tip police or any government official for any reason whatsoever you are bribing them and that's a crime. People died to bring changes to this country and the least we should do is refuse to take part in this corrupt practice. I suggest you file a report with the police department, a complaint with the governor and send copies to the prime minister. If you need assistance let me know.
My understanding is CDWS in no more!
macrobubble
Contributor
Then your understanding is wrong!
The technical department of the CDWS will in the future be "outsourced" to the Ministry of Tourism. As it looks now, they will take the whole staff of the CDWS on board and they will be responsible for the licencing process of the divecenters.
From a CDWS-email:
The CDWS as such has a temporary board of directors right now, which was appointed by the minister. Those are the same people that were on the board before and they will be replaced by a new board that will be elected at a general meeting on 14th of May.
That seems to be the situation right now...
Well I have to look into it again. I don't understand how the minster personally announces that an agency has be dissolved and then it continues on operating. He stated unequivocally that he was dissolving it to comply with a court order.
macrobubble
Contributor
He has stated that he will dissolve the board, not the entity!
That he has done and that was what the court demanded because of the irregularities in decreasing the number of board members from 15 to 12. And that´s why we are going to have new elections coming May 14th.
Why it was decided to put the technical department under the umbrella of the MOT, I don´t know. With few exceptions the inspectors did a good job and were fair in doing so. Well, some of the rules I did not really understand (why is it mantadory to have a minimum of 30 weight belts, when the majority of divers uses integrated BCD´s anyway, for example) but over all it made sense to establish a technical minimum standard (e.g. regular inspection of tanks, maintanance manuals for tanks, regs and so on). Any decent center would have had no problem with complying to these standards - those that couldn´t or wouldn´t should rightfully so not be allowed to offer their services to paying customers.
If one followed the comments of divers about these licencing proceedures on the internet, the vast majority of our guests was in favour of these measures and it raised confidence in the quality of diving services in Egypt.
Some of it is that. Some of it is because the average quality of holiday diver means letting them off alone will result in them getting lost, trampling across the reef or other incidents.
You don't need an in-water guide. There must be an on-site. Some places allow "unguided" diving on the house reef (emperor for example).
Egypt has very restrictive laws, a lot of which i dont agree with but some of which i do.
Similar threads
