Dive trip failed... what's your story?

[vladimir]

Vladimir- ha very nice.. Yeah I imagine hari raya is a pretty crazy time over there haha.. Sounds like you've had your fair share of messed up dive plans.

Yes, I've had a few trips go wrong--but out of a lot of trips. I left out my two aborted Galapagos trips. I've learned two lessons:

Trips usually go wrong for reasons not covered by trip insurance--I have never bought it, and have never had occasion to regret that.

Diving is just one part of my vacation. I have squeezed 50 dives into one (three-week) trip, so it's a major part, but still just a part. While roaming up and down Tioman's coast trying to scrounge a bed, I met a few people I never would have otherwise met--one of whom offered to put me up in his house. (He may have had ulterior motives, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt.)
In Sri Lanka, when the worst of my illness passed, I wandered around the small town and watched the men balance on poles planted in the sand to fish. The women gathered firewood. Ox-carts rumbled through the streets and the train came by with a hundred people hanging off the sides. I met a man who tried to marry his daughter off to me. (Really, I couldn't make this up. I guess I looked prosperous. There was a little bit of a language barrier, but that was the least-cynical interpretation I could come to.) The town of Hikkaduwa was more interesting than the diving off its shore, so I only regret the dives I did, not the ones I missed. Oh, and I regret whatever it was that I ate or drank that kept me bed-ridden for a couple of days.

 

[BabyDuck]

here's one of mine...

a group of folks gave one guy deposits to set up an easter weekend dive trip. it was the first year of ncdivers - we had an easter dive trip for several years, we called it 'the easter blowout'. because, yep, it's always been blown out. anyway, it was to be staying in the dive cottage and two days of two-tank dives, so the deposit was in the $3-500 range. i didn't give him my money, i was a later addition to the group so i was going to pay the shop directly.

so we spent a night, but the boats didn't go the next day. the prediction was for rain and winds for several days. except for the night spent, the group was to get the deposits back. so the guy told the group after a while that the shop didn't give him the money back. then, they did but there was a problem with the check because it was made to 'ncdivers' so he couldn't cash it & give the money back. then, something something something. then, another excuse.

the upshot of it was that except for someone he wanted to go out with and someone who got a lawyer to write a letter, he *took his own dive group's money*. he chucked his dive buddies for the neighborhood of $2k.

we still make unflattering photoshops of him on ncdivers.com, but he himself has been scarce ever since and good riddance.

 

[Guba]

Does getting chased out of the Gulf of Mexico (Flower Gardens NMS), after only a single dive, by Hurricane Dolly count?

I guess it could have been worse...she could have CAUGHT us out there! :shocked2:

 

[racerx_]

Lol yeah I guess we could count that in haha

 

[Mossman]

The only complete failure was when J managed to break her ankle our first dive day in Bonaire. But definitely have missed crucial diving days for one reason or another. Besides losing dive days from weather, which has happened quite a few times: Lost two days of diving in Cozumel just this June due to a norovirus. Lost over a day of whale shark diving at Darwin Island when a cold plugged up my ears so badly even Sudafed and Afrin couldn't penetrate. Sat on the boat for a full day in Cocos due to a potential DCS scare. Lost two days of diving in the Andaman Sea after the tsunami. And I sat out the last dive day at Wakatobi because my camera had gotten sick and I was depressed.

 

[renalea]

Lost a day of diving after popping my fingernail off at Coco View. It was right after they had built the ladder in the center of their dive boats - guaranteed not to pinch fingers! Well, if it's going to happen, it'll happen to me! I spent the next day in the sack reading books and holding my still-throbbing finger in the air. It was a very cool rainy day anyway. I got back in the water the following day. The salt water burned a bit, but I didn't care. My stupidity wasn't going to ruin my trip!

 

[shawrg]

My passport was examined at the check-in counter and I was not allowed to travel to Roatan a few years ago for a two week dive trip. Honduras requires that passports be valid for 6 months past the date of travel. My passport expired a few days short of 6 months. If you are planning an international trip, check entry requirements and your passport and renew it if necessary.

 

[vladimir]

My passport was examined at the check-in counter and I was not allowed to travel to Roatan a few years ago for a two week dive trip. Honduras requires that passports be valid for 6 months past the date of travel. My passport expired a few days short of 6 months. If you are planning an international trip, check entry requirements and your passport and renew it if necessary.

Good advice. That's a pretty common requirement, like onward tickets. Be glad you didn't find out after flying all the way to Indonesia, which has the same requirement, as do Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea. Hong Kong's is one month.

 

[Quero]

I've had two near-failures, but managed to salvage both, at least partially.
One was at the end of a two-week speaking tour of Brazil in August (mid-winter there), during which the cold and the relentless speaking schedule caused first my vocal chords and then my throat and then my whole respiratory system to become infected. I was so sick for the first four days of my week-long trip to Fernando de Noronha (my reward to myself for all the work of the previous two weeks) that I was bedridden with fever, chills, pain, antibiotics, etc. As soon as I had been fever-free for a whole day, I scheduled dives. The problem wasn't reverse block, but horrible, horrible vertigo on blue-water safety stops, so I know my ears were funky. Somehow I managed to complete a couple of days of diving, but the strongest memory of the experience is the vertigo.

The other one was a seven-hour flight delay out of San Antonio which made me miss my connecting flight from LAX on Singapore Airlines for my nonstop to SIN, onwards to Kuala Lumpur to switch luggage between work attire and dive gear, and then onwards again to Male to hop on a liveaboard. Rescheduling all the flights took forever, and I missed the departure of the boat. It took me 70 hours to reach Male, in the end, and I hired a speedboat to take me to where the LOB was located. I missed just one day of diving, but I was so wiped out from the trip that diving wasn't even an option for a while. Once I got enough sleep, though, I was able to dive for the rest of the week.

 

[Frosty]

My wife had to scupper the last dive on our last dive trip together. She was very green and threw brekkie up over the side of the boat.
I shoulda read something in the surly look and the muttered under the breath "its all your fault" . Hmm seems we have another kid on the way--dunno HOW that coulda happened