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

[Searcaigh]

My ears are my weakest point having had an infection during my Sipadan trip this year resulting in missing three days of diving and more recently last week another ear infection while I was in Aqaba last week primarily due to driving 300km from Amman to Aqaba with the window down instead of using the AC in the car.

Missed the boat once in Thailand many years ago due to a GI problem, having spent the night sitting on the loo.

 

[racerx_]

Sipadan.. ouch!!!

 

[Dirty-Dog]

We haven't had a trip "fail" yet, but we've come close.

November 1st 2010 we headed to Curacao for 10 days of shore diving. Sadly, Hurricaine Tomas also decided to visit Curacao, and also on November 1st. We diverted to Aruba for the night and actually arrived on the 2nd. We had to cancel about half of our dives because of strong currents and zero visibility, but the diving we did get to do was fabulous. Although the diving was truncated, we still enjoyed sight seeing above water. Curacao is a lovely island, and if you're interested in 17th-18th c history, there are quite a few surviving fortifications to explore.

 

[Buoyant1]

Funny you should mention this...

My wife and I were supposed to leave for the Florida Keys for two weeks this PAST Saturday...the weeks leading up to the trip have been a bit of a pain, my wife's 99 year old grandmother broke her hip about a month back, and up until that point, only suffered mild dementia..she was pleasant, but you had to remind her who you were a few times, and almost every time you walked into a room with her, she'd act as if she hadn't seen you in a while...nothing overly horrible...she deteriorated in the rehab facility that she had to be admitted into, and after a bout with some infections, was seemingly back on the road to recovery...I had the car 95% packed (we're driving down, for the 5th time) and went to pick my wife up from work, as wee sat there, she got a call from her mother, who was on her way to the hospital to get treated for a broken arm...sounded like a collar bone, and we were thinking that was the best case in that situation...turned out she needs a shoulder replacement (or so that hospital said) since my wife works in a hospital, she said "come down, get a second opinion" So we knew at that point we'd be leaving at the earliest on SUNDAY depending upon what she needed.... Saturday came and went, they aren't going to operate and wanted to wait until the swelling goes down before further evaluation...so we were set to go (after some debate) Sunday, early afternoon...the car was completely packed, we bid our cats farewell for the week, and contacted their "care giver" that we were NOW going, and stopped for a quick bite to eat... as we finished our lunch, my wife got another call and her mother said that her grandmother was now NOT eating, and her facility was suggesting a feeding tube, or Hospice care....that was the deal breaker! We went home, unpacked, and decided that we ran out of "last straws" too many factors working against us...we MAY try to go in two weeks if things settle down, but it's unlikely, and we're not holding our breath!

Thankfully, we didn't have to deal with airlines, the realtor from whom we've worked with the past several years is being cooperative, and I think will honor our "payments" if/when we reschedule...not sure for how LONG, but it's better than nothing at this point.

And the update....her mother has another appt. this Thursday... and her grandmother is stable....

Addendum: Well we ended up NOT going on our "contingency" vacation, which looking at the weather in the Keys right now, would have been a bust anyway, and just another TYPE of "trip failure"! The deciding factor, however was when her mother went for a follow-up, he surgery was scheduled for the day were were going to leave, and she ended up not having it because of infection... the Mother STILL hasn't had the surgery, and at this point MAY not actually need it if things continue to heal the way they are! The grandmother ended up passing away, and it was probably good that we DID stay!

We are in the midst of recovering our payment through our trip insurance company....

Next contingency could depend upon whether Penn State's football team gets a decent Florida bowl..and we do what we did in 2005 (well Jan. 2006 actually) when they went to the Orange Bowl, and we slid down to the Keys afterwards...

 

[Token]

Oh my...where to begin? Last May I went on a dive trip to the BC coast with a group from a local dive shop. They were mostly friends and shop instructors...I joined in but was basically kind of a fifth wheel in the group. For one thing, I had practically no cold-water diving experience but I felt reasonably prepared with my new cold-water reg set, a brand new custom-altered 7mm Pinnacle semi-dry and a new Zeagle Ranger BCD. We arrived at the dive resort on Hornby Island and hit the water....

To make a long story short, I had a hell of a time coping with my new gear. I found it very difficult to get weighted...I could barely stuff enough lead into the Ranger to keep me under water. The Pinnacle was very stiff and bulky, and despite the alterations I had done to fit my somewhat short, yet barrel-chested frame, it still fit poorly on my chest and neck, restricting my breathing enough to make me very anxious. The Zeagle slid around under water, and I felt unwilling to really tighten it down, given my breathing difficulty...oh yeah, the surface/underwater venturi switch on my new reg set seemed not set up right either. All around it was a bad scene.

Once we got in the water, the visibility was very poor due to plankton bloom. I was aware that this was a possibility but I didn't realize that it would restrict viz to like a couple of metres. Then I discovered how disorienting it could be when you can't see either the bottom or the surface. This did not add to my confidence, to put it mildly. Did I mention that I still have less than 20 dives?

The other members of the group were very nice, and did their best to help me out, but I definitely had the feeling that I was spoiling their enjoyment, and that they were being too nice to say how stupid I was to attempt some pretty advanced diving without the requisite experience. And I did stupid things too... One dive started off pretty well...I got into the water, got down to depth and waited for my two buddies to come down and join me. However they didn't appear for what seemed like a very long time, at which point I decided that we had gotten our arrangements mixed up and they had taken off without me. Rather than surface and return to the boat I decided, since I had gotten to depth, and viz was the best we'd seen it all weekend, and I was finally kinda getting used to my gear...that I would simply take off on my own. I went along the rock wall that was the main feature of the site for about 25 minutes, was first to surface and got picked up by the boat....no problem. Since it was about the last dive of the weekend, nobody said anything about my little adventure, but....

So that's my story. I don't feel that my money or time was wasted, although I did pay a lot for very little diving [basically, I think I got 4 dives in, nearly all of them frustratingly difficult and short] but I sure wish it had all gone better. Lessons learned: Don't go on a big dive trip with gear you aren't familiar with; with people you aren't familiar with; to dive in conditions that you aren't familiar with. _One_ of these things would probably be copeable...two of them, maybe...but all three are just too much.