No scuba diving on this trip!

[Jafo123]

We sailed out of Tampa on 9-12-04. We had to out run hurricane Ivan. Grand Caymen was canceled right off the bat. Then the ship changed the whole itinerary. Had two private dives set up. One in Grand Caymen and one in Cozumel. Well, they are both out the window now with the itinerary change. I thought I'll sign the wife and me up for a cattle boat dive in Cozumel. (We are new divers and just recently certified.) There where about 40 people wanting to dive when we got there. We filled out all the paperwork and showed our c-cards. They wouldn't let my wife dive because she was taking a medication for high blood pressure.( I think they didn't want to have to look out for the new divers.) The wife didn't dive so I didn't dive. We weren't the only ones turned away though. They wouldn't let a NAVY DIVER with military ID and dive creditentials and ID dive. There was another older man there they wouldn't let dive because they didn't recognize the card he had. I think they were just sorting out the ones they thought they would dive with. Belize was much the same. We didn't try to dive in Costa Maya but while lying on the beach we talked to a master diver who when heard about our problems trying to dive said he would take us diving. It was allready to late in the day to dive and get back to the ship. It really pissed me off to be on a vacation down there and not being able to dive. The cruise was still nice but I wouldn't have gone in the first place had I knowen this would have happened. That will teach me to schedule in hurricane season.

Good diving to all!!!!
jafo123

 

[beir]

Ya, I know the feeling. I went down to Tampa for labor day weekend planning to dive quite a bit, and H. Francis had other ideas. I was there for 5 days and didn't get to dive once. Nothing like getting your hopes up and never getting to even blow one bubble...

 

[Boogie711]

Dude - do you know for a fact that the medication your wife is on isn't a contraindication for scuba diving?

I would far, far rather a dive shop start deselecting divers for medical reasons than just let anyone and their brother on. Maybe you'll see this when you have some more dives under your belt and you're not as anxious to get in the water any which way.

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

I'm not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but I have an impression Mexico is a close competitor to the USA in terms of trying to be one of the most, if not top, litiginous societies on the planet.

Medical considerations should be clear though.

 

[Jafo123]

We had to go through all the phiscals(sp) and have our Dr's approval before we could even take the diving classes. It's all recorded on a special sheet we had to fill out for PADI. It's not like we have been certified for a number of years and then something changed.

I was also told buy another diver there when you fill out the paperwork down there and if you mark ANYTHING yes they won't let you dive. That's bull&*^$

jafo123

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

When I've tried to take liveaboard trips to the Flower Gardens Banks, I too have had to complete such forms including physician's signatures for USA dive shops chartering the boat that weekend, and they were RSTC forms, so it's not only PADI. And this is for those of us who are certified and do get an annual physical, which for my line of work is more exhaustive than the routine MD's office typically provides. So it's not just Mexico mi amigo.

There are other less litiginous societies where practicies are less stringent, and there are even societies that place very little value on individual human life. For evey circumstance, extremes can be found. But what you experienced in Mexico is not foreign to my experiences in the USA. It's just a bit of a pain for those of us who do take responibility for our own actions, but if I were a business service provider I wouldn't stake my business on every customer having this perspective of personal responsibility - even here in the USA.