7 divers missing off Indonesian island

[WetPup]

It would be great to see the largest training agency in the world come up with a ratings system that would tell their divers whether operators were following standard safety procedures and properly equipped to deal with the hazards their divers might face. Unfortunately, I don't think working with PADI will get much of anywhere for the Bali operators (or any others), since PADI's "5-star" rating for dive centers apparently has very little to do with quality and is mostly based on how many PADI certifications and training materials they sell.

Ok, so say PADI/SSI goes out and inspects these places, everyone gets advanced warning and cleans up their act. A few weeks later things start to slip by the wayside again. None of the training agencies have the resources to be monitoring these people 100% of the time. I don't think getting someone out once a year or so is really going to help.

As someone else indicated, a good percentage of the dive ops in Bali have no affiliation with the training agencies anyway and will just continue on as they have been. The non-affiliated ops are catering to the backpacker/budget traveller market where cost is often more important than safety to their clients. I gave a friend of mine (newly certified - had no dives other than the OW cert dives) a recommendation for a dive op that I've used in Bali a few times who I've had good experience with, and they balked at paying the extra $30 for the day trip compared to another (IMO) less reputable operator.

 

[zivva]

I am 99% confident that neither of the dive operations mentioned in this thread are affiliated with PADI or any other agency.

Well ... sorry, you're wrong.

Contrary to what seems to be popular believes here, most of Bali dive ops are affiliated to Certification Agencies either PADI or SSI, Indonesia being now SSI's first market.

At least one of the mentioned op was PADI & SSI affiliated.

It has switched to 100% SSI since a few months now for business ($$$ related) reasons.

For the non professionals, I think it might be useful to confirm that The PADI Dive Centers affiliation & ranking system is NOT primarily related to safety standards. Safety standards accounting for 4 lines in a 24 pages document. Document being publicly available here : https://www.padi.com/scuba/uploadedFiles/Home/Open_a_Dive_Shop/PRA Standards - new centers.pdf

This lack of safety standards & enforcement by the main Certification Agencies is part of the problem here.

 

[matts1w]

Correct me if I am wrong, and I often am.....

Isn't there a difference between the dive operator's business being registered as a PADI Dive Center and an instructor promoting his classes and selling guided dives? The site for one of the ops in question in this thread only mentions that SSI and PADI classes are available- no logos, etc... Any instructor can do that. What am I missing?

 

[CJS]

I'm a relative novice (<100 dives) but I've dived on 3 trips to Bali and will be up there again in July. Between scubaboard, tripadvisor, diveoz and other online resources it isn't that hard to distinguish 'good' from 'not good' dive ops in Bali. A few questions via email can normally sort it out if there is any uncertainty in my mind. Certainly one of the operators mentioned in connection with the previous tragic incident had already been scratched off my 'possibles' list before they popped up in this discussion thread. I've always been pleased with the operators I've dived with and always found them being pretty careful diving around Nusa Penida, refusing to put us in the water at a particular spot if they thought conditions inappropriate and briefing us on the situation with the currents when we were diving any particular spot and using decent boats. I guess I wouldn't want the whole dive industry in Bali tarnished by the cowboy fringe.

 

[Zippsy]

Matt, you are missing a predisposition of bias, hatred and underlying jealousy. Other than that, you're good.

 

[zivva]

Isn't there a difference between the dive operator's business being registered as a PADI Dive Center and an instructor an promoting his classes and selling guided dives? The site for one of the ops in question in this thread only mentions that SSI and PADI classes are available- no logos, etc... Any instructor can do that. What am I missing?

Well, I guess you know already that to be able to teach SSI courses, the DC & its instructors must be SSI affiliated.

Thus, this op and their teaching instructors are SSI affiliated.

 

[Centrals]

The Jakarta Globe is reporting the boat captain has been arrested.

I would arrest the dive shop owner for failing to instruct and provide proper training for his/her employees to deal with emergency!!

 

[Zippsy]

I would arrest the dive shop owner for failing to instruct his/her employees on proper procedure to deal with emergency!!

Well if they find her, they might just do that although I am not sure it is warranted. After so long lost at sea though, I am losing hope.

 

[Internet_Pawn]

At least one of the mentioned op was PADI & SSI affiliated.

It has switched to 100% SSI since a few months now for business ($$$ related) reasons.

The site for one of the ops in question in this thread only mentions that SSI and PADI classes are available- no logos, etc... Any instructor can do that. What am I missing?

If we are talking about the dive operator for the 2012 incident, the owner was still holding it out to be a PADI dive centre last month. Also, on Trip Advisor (which I know they monitor closely - they managed to suppress all the negative reviews about the 2012 incident) the owner description still describes them as a PADI dive centre.

Are you saying that this is an incorrect description, or is it more the case that it doesn't mean what a reader might think it means?

 

[gekodivebali]

I would arrest the dive shop owner for failing to instruct and provide proper training for his/her employees to deal with emergency!!

My understanding is that this was a chartered boat, not operated directly by the dive shop. The boat and the shop are 2 different companies. They have no link other than doing business together.
Checking whether a dive operator operates his own boats is IMHO a good place to start, if a diver wants to find out about safety practices of a given business. When dive guides, crew and captain work for the same company, you can expect cohesion as a team, full cooperation and the ability to work together according to a rehearsed emergency plan when **** hits the fan.

Now, the advice I just gave probably does not matter at all. Out of the thousands of requests from divers we receive every year here, I would say that less than 1% raise questions of safety. Most divers seem to be focused exclusively on prices. Some even refuse to hear our arguments when we tell them they do not have the minimum required experience to dive this or that dive site. They just go on to the next operator, who, unlike safer operators, will happily take their money and bring them to a dive site way beyond their experience level.

I agree that there is something wrong with some dive operators and the way they run their business in Bali. Nevertheless, putting everyone operating out of Bali or Indonesia in the same basket, like some suggest in this thread, is nonsensical. Millions of dives are done safely every year in Bali with good operators.

At one point or another, it is also up to divers to ask the questions that matter and to, at least try to, find out which ops are more or less safe. It always escapes me that many divers choose the operation that charges 5 dollars less rather than look for the one that carries Oxygen on board, dives with its own boats, trains CPR to its staff or employs experienced guides rather than using unpaid interns.

Now, if some of you want to discuss this further, we should create another thread and keep this one for remembrance of the deceased or those that have been lost at sea... RIP Ritsuko Miyata. We're still hoping you make it safely Shoko Takahashi.