I'm sorry I missed this thread. I've been away for a while. I have a story of a lost rig on Cozumel. It was my rig.
We were doing a night dive on Las Palmas, on the wall. During the dive the hose on a borrowed octo blew. I ascended using my buddie's octo. When we surfaced, I clipped off the camera rig so I could mess with my gear, or so I thought. I looked down to realize the camera rig was not secured. It was gone. I did note the location, about even with the palm tree just north of Fiesta Americana. (Tree since taken out by Wilma)
As we tooled back, there was a meeting of DMs and divers. No one was to mention the lost camera to anyone. I'll skip to the morning. I walked home from the chamber (did a useless ride as it turned out I wasn't bent, but that's another story) at 6am. Wife and I took a taxi to Caleta and met 2 DMs and two of their friends. We tool out at sunup and start a search. At one point the rig was spotted from the surface, but then lost. The rig and two orange Ikelite SS200 strobes (this was a film camera). At some point we had to give up and head back to the harbor. I sat out the day diving since I waited for the doctor to agree I wasn't bent when I met him at 11am. The group went out on their first dive. They all decided they wanted to do the first dive at Las Palmas. Guess what? They found a big SLR camera rig on the wall at 72ft. They were all very excited. I still have a photograph of all the divers and crew with the rescued camera rig.
BTW, I ended up tipping the four guys $250 among them. The camera was insured with a $200 deductible, which included lost or flooded.
As for the original post, it bothers me, not for the concept of charging $1000, but the OP is rightly entitled to it. Let's say the camera owner handed over $1000 to the DM or whomever. I would have stepped in and told him it's mine. Then give the money back to the camera owner. I don't consider it virtue signaling. I call it courtesy.
We were doing a night dive on Las Palmas, on the wall. During the dive the hose on a borrowed octo blew. I ascended using my buddie's octo. When we surfaced, I clipped off the camera rig so I could mess with my gear, or so I thought. I looked down to realize the camera rig was not secured. It was gone. I did note the location, about even with the palm tree just north of Fiesta Americana. (Tree since taken out by Wilma)
As we tooled back, there was a meeting of DMs and divers. No one was to mention the lost camera to anyone. I'll skip to the morning. I walked home from the chamber (did a useless ride as it turned out I wasn't bent, but that's another story) at 6am. Wife and I took a taxi to Caleta and met 2 DMs and two of their friends. We tool out at sunup and start a search. At one point the rig was spotted from the surface, but then lost. The rig and two orange Ikelite SS200 strobes (this was a film camera). At some point we had to give up and head back to the harbor. I sat out the day diving since I waited for the doctor to agree I wasn't bent when I met him at 11am. The group went out on their first dive. They all decided they wanted to do the first dive at Las Palmas. Guess what? They found a big SLR camera rig on the wall at 72ft. They were all very excited. I still have a photograph of all the divers and crew with the rescued camera rig.
BTW, I ended up tipping the four guys $250 among them. The camera was insured with a $200 deductible, which included lost or flooded.
As for the original post, it bothers me, not for the concept of charging $1000, but the OP is rightly entitled to it. Let's say the camera owner handed over $1000 to the DM or whomever. I would have stepped in and told him it's mine. Then give the money back to the camera owner. I don't consider it virtue signaling. I call it courtesy.
