If You Book a Dive, How bad does the Weather Need to Be For You to Want a Refund?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Cacia

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
63,269
Reaction score
16,551
Some of my operator friends are pondering this, this week.

Does it vary by location?

ability level?

tyoe of dive?

cost? Number of people?
 
Hmmm. Thunder & lightening and vis under 40 feet. The bad vis has to be a result of the stormy weather, though. Oh, and high seas, greater than 5'

I can definately dive in the rain. I'd rather have bad vis than high current, though.

By the way, Joey didn't return my phone call and I called him twice. Very frustrating.
 
I can tell you what I use to determine whether we go or not...
Lightning or lightning imminent... delay or cancel depending on the radar.
Seas less than or equal to 2-4' are a go
Seas 3-5' are customer's option.

Seas 4-6' or greater are a no-go unless I know the divers very well and they:

a) Want to go

and

b)are capable of doing it

Ooops! Just realized this was da kine... Hawaii forum.
 
I figure that a quality dive op will bend over backwards and let customers cancel for just about any sort of weather condition. You really don't want divers going out in conditions in which they are uncomfortable.

My problem has been the opposite ---- the dive ops always chicken out before I do. :D

I was all for doing the 3rd dive one day in Maui, but they weren't willing to let me do the St. Anthony's wreck for fear of not being able to find me in the 6' short period wind waves. The conditions were such that he would have pounded horribly at anchor, but the side entry ladder was quite manageable as he drifted, so it would have been a live drop and pickup. The captain wasn't at all amused when I pointed out that the wind and waves were such that I'd just wash up on the Four Seasons beach and call him on the telephone.

Similarly, when on a dive trip to the Keys, no boats were going out one day, and every place I called said that there were a couple other guys calling around looking for a boat. It eventually we connected, and it ended up with 6 of us guaranteeing a boat owner full payment as soon as he pulled away from the dock, whether or not we got into the water. It was the one and only boat to go out in the middle keys that day. Although the bouy reading that morning was 30 kts gusting to 37, and the Captain kept dragging anchor until it hung up on the outer ledge of the reef, we all had a couple of really nice dives. The wind was such that it was driving in good clear water from deep offshore onto the outer edge of the barrier reef, and the visibility was better that afternoon than it was the next day when it was much calmer.
 
On the boat I work on (non-diving) if we cannot see the bottom (less than 20ft vis) or seas are above 3ft we don't go out.

I've never heard of a boat around here cancelling for bad vis, but if seas are more than 4ft it's rare to hear of a boat going out (though I was on a snorkel boat once that went out in 6ft seas ... we had molokini all to ourselves ... uggg - it was a bad day)

Aloha, Tim
 
On the boat I work on (non-diving) if we cannot see the bottom (less than 20ft vis) or seas are above 3ft we don't go out.



Aloha, Tim

:rofl3:
Boats here would never leave. We can't see bottom if the waters more than about 4' deep. & we'd be happy with 20' of viz
 
Been out on the Corsair in 5-6. It was awesome. Probably shouldn't have been out, but hey, nobody had problems. Well, I take that back. Rasta man and I didn't have any problems. Rest of the boat was feeding the fishies on the surface interval.

I personally didn't have any problem. I didn't see anybody on the boat have any problem, except for the seasickness. Now with a boatload of newbies or vacation divers that might not have been the best move, but I think everybody was local on that ride.

Course, I have dove sites when I had to pull myself down the mooring line to get to the site (not easy, I mean superman like flying current). Course we were all club divers, advanced, and there were 2 I believe that didn't feel comfortable and so they didn't go. No harm, no foul. That dive was great. Awesome viz too.
 
I hate to say this, but it really depends on the operator. There are operators who will cancel the dive when conditions are bad enough their customers are not likely to enjoy the outing, there are operators who will go as long as long as the boat can handle it and they don't feel it's unsafe... those conditions are not necessarily the same.

By the same token, at least in our location, water conditions can be fabulous within 10 miles either side of the harbor and nasty 35 minutes and more up the road, no operator here I know of will cancel for that but a lot of people try.
 
believe it or not 2 boats went out yesterday from Hawaii Kai,,,, can we say "split pea soup"...
or how about "I care so little about my customers that i'll take um out anyway, I got bills to pay!"
 

Back
Top Bottom