Post-Conception Disaster: what you learned & will change

I was referring to the operator.

 

I haven't been on more than a day boat or my personal boat in a long time. My last liveaboard was an uninspected 6 pack for a week in 2019. I am scheduled with them again in 2021 and will be asking about the charging station and upgrades to that. But otherwise there is not much to do differently. Post covid I will be ramping up my cave diving not my liveaboarding

 

Your last sentence takes observations of the behavior of a few people and generalizes it to people in general.

• Yes, some people see 225,000 Americans dying and still refuse to wear a mask. Most wear a mask.
• Yes, a few people do throw burning cigarettes out the window despite the fire threat. Most do not do that.

As for the overall statistics on flying and driving despite those fatalities....

• Yes, a very tiny percentage of passengers die in airplane accidents. Most people continue to trust that airplanes have been properly checked for airworthiness, the pilot is capable, and is following standard safety procedures. They feel it is a reasonable risk.
• Millions of cars are on the road every day, and only a tiny percentage are involved in accidents. Most of those are caused by excessive speed and/or excessive alcohol consumption. Most people assume that if they avoid making those kinds of errors, the odds are excellent that they will be OK, so it is a reasonable risk.

So what about the topic of this thread? It is not just the case of the Conception. I was shocked to learn that many such boats skip rules like roving night watches. I was shocked by the layout of the Conception and the way reasonable safeguards were ignored. I realized my naiveté in thinking an owner would care more for the safety of his passengers rather than the few extra dollars potentially earned from avoiding safety practices. It opened my eyes. I have therefore decided that the risk of diving from a similarly-configured boat is too great a risk, so I won't do it. I have decided that if I am on a safer liveaboard, I will not take normally expected safeguards for granted and will take additional precautions.

As you point out, though, there are people who refuse to wear masks, and there are people who throw lit cigarette butts out the window in high fire areas., so I assume that market will always be there.

 

That's the thing John. Many of us are not shocked. I've seen boats with empty O2 bottles but they show you the bottles making you believe they are full. I've seen "Captains" operating small vessels unable to tie to a mooring buoy after 30+ minutes trying, claiming the wind and the current are messing them up. And so many other examples that shows ignorance of seamanship, and just the ways of things in the water, that having a corporation trying save a buck just doesn't shock me.

 

After a lifetime of such experiences, I am embarrassed by the degree to which I was shocked, but I have to say I was more shocked by the Red Sea Aggressor experience that followed. Since it followed in the wake of the Conception tragedy, I would have thought they would have cared a little.

 

Where do you normally park it?

 

I was an English literature major in graduate school, and at times like this my mind runs toward literary analogies. The bad guys in Hamlet make a plan to kill him and make it look like an accident. Their plan requires Hamlet to naively assume that a friendly duel will be on the up-and-up and not inspect the weapons for the planned deceit. They openly state that the plan will work because Hamlet is so scrupulously honest himself that he neither expects nor looks for deceit in others.

Similarly, In Melville's Billy Budd, the pure and innocent Billy Budd is shocked when he realizes the pure evil deceit of John Claggart, and he instinctively strikes out and kills him.

EDIT: I left out the moral of the story. Throughout my life I have generally trusted others to do the right thing for the most part, but because I have been burned so many times, that trust is eroding. When I am burned and see the treachery and deceit in others, I do tend to lash out in anger.

 

It is in my driveway, several Publix in Pompano, dive shops , downtown Fort Lauderdale .
Why? Are you getting any ideas?

 

Maybe this speaks to the number of car thieves who are looking for Jeeps.

 

Trust, but verify,