Taking GPS coordinates of a site... captain's permission?

[nimoh]

to yor first NO but that is the law
To your second Yes however ther is legislation to protect the libraries from prosicution. They are not treated that samne as your home is. It was done for the purpose of making all information available to library users. This is a highly volital issue in the child preditor world where parents want protection from those who use the library to stalk ect. More than one atrticle has been public of librarians being fired for reporting that users are downloading kiddie porn on library computers.

Back to the first,,, i found that out when reporting a site to the FBI that was passing kiddie porn under the guise of unrelated file names. When the agent called me i offered to send them the file, he stopped me and told me that if i downloaded the file i was guilty of transfering kiddie stuff, and that as long as i only was in posession of the link to the file i would remain faullt free. That led into the liabilty of wireless users and security.

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, mostly since I am far from an expert in the law. However, I think this would be similar to charging a homeowner with drug trafficking when two kids step into their backyard and make a drug deal.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Quite frankly, I consider it a rip-off when you contract a lot of dives and then dive operators keep going out to the same repeating sites. We went out on that day on the understanding that we were going to a different site or we would have used the credit on another day. We had already done the wreck 3 times and the daily rate was very expensive.

Had you told them this when you got to the site or when you got back, I would agree with you to a point. But it has been 2 or so weeks and nothing has been said before this......all of the sudden you are going to demand a full refund because your BB tells you that you went somewhere else? What if they say:

- We saw lots of boat traffic on the of the wreck and the site would have been over-run.....since they were identical wrecks, we took you back so you could enjoy the dives more.
- It was an honest mistake. Oops.
- We were told conditions were not favorable on the other wreck so we made a safety call.

To me, your post just reeks of the "Me, Me, Me" of today's litigious society. Everybody is looking for an angle to get something for free. Immediately I thought "Ambulance Chaser".

 

[redacted]

Had you told them this when you got to the site or when you got back, I would agree with you to a point. But it has been 2 or so weeks and nothing has been said before this......all of the sudden you are going to demand a full refund because your BB tells you that you went somewhere else? What if they say:

- We saw lots of boat traffic on the of the wreck and the site would have been over-run.....since they were identical wrecks, we took you back so you could enjoy the dives more.
- It was an honest mistake. Oops.
- We were told conditions were not favorable on the other wreck so we made a safety call.

To me, your post just reeks of the "Me, Me, Me" of today's litigious society. Everybody is looking for an angle to get something for free. Immediately I thought "Ambulance Chaser".

Boat traffic or condintions should have gotten an explanation fron the boat crew. An honest mistake - well I guess we even hear of planes landing at the wrong airport but someone realizes the error. Sounds to me like the boat just thought they could get away with it. It seems to me that if the contract was for the other site, then some compensation is in order. Or do you really think businesses should just be able to get away with things like this (bait and awitch)?

But it certainly does make the case for why some boats may want to prohibit the use of GPS.

 

[miketsp]

Had you told them this when you got to the site or when you got back, I would agree with you to a point. But it has been 2 or so weeks and nothing has been said before this......all of the sudden you are going to demand a full refund because your BB tells you that you went somewhere else? What if they say:

- We saw lots of boat traffic on the of the wreck and the site would have been over-run.....since they were identical wrecks, we took you back so you could enjoy the dives more.
- It was an honest mistake. Oops.
- We were told conditions were not favorable on the other wreck so we made a safety call.

To me, your post just reeks of the "Me, Me, Me" of today's litigious society. Everybody is looking for an angle to get something for free. Immediately I thought "Ambulance Chaser".

The briefing given just before we jumped in described the site we hadn't already dived. I photographed the white board with the wreck name and assigned buddy pairs. I would have no objection to a notified change once we were on our way - provided it was for operational reasons. I find it very hard to believe it was a simple mistake which leaves me with a bad taste - that it was deliberate based on the similarity of the wrecks. There would certainly not have been a "lot" of boat traffic. This was the only operator functioning. The only other operator had his boat in dry-dock for repair. The other wreck was less than a mile away further out to sea and there was nothing to be seen.

 

[Tigerman]

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, mostly since I am far from an expert in the law. However, I think this would be similar to charging a homeowner with drug trafficking when two kids step into their backyard and make a drug deal.

Well, the lawmakers is so incompetent when it comes to computers and internet around here and probably everywhere else that putting all the blame on the owner of the router seems like a perfecly reasonable thing for them to do in my opinion.

Of course it ISNT reasonable to blame the owner of a router for it just like that, but the people making laws probably havent even heard of access logs..

 

[ScubaSteve]

Or do you really think businesses should just be able to get away with things like this (bait and awitch)?

No I do not. But I believe that everything comes with a time limit and I personally (remember this is just my opinion) believe that 2 weeks is way outside of anything even resembling reasonable. IMO, a reasonable time for requesting any sort of refund expire the second you leave the dock/dive shop. I also firmly believe that if you did all the dives without objection then you do not deserve a full refund. Partial perhaps. Again, I see Mike's original post as a diver seeking an opportunity to get something for free irrespective of if it is reasonable or not.

 

[vondo]

No I do not. But I believe that everything comes with a time limit and I personally (remember this is just my opinion) believe that 2 weeks is way outside of anything even resembling reasonable. IMO, a reasonable time for requesting any sort of refund expire the second you leave the dock/dive shop. I also firmly believe that if you did all the dives without objection then you do not deserve a full refund. Partial perhaps. Again, I see Mike's original post as a diver seeking an opportunity to get something for free irrespective of if it is reasonable or not.

Right. A reasonable course of action would be to call the business owner and discuss what you found, including the disturbing fact that you appear to have been deliberately lied to (unless there was miscommunication between the captain and a DM). If it's a place you travel to frequently, I would imagine you can get a discounted trip or something. Choose what you do in the future accordingly.

 

[Tigerman]

When leaving the dock/divestore is NOT when "reasonable time" expires. It might be so in the eyes of an op that think they should go to a site other than arranged, without giving notice or a reson to do so, but thats just **** service.
If the boat is arranged for a certain site and you leave the dock believieing thats where you go and you get notice (or DONT get any notice) AFTER the boat has left the dock, the time first opportunity to file a formal complaint is when you get back. You have no chance to change your mind after the boat has left.

I would however also say that a reasonable timeframe ends after you check out for the day/booked ammount of days.

 

[nimoh]

No I do not. But I believe that everything comes with a time limit and I personally (remember this is just my opinion) believe that 2 weeks is way outside of anything even resembling reasonable. IMO, a reasonable time for requesting any sort of refund expire the second you leave the dock/dive shop. I also firmly believe that if you did all the dives without objection then you do not deserve a full refund. Partial perhaps. Again, I see Mike's original post as a diver seeking an opportunity to get something for free irrespective of if it is reasonable or not.

While I generally agree that the time to get a refund is before you leave the dock, I think there are some extenuating circumstances here in that he didn't found out about the dive site switch until two weeks after the trip, and took immediate action. However, he did do the dive, and because of that I think a full refund is a little unreasonable. I think at the very least the dive shop should apologize, but also possibly offer "store credit" to go out and do the other wreck.

 

[ScubaSteve]

When leaving the dock/divestore is NOT when "reasonable time" expires.

I am talking about AFTER the dives, boat returned and divers head home......not when the boat leaves to head to the sites.