As for the reefs, they are what they are. A nurse shark is a nice and infrequent sighting. I have seen, been circled by, and swam with 2 eagle rays (while on CCR and I think they were intrigued with me) while diving off of Captains Corner on those very reefs. Can't blame Captains Corner for the flora, fauna, and coral, or lack thereof.
As for the bottles and crew, I don't know who you would have spoken with in advance other than the owner and I have to wonder what questions you had about cylinders for which you received differing responses. Letting water in? Regulator not on tight? I don't know. My experience has been fine through out and I dive virtually exclusively with Captains Corner (I live in KW).
As for the deco issue, cutting a stop short by 3 minutes by itself is non-descriptive, and not necessarily excitable. Was it a total of a 3 minute stop that became -0-? Was it a 15 minute stop that was shortened to 12? What was the depth? Dive time? 1st dive? 2nd dive? Is it mandated that a person be put on O2 because of a timing issue where they otherwise exhibit no symptoms and have no complaints? Why was it mentioned to the crew at all? Was the diver feeling rushed? Had the diver miscalculated dive time? Was the diver experiencing symptoms? The anecdotal presentation is all over the place and accusatory, without substance, IMO.
From my vantage point, and personal experience, I don't read any BS complaints, or complaints in general. Having not been personally present to see and understand first hand what transpired, or to have information provided from a disinterested 3rd party without a prejudice and without a personal grudge, I take all these writings with umpteen grains of salt. Such allegations should be thought out ad nauseum before being put in print.
Safe diving, my friends.
Hi Guys
Just to add to the above - I was there!
I know exactly what went on and IMHO Terry2puds post has been factual without being a blatant rant. If people do not erport such experiances then how else can you know what is going on with different operators?
Both Terry and I have traveled the world diving with litteraly hundreds of operators over the years, so we know what's right and what's not - but there will always be a difference in peoples knowledge and expectations. So just to highlight what Terry put here are the reasons he thought he needed to post this:
1. The drop tank is a safety precaution which did not work, I suspect the diaphram was dislodged or damaged, but on trying to breath from it you got a mouthfull of water. This is just dangerous no matter how you see it, there was no excuse I can immagine that justifies them putting this back in the water for a second dive after it was reported to one of the crew. I heard him relay our comments to one of the more experianced crew who just said - "yea, ok, we'll fix it later" - but didn't.
2. The diver who missed 3 minuits decompression done just that, and under any guidlines should have been put on O2 - not wait to see if simptoms appear. He was an elderly man diving air for the second time on the Vandenberg, so 2 x 100+ ft dives with only an hours interval, he had 10 minuits deco (not a safety stop) and he missed the last 3 minuits as his buddy - his son - was adjitated that everyone else was back on the boat and the dive brief had stipulated tight times for the dive due to them returning to port for the afternoon dive trp. His predicament was his own, but the crew knew what he had done, his physical age and condition, that he had missed the 3 minutes of deco and that his computer was alarming out constantly - another safety issue I personal cannot accept.
3. As for tank questions - we traveled from the UK and pre booked the diving over the net. When we arrived at the shop the person there didn't know about it - no big deal, employees can't know everything. As it turns out, they gave us the wrong times for the boat though. We got them to fill our stage cylinders we brought with us for the next day, they then forgot to put them on the boat and had to go back and get them next day after we reminded them. We ordered 100cft cylinders and nitrox so we could extend our bottom time which they said was fine and confirmed it, when we got there the cylinders were not available and they had not loaded nitrox tanks for us. If we had not visited the shop the day before we dived we would have had all the above problems which could not have been sorted on the dock. As it was, with the very tight turnaround times and only an hours surface interval we would not have been able to utalise the extra capacity of the larger tanks due to the time restrictions they put on the dives - so why not tell us that instead of just agreeing to everything we asked for over the net and then ignoring it when we arrived?
4. As for the poor reefs, we know there are better ones out there. We told the lady at the kiosk we had been particularly dissapointed with the last dive - 15ft of baren sand with no life and a few coral heads. It turns out almost everyone on the afternoon dive was just qualified and they chose a suitable site for them - but they did not tell this to us as we would not have gone on such a dive, as I am sure many experianced divers reading this would have done, but not very customer focused?
So these are the reasons Terry posted as he did, and I am 100% behind it. If anyone feels the above is proffessional or even ok, then that is your personal choice, but I can guarantee you there are better and safer opperators out there.
This is not a post I wanted to do, but following the above reply which just tries to shoot down a legitimate post I feel it's justifiable. I don't want people to think that Captains Corner are a realy bad bunch or an unsafe organisation, they just did not live up to our expectations on the two days we dived with them. They do a lot of good stuff, and the other people on the boat who don't have the insite into diving we have will all tell you what a great time they had, and I'm sure they did.
So take from this what you will, it's just my opinion, you chose who you dive with.
Regards
James
