DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2025 ISSUE 410

Beware of the Corner Cutters

It’s hard to choose who you pay to take you diving. Some operators are very good and provide an excellent, safe and highly professional service. Others are not so good and are best avoided. In many countries, no governing bodies inspect dive operators to verify their standards or performance, nor are penalties imposed for negligence or inadequate safety procedures. Over the years, friends planning a dive holiday have asked me for recommendations, and I can usually give them a few operations to choose from – people I know and trust or who come well-recommended. They then narrow the list down to a couple of places, write to each and make their choice based on the response they get. Everybody wins – the visitors get some great diving, and the good operators get some business. It doesn’t always go smoothly, which of course is why this is the subject of this month’s In Deep column. A while ago, two former colleagues were planning a day’s diving during their holiday in Southeast Asia. They told me what they wanted to see, and I gave them a list of the best sites and suggested a few operators in the area. A few weeks later, I wrote and asked how the trip went. “Terrible”, they said. “We booked a three-tank trip out to the sites you recommended. When we arrived at the dock, they tried to get us to agree to a change of plan, but we insisted on going to the places they had prom ised. This led to a big argument between the divemaster and the boat captain. After the first dive, on the way to the second site, the boat ran out of petrol, so we spent an hour bobbing around in high waves, waiting for someone to bring out a jerry can. The lost time meant that we only did two dives instead of three. We asked for a refund, but they refused and blamed us for the problems we had en countered. Oh yes, and while we were hanging out in mid-ocean trying to avoid being sick and getting sun burnt, we were chatting with the divemaster, and he ad mitted that he had never been out to these dive sites before, nor was he a qualified divemaster. Our trip was part of his training. The whole thing was a dreadful ex perience.” I was horrified and asked them which of the operators I had suggested was responsible for this disastrous day. “Oh, none of them,” they replied. “We thought all the

places you recommended were too expensive, so we decided to wait until we got there. Soon after we arrived, we met a guy on the beach who offered us a great deal, so we went for that instead.” The Corner Cutters Everywhere in the world, scuba diving businesses that run their dive trips properly have similar costs, work on a similar profit margin and ask a similar price. If you are offered a trip for significantly less than the going rate, therefore, it is likely that there will be something missing. A corner or two will have been cut somewhere. You get what you pay for and, if you pay less, you will get less. It is often easy to see where the cheaper operators are saving money. For instance, liveaboard cabins may have bunks instead of double beds and buffet lunches instead of a la carte meals. Land-based dive centres may use ancient trucks instead of comfortable passenger vans and have rusty, faded old rental gear instead of new models. A trip on a large boat with many divers and a high staff-to-diver ratio can be expected to cost less than a personalised trip on a smaller boat with a personal dive guide. All this is clear. You know what you are getting and can choose according to your budget and needs. However, some operators also save money in ways that are less easy to detect, as my friends discovered to their cost.

68

DIVE LOG Australasia #410 - February‘25

www.divelog.net.au