Boat captain abandons novice US divers in middle of the ocean in Thailand

[NomadJoe]

I am the owner of the dive shop and I'm not going to name my shop. I have emailed the news papers about this and the divers who dived with us.

I don't really see the problem in posting on here. There is no "case" it is just a story. I just wanted to reply to a lot of the assumptions people we posting on here.

I do not now what type of ship or boat was being used but i presume regular maintenance and checks where done on that ship and this should be easy to prove from log entries and invoices of spare parts that where bought for said boat.But as an ex first engineer on ships after what i have seen in Thailand i have my doubts about this international marine safety standards apparently dont apply to Thailand.

Why doesn't anyone watch the video before commenting? Look at the video. It was not a "ship" but what we call "longtail." They are built by local people to no international or national standard. Longtails are basically a long canoe with a used car engine and, in the case of Phuket/PhiPhi version, used car transmission mounted on a fulcrum with a large shaft running out the back to the propeller. There is no exhaust or emissions control. In any modern country they wouldn't be anywhere close to legal for many reasons. Maintenance checks? Not a chance. The word doesn't exist in the Thai language nor does the concept exist in the minds of Thai people. Ok, that last bit might be a running joke here, but those of us that have lived here a while believe it.

[Kudel]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

Good reply.

Nice to see a reply and not silence.

He should have ancored protected marine park or not ,he should have tought of those peoples safety and lives first coral reefs can grow back now excuse for this .

Youre emergency procedures have shown in this case that it has flaws and hopefully lessons have been learnt from this and procedures will be changed.

[NomadJoe]

First of all, in Thailand captain are only a captain of his boat, when people diving he have a rest or eating. Normally a diving companies rent the boat and captain have nothing to do with the dive operations. Most dive companies are operated by foreigner. When the days diving are completed, captain on the vessel get a signal to head back or change dive location.

So to blame the captain here are wrong I suppose and if captain have the responsibility for all divers, the dive operator are wrong doing.

I have been in the dive business many years and seen many divers left behind,

we always had a joke, try not to be the last boat who leave the dive site. Did we have other divers who not belong to us on our boat back to shore...yes.

So I would say, not blame the captain. The captain have nothing to do with the dive operations and should not.

So it comes back to us MR perfect Farrangs who run the dive operations, (some Thai runs shops as well)

Thailand are not any special, diver get left behind all over the world, but percentage are same I think, is just so many diving companies and divers yearly in Thailand so it comes on the map more often,

Left the business with no divers behind or death.

I see you many talk about the sharks, they are pretty harmfull, they have so many fish to hunt and don't really like people who gives a bubbling sound every few seconds. this could of course change with time and climate.

=====================================================================================================================================

Beautiful post. Most companies are operated by foreigners? How about 51% requiremenet of the company to be Thai? Happens everywhere? Fine. How about talking here and now and at least name the company and the boat captain.

Unless it's American owned. Americans can own 100% of a company in Thailand.

But that is a moot point because the poster you quoted said "operated" not "owned". With very few exceptions, dive companies are 49% owned by foreigners but 100% or close to 100% operated by those foreigners.

But as I have said, the "captain" was an independent longtail boat owner hired by the dive shop, just as every dive shop does. No point in naming the shop. I also think it is premature to name and shame the owner of the longtail seeing as the report is very light on details.

I find it very hard to believe there isn't much more to the story. The captain may very well have done the prudent thing and asked other boats to pick them up. This would very likely never have been relaid to the tourist divers, or may have been cut from the report by the reporters.

It's also relevent to mention that "boat captain" is an occupation reserved for Thai's. This is the primary reason why you have so many problems on the water like these. There is no culture of safety on the water like in most of our home countries. All the captains I know back home, if anything, overemphasis safety. With the ocean you cannot take chances, you cannot rely on "luck", which in Thailand, in my experience, is all they rely on.

[FiftyTwo]

"nearby cliffs which were too steep to climb."

So they were hardly "in the middle of the ocean" then!

What stupid comments!

Have you ever tried to climb even a modestly rocky area with a full set of diving gear on? I don't think so, otherwise you wouldn't have made this stupid comment. Steep cliffs and sea swell don't go together too well I can tell you from past experience.

If you read the story, they say that they were abandoned in about a five foot swell and as an ex diver I can tell you that it can be extremely difficult to spot divers in the water in those kind of conditions from small boats. You don't have to be "in the middle of the ocean" to have some turd ruin your life. One of the biggest problems in this kind of scenario, is that divers can get seperated by currents and then you've really got a problem and add to this that the sun was setting; it all adds up to a very nasty scenario where people could easily have lost their lives. It was extremely lucky that one of the divers had some form of inflatable device (it didn't say what in the article) that was most fortunately seen by the passing snorkeling boat that came to their rescue. The so called 'Captain' should be prosecuted for risking the lives of the divers. Even If he had engine problems - he should have stayed on station on an anchor line. This dive company should be 'named and shamed', before the morons do it again and loose somebody.

These weren't novice divers, they were recently certified divers (entitled to dive independently of instructors)

The dive gear was rented, anyway in an emergency you dump the tanks and weights, no need to drag it around.

Where was their emergency strobe light? I carried one on every dive since the day I certified. Cheap and effective.

Captain behaved foolishly, should be punished. But for all we know he left to get a replacement boat.

PS

Once in the UK we were diving from a small boat, kept finding all this good 'boat stuff' underwater, our dive boat had sunk while we were on the dive, bit of a shocker when we surfaced and found a rescue boat waiting.

Edited November 16, 2013 by FiftyTwo

[BwindiBoy]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

There have been a few comments on here recently suggesting that Thai's are stupid. I find these comments insulting to the Thai people.

The irony is that the person making the comment cannot even spell DRAWER correctly!!!!!

[ginjag]

You really do have to question the topic headlines at times, this headline invites posters to think "HOW AWFULL" middle of the ocean --does that mean OFF SHORE ?? no wonder posters argue with each other--when they are led into thinking entirely different to what really happened.

[NomadJoe]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

Thanks for clearing this up, Chris. I know there was more to the story. Glad to hear I was right. Media in the states has become nothing more than tabloids.

[Mudcrab]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

Good reply.

Nice to see a reply and not silence.

He should have ancored protected marine park or not ,he should have tought of those peoples safety and lives first coral reefs can grow back now excuse for this .

Youre emergency procedures have shown in this case that it has flaws and hopefully lessons have been learnt from this and procedures will be changed.

Anchoring in a protected marine park, especially in parts of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is pretty well a hanging offence, the environment is taken seriously. Coral reef can take many many years to recover from damage.

The comments about sharks not eating people...hahahaha. Not sure if the nurse shark people are referring too is the same as the grey nurse shark......but the grey nurse has eaten people in the past.

Many reports over the years about people missing presumed drowned has been disproven by survivors of various mishaps...they were eaten. Google Ray Boundy and the New Venture which foundered off Townsville. The Tiger shark is a nasty bit of gear..

[Andre0720]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

So you came to spoil a good story with facts....

Chok dee

[mortiboy]

Hey Captain?

Why you go leave them poor farangs in the ocean?

Reply..... OH I forget HAAAAAAAA! Mai ben rai

[Mudcrab]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

There have been a few comments on here recently suggesting that Thai's are stupid. I find these comments insulting to the Thai people.

Apologist alert....

Basher alert

[Silents]

First of all, in Thailand captain are only a captain of his boat, when people diving he have a rest or eating. Normally a diving companies rent the boat and captain have nothing to do with the dive operations. Most dive companies are operated by foreigner. When the days diving are completed, captain on the vessel get a signal to head back or change dive location.

So to blame the captain here are wrong I suppose and if captain have the responsibility for all divers, the dive operator are wrong doing.

I have been in the dive business many years and seen many divers left behind,

we always had a joke, try not to be the last boat who leave the dive site. Did we have other divers who not belong to us on our boat back to shore...yes.

So I would say, not blame the captain. The captain have nothing to do with the dive operations and should not.

So it comes back to us MR perfect Farrangs who run the dive operations, (some Thai runs shops as well)

Thailand are not any special, diver get left behind all over the world, but percentage are same I think, is just so many diving companies and divers yearly in Thailand so it comes on the map more often,

Left the business with no divers behind or death.

I see you many talk about the sharks, they are pretty harmfull, they have so many fish to hunt and don't really like people who gives a bubbling sound every few seconds. this could of course change with time and climate.

Am I reading this right? So, you are claiming that the captain of the boat has no responsibility for the passengers safe return? Are you for real? Personally I don't really care that it has happened in other places but I don't for a minute believe your bull that this is common.

The main difference here is that if a Captain does do this say in Australia there are most certainly serious consequences and the attitude towards the Captain will be very bad. Here however you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no value attached to a human life here.

I mean, what will happen to the captain? Are the police now looking for him because it could have been 6 deaths / disappearances we are reading about,, I suspect no and if it is no then it's disgusting. lastly, with your attitude towards this I would avoid you and your diving company like a large hole in the head.

First of all, you could read the shop owner answer about this story.

If a boat have 50 divers and say 15 staff, How could it be the captains fault if left behind 2 divers, Like I see it, it's the dive operators responsibility to 100%,

You do read sometime divers get left behind and how many do we not read about or even come out. or almost get left behind when the head pops up to the surface and captain or dive companies says he only moved position of the boat.

My attitude is not leave the captain alone on the boat, always have one trained staff beside him.

[T_Dog]

Guess these folks learned about the intrinsic thai culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiK7BTXfYU

[Kudel]

First of all, in Thailand captain are only a captain of his boat, when people diving he have a rest or eating. Normally a diving companies rent the boat and captain have nothing to do with the dive operations. Most dive companies are operated by foreigner. When the days diving are completed, captain on the vessel get a signal to head back or change dive location.

So to blame the captain here are wrong I suppose and if captain have the responsibility for all divers, the dive operator are wrong doing.

I have been in the dive business many years and seen many divers left behind,

we always had a joke, try not to be the last boat who leave the dive site. Did we have other divers who not belong to us on our boat back to shore...yes.

So I would say, not blame the captain. The captain have nothing to do with the dive operations and should not.

So it comes back to us MR perfect Farrangs who run the dive operations, (some Thai runs shops as well)

Thailand are not any special, diver get left behind all over the world, but percentage are same I think, is just so many diving companies and divers yearly in Thailand so it comes on the map more often,

Left the business with no divers behind or death.

I see you many talk about the sharks, they are pretty harmfull, they have so many fish to hunt and don't really like people who gives a bubbling sound every few seconds. this could of course change with time and climate.

Am I reading this right? So, you are claiming that the captain of the boat has no responsibility for the passengers safe return? Are you for real? Personally I don't really care that it has happened in other places but I don't for a minute believe your bull that this is common.

The main difference here is that if a Captain does do this say in Australia there are most certainly serious consequences and the attitude towards the Captain will be very bad. Here however you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no value attached to a human life here.

I mean, what will happen to the captain? Are the police now looking for him because it could have been 6 deaths / disappearances we are reading about,, I suspect no and if it is no then it's disgusting. lastly, with your attitude towards this I would avoid you and your diving company like a large hole in the head.

First of all, you could read the shop owner answer about this story.

If a boat have 50 divers and say 15 staff, How could it be the captains fault if left behind 2 divers, Like I see it, it's the dive operators responsibility to 100%,

You do read sometime divers get left behind and how many do we not read about or even come out. or almost get left behind when the head pops up to the surface and captain or dive companies says he only moved position of the boat.

My attitude is not leave the captain alone on the boat, always have one trained staff beside him.

Trained in what exactly then?@silence it is the skipper or the captains sole responsabilety to take care of the lives and safety of who ever sets foot on his boat or ship no matter what dive instructor or dive company says look it up .Many flaws in their procedure as i can see.

[catweazle]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

Hi Chris,

thanks for clearing this up! The title of the article alone rang a bell since the divers were absolutely NOT in the middle of the ocean, but close to an island that has steep cliffs, yes, but I could also see vegetation and a gently sloping area there too, so that the divers - if they were truly abandoned - could have dropped the gear and somehow could have climbed up there, perhaps even using the gear to get a foodhold and pull up the divers one by one... but certainly they were never in a live-threatening situation in those 30 or so minutes. So why the media hype?

I owned and operated several dive businesses and liveaboards in Thailand, both as co-owner and co-founder, with a $#itload of responsibilities and daily tasks weighing down on my shoulders, have been shipwrecked for 7 hours near Koh Rock some 22 years ago and had my fair amount of brushes with death during my 3.000+ dives, thus I know what I am talking about and also what you are talking about, and this said I can feel and understand your anger and disappointment about media witch hunts like this one.

I hope for you that this latest media (and customer) $#ckup will pass by without harming you and your dive company. I know how tough the scuba industry in Thailand is and how difficult it is to survive with a dive shop in Thailand these days. I was lucky to get out of the dive industry just before all started to go downhill many years ago... And I perfectly am aware of the fact that a media glitch like this one could mean the ends of a scuba business here in Thailand - the "poor" guests, who were so dreadfully "threatened" by those hyper-dangerous blacktip reef sharks (perhaps some of the shyest bunch of sharks ever and never heard of to attack divers or snorkellers) and "left in the middle of the ocean" >near an island for Pete's sake!!!!<, don't know that just because they want their 5 minutes of fame on Fox News or similar, your whole business could be belly up in a few days just because of their greed and ignorance.

As a foreign dive shop co-owner in Thailand, one has the TAT, immigration, national park, PADI, NAUI, the police, the harbor master, the boat registration office, labour department, the tax man, the clients and even the own staff (oh, a newbie dive instructor is such an important figure and even though he never had his/her own business knows all the things you do wrong and could do it so much better if he/she were boss), all are breathing down your neck, while you as a dive shop owner manage to just get by... I dislike ignorance and superficiality - both have been performed by those diving guests of yours and the media, but not by your company or the captain - all followed protocol and evidently help was on the way and the captain did not "just leave"...

At least ThaiVisa - if the TV team themselves believe that they are good journalists - should (after verifying the facts) be man enough to hammer up an apology of some kind to counterbalance what I would call simply "shoddy and superficial journalism".

Edited November 16, 2013 by catweazle

[Genericnic]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

You almost got me to alter my opinion of what was reported. Your description of what occurred still does not indicate that he was still in the area when the divers surfaced from the dive. You do seem to indicate that it was at least 30 minutes before the drivers were picked up. From a legal standpoint, as a retired lawyer who did a fair amount of personal injury/liability work, I could make a very strong case for abandonment by the captain if in fact, he was not in the area when the surfaced. I think I could make a good case for company liability as well as he was your employee. For your own protection (I really didn't get a feeling that these folks will come looking to sue you or the captain), even if you don't feel that this was a serious incident, I hope you have notified your liability carrier of a potential claim. Oh, and if you are a PADI shop you will most likely be hearing from Quality Management soon as well.

Good luck with it.

David

Note: Edited to help catweazle's blood pressure go down.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Genericnic

[Andre0720]

Guess these folks learned about the intrinsic thai culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiK7BTXfYU

If we compare this with the post of the dive co. owner,

Looks more like a couple who wants a share of royalties from a revived fad for Open Water movie.

[venturalaw]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

I've witnessed this attitude here multiple times. My belief - they care about themselves and money. Other's lives are of little to no consequence. Otherwise the boat captain would have at least sent another boat out to retrieve his customers. But, as my wife (Thai) pointed out, to send out another boat would have cost the captain money. Hence it most likely didn't even occur to him.

[NomadJoe]

You are not dealing with "the sharpest knives in the draw", intelligence, education all leave alot to be desired in many countries. People just blindly expect things to be the same wherever they go, they are not, and they dont stop to think about where they are and who they are actually dealing with.If they know what they are doing, if they are trained, if they have experience? Or is it just some local driven purely by money and has no clue as to the implications of his actions and unknowingly put lives in danger.

I've witnessed this attitude here multiple times. My belief - they care about themselves and money. Other's lives are of little to no consequence. Otherwise the boat captain would have at least sent another boat out to retrieve his customers. But, as my wife (Thai) pointed out, to send out another boat would have cost the captain money. Hence it most likely didn't even occur to him.

Please read the response from the dive shop owner. Another boat was called and indeed picked them up. This is a non-story.

[NomadJoe]

First of all, in Thailand captain are only a captain of his boat, when people diving he have a rest or eating. Normally a diving companies rent the boat and captain have nothing to do with the dive operations. Most dive companies are operated by foreigner. When the days diving are completed, captain on the vessel get a signal to head back or change dive location.

So to blame the captain here are wrong I suppose and if captain have the responsibility for all divers, the dive operator are wrong doing.

I have been in the dive business many years and seen many divers left behind,

we always had a joke, try not to be the last boat who leave the dive site. Did we have other divers who not belong to us on our boat back to shore...yes.

So I would say, not blame the captain. The captain have nothing to do with the dive operations and should not.

So it comes back to us MR perfect Farrangs who run the dive operations, (some Thai runs shops as well)

Thailand are not any special, diver get left behind all over the world, but percentage are same I think, is just so many diving companies and divers yearly in Thailand so it comes on the map more often,

Left the business with no divers behind or death.

I see you many talk about the sharks, they are pretty harmfull, they have so many fish to hunt and don't really like people who gives a bubbling sound every few seconds. this could of course change with time and climate.

Am I reading this right? So, you are claiming that the captain of the boat has no responsibility for the passengers safe return? Are you for real? Personally I don't really care that it has happened in other places but I don't for a minute believe your bull that this is common.

The main difference here is that if a Captain does do this say in Australia there are most certainly serious consequences and the attitude towards the Captain will be very bad. Here however you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no value attached to a human life here.

I mean, what will happen to the captain? Are the police now looking for him because it could have been 6 deaths / disappearances we are reading about,, I suspect no and if it is no then it's disgusting. lastly, with your attitude towards this I would avoid you and your diving company like a large hole in the head.

First of all, you could read the shop owner answer about this story.

If a boat have 50 divers and say 15 staff, How could it be the captains fault if left behind 2 divers, Like I see it, it's the dive operators responsibility to 100%,

You do read sometime divers get left behind and how many do we not read about or even come out. or almost get left behind when the head pops up to the surface and captain or dive companies says he only moved position of the boat.

My attitude is not leave the captain alone on the boat, always have one trained staff beside him.

But there weren't 50 divers. There were 6. And the only person on the boat was the captain, perhaps another helper. The staff were left behind as well. How can the staff be responsible for that?

[metisdead]

A post containing a "nonsense" comment on moderation has been removed.

[Silents]

First of all, in Thailand captain are only a captain of his boat, when people diving he have a rest or eating. Normally a diving companies rent the boat and captain have nothing to do with the dive operations. Most dive companies are operated by foreigner. When the days diving are completed, captain on the vessel get a signal to head back or change dive location.

So to blame the captain here are wrong I suppose and if captain have the responsibility for all divers, the dive operator are wrong doing.

I have been in the dive business many years and seen many divers left behind,

we always had a joke, try not to be the last boat who leave the dive site. Did we have other divers who not belong to us on our boat back to shore...yes.

So I would say, not blame the captain. The captain have nothing to do with the dive operations and should not.

So it comes back to us MR perfect Farrangs who run the dive operations, (some Thai runs shops as well)

Thailand are not any special, diver get left behind all over the world, but percentage are same I think, is just so many diving companies and divers yearly in Thailand so it comes on the map more often,

Left the business with no divers behind or death.

I see you many talk about the sharks, they are pretty harmfull, they have so many fish to hunt and don't really like people who gives a bubbling sound every few seconds. this could of course change with time and climate.

Am I reading this right? So, you are claiming that the captain of the boat has no responsibility for the passengers safe return? Are you for real? Personally I don't really care that it has happened in other places but I don't for a minute believe your bull that this is common.

The main difference here is that if a Captain does do this say in Australia there are most certainly serious consequences and the attitude towards the Captain will be very bad. Here however you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no value attached to a human life here.

I mean, what will happen to the captain? Are the police now looking for him because it could have been 6 deaths / disappearances we are reading about,, I suspect no and if it is no then it's disgusting. lastly, with your attitude towards this I would avoid you and your diving company like a large hole in the head.

First of all, you could read the shop owner answer about this story.

If a boat have 50 divers and say 15 staff, How could it be the captains fault if left behind 2 divers, Like I see it, it's the dive operators responsibility to 100%,

You do read sometime divers get left behind and how many do we not read about or even come out. or almost get left behind when the head pops up to the surface and captain or dive companies says he only moved position of the boat.

My attitude is not leave the captain alone on the boat, always have one trained staff beside him.

Trained in what exactly then?@silence it is the skipper or the captains sole responsabilety to take care of the lives and safety of who ever sets foot on his boat or ship no matter what dive instructor or dive company says look it up .Many flaws in their procedure as i can see.

You should start a new thread, with this legal questions and how to run a boat.

I answer what I think...

You could have right in legal aspects, so if you are happy that customers counts in by the captain every day, is up to you.

The captain should drive the boat and dive operator should have a check list small or big to follow and have at least one responsible staff or the whole team and of course work together with the captain/driver.

If you have a staff on the boat, they should be trained in some medic and o2 and be surface cover if some divers pop up long way from the boat ect.

So you mean it's many flaws when I say you should have at least one staff example a divemaster on the boat when people diving. I would say that would be a minimum for me if I go on a diving trip. Better more safe then sorry.

[Basil B]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

You almost got me to alter my opinion of what was reported. Your description of what occurred still does not indicate that he was still in the area when the divers surfaced from the dive. You do seem to indicate that it was at least 30 minutes before the drivers were picked up. From a legal standpoint, as a retired lawyer who did a fair amount of personal injury/liability work, I could make a very strong case for abandonment by the captain if in fact, he was not in the area when the surfaced. I think I could make a good case for company liability as well as he was your employee. For your own protection (I really didn't get a feeling that these folks will come looking to sue you or the captain), even if you don't feel that this was a serious incident, I hope you have notified your liability carrier of a potential claim. Oh, and if you are a PADI shop you will most likely be hearing from Quality Management soon as well.

Good luck with it.

David

Note: Edited to help catweazle's blood pressure go down.

Abandonment?

They were with dive instructors even though the were citified divers, as pointed out the boat had a problem, assistance was on its way, if the boat had stayed on station it could have ended up on the rocks, of course you could make a case, but then I assume you get paid win or loose.

[Westaurel]

Making bad advertisement again for Thailand !

A bad thai remake of american movie Open Water. Happily for them it wasn't finish as in the movie: divers killed by sharks !

Hope they will suit law against the diving company it's a scandal it happened !

[T_Dog]

Guess these folks learned about the intrinsic thai culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiK7BTXfYU

If we compare this with the post of the dive co. owner,

Looks more like a couple who wants a share of royalties from a revived fad for Open Water movie.

There is no excuse. The boat owner should have dropped the hook and waited for the divers and explained the situation. There was no need to rush here.

[Silents]

First of all, in Thailand captain are only a captain of his boat, when people diving he have a rest or eating. Normally a diving companies rent the boat and captain have nothing to do with the dive operations. Most dive companies are operated by foreigner. When the days diving are completed, captain on the vessel get a signal to head back or change dive location.

So to blame the captain here are wrong I suppose and if captain have the responsibility for all divers, the dive operator are wrong doing.

I have been in the dive business many years and seen many divers left behind,

we always had a joke, try not to be the last boat who leave the dive site. Did we have other divers who not belong to us on our boat back to shore...yes.

So I would say, not blame the captain. The captain have nothing to do with the dive operations and should not.

So it comes back to us MR perfect Farrangs who run the dive operations, (some Thai runs shops as well)

Thailand are not any special, diver get left behind all over the world, but percentage are same I think, is just so many diving companies and divers yearly in Thailand so it comes on the map more often,

Left the business with no divers behind or death.

I see you many talk about the sharks, they are pretty harmfull, they have so many fish to hunt and don't really like people who gives a bubbling sound every few seconds. this could of course change with time and climate.

Am I reading this right? So, you are claiming that the captain of the boat has no responsibility for the passengers safe return? Are you for real? Personally I don't really care that it has happened in other places but I don't for a minute believe your bull that this is common.

The main difference here is that if a Captain does do this say in Australia there are most certainly serious consequences and the attitude towards the Captain will be very bad. Here however you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no value attached to a human life here.

I mean, what will happen to the captain? Are the police now looking for him because it could have been 6 deaths / disappearances we are reading about,, I suspect no and if it is no then it's disgusting. lastly, with your attitude towards this I would avoid you and your diving company like a large hole in the head.

First of all, you could read the shop owner answer about this story.

If a boat have 50 divers and say 15 staff, How could it be the captains fault if left behind 2 divers, Like I see it, it's the dive operators responsibility to 100%,

You do read sometime divers get left behind and how many do we not read about or even come out. or almost get left behind when the head pops up to the surface and captain or dive companies says he only moved position of the boat.

My attitude is not leave the captain alone on the boat, always have one trained staff beside him.

But there weren't 50 divers. There were 6. And the only person on the boat was the captain, perhaps another helper. The staff were left behind as well. How can the staff be responsible for that?

The whole thing is, they should have some sort of trained staff on the boat when diving he/she had probably not left the divers in first place, the dive operator should not send out a boat without knowing that at least one staff is left on the boat during the dive and then I don't mean the captain and his wife or son.

It was absolutely not the staff fault how where diving. The staff who should have been on the boat, could have dived down attached a rope carefully around a rock or in emergency around a coral to secure the boat END of my story.

Edited November 16, 2013 by metisdead
Repaired the reply.

[NomadJoe]

^ Briandajew, please read the shop owners comments he posted several hours ago now. He didn't just "bugger off."

[NomadJoe]

Am I reading this right? So, you are claiming that the captain of the boat has no responsibility for the passengers safe return? Are you for real? Personally I don't really care that it has happened in other places but I don't for a minute believe your bull that this is common.

The main difference here is that if a Captain does do this say in Australia there are most certainly serious consequences and the attitude towards the Captain will be very bad. Here however you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no value attached to a human life here.

I mean, what will happen to the captain? Are the police now looking for him because it could have been 6 deaths / disappearances we are reading about,, I suspect no and if it is no then it's disgusting. lastly, with your attitude towards this I would avoid you and your diving company like a large hole in the head.

First of all, you could read the shop owner answer about this story.

If a boat have 50 divers and say 15 staff, How could it be the captains fault if left behind 2 divers, Like I see it, it's the dive operators responsibility to 100%,

You do read sometime divers get left behind and how many do we not read about or even come out. or almost get left behind when the head pops up to the surface and captain or dive companies says he only moved position of the boat.

My attitude is not leave the captain alone on the boat, always have one trained staff beside him.

But there weren't 50 divers. There were 6. And the only person on the boat was the captain, perhaps another helper. The staff were left behind as well. How can the staff be responsible for that?

The whole thing is, there should have some sort of trained staff on the boat when diving he/she had probably not left the divers in first place, the dive operator should not send out a boat without knowing that at least one staff is left on the boat during the dive and then I don't mean the captain or his wife or son.

It was absolutely not the staff fault how where diving. The one left on the boat could have dived down attached a rope carefully around a rock or in emergency around a coral to secure the boat END of my story.

1) The vast majority of dive boats here don't use dry tourleaders. Not necessary. Certainly not on a small longtail boat like this one.

2) The boat did not "leave the divers' He called for a replacement boat which picked the divers up, albiet 30 minutes late.

3) Your last paragraph is ridiculous.

[Briandajew]

^ Briandajew, please read the shop owners comments he posted several hours ago now. He didn't just "bugger off."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_captain

There is absolutely NO excuse for leaving divers - so all your BS does not change the fact that the captain deserted the people diving!

And, if your boat had enough power to return to shore for whatever reapirs it needed, it should have waited for those people that were underwater at the time!

Edited November 16, 2013 by Briandajew

[catweazle]

I've just joined this forum to post a reply. I am the owner of this dive company this story is about.

Firstly I'd like to say that I can not believe that this have made international news. Please don't believe everything that you read in the american news or the daily mail for that matter.

I would like to explain myself and my company. We have a 100% safety record in our shop and pride ourselves in this.

So some of the events in the story did happen. Our boat did breakdown but at know point did our captain abandon anyone. It is not a common occurrence that our boat breaks down but he have strict set procedure in place so that if something happens all our customers are safe.

During the dive the captain was having battery problems on the boat. The customers in article insisted on seeing sharks so we went to that site. On that dive site there is no buoy lines to moor up on and we can not drop an anchor as it is a national marine park and could damage coral.

The captain is employed with us and is a good captain and he followed the procedures correctly. When he realised that he could not fix the boat he called back to our manager at the dive shop who organised another boat to collect them. We radioed another boat that we knew was in the area to go and collect the divers.

This did take a little bit time around 30 minutes in total.

The instructor who was with the customers has been diving in Thailand for over 10 years and knows the shop procedures. So knew they would be fine and was assuring the divers this.

There were shark in the water as the divers requested us to go to the shark site but the sharks in question are Black Tip Reef sharks. If you don't know your sharks they range from around 50cm-150cm and live on small reef fish. There has never been a known attack from these types of shark as they are quite timid creatures and scared of divers.

So at no time was anyone in danger of getting attacked by a shark!

When climbing onto the other boat that arrived the collect the divers unfortunately the lady in the video did slip. She hit her chin on the boat and we are very sorry about this. Our dive shop has medical insurance so we told the divers to go to the hospital to have a look at her chin and used the medical insurance through the dive shop to cover the costs.

As you can see this was not our most perfect day out diving but all my staff followed the correct procedure to ensure the safety of these divers.

We apologised to the customers and explained everything to them. They said they understood what had happen but at know point did they say they felt "abandoned at sea"

I am just guess when they got home they wanted there 5 minutes of fame. It is just unfortunate that there limelight brings such a bad name to the diving in thailand and to my shop.

Diving standard in thailand are very high compared with other part of the world and at our shop we stick to these high standard.

I can't actually believe that I have to reply and defend my shop and diving in Thailand to such a ridiculous article.

You almost got me to alter my opinion of what was reported until you said that he left the area with divers down. If his boat was running well enough to get back to shore, he should have pulled back far enough from the rocks to be safe but stayed in the area until either the divers surfaced or a second boat arrived. From a legal standpoint, as a retired lawyer who did a fair amount of personal injury/liability work, I could make a very strong case for abandonment by the captain and, if that is your company policy, I think I could make a good case for company liability as well. For your own protection, even if you don't feel that this was a serious incident, I hope you have notified your liability carrier of a potential claim. Oh, and if you are a PADI shop you will most likely be hearing from Quality Management soon as well.

Good luck with it.

David

In the dictionary, I find journalism, but after reading your brainless rant here, I find we should add "tosserlism" to dictionaries worldwide.

Where please in Chris' statement it says that the captain went back to shore? "He called back to our manager" it says - are you aware of the fact that in 2013 there are radio and mobile phones to "call" anyone over a long distance and perhaps from a boat?

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about! Your childish and bitchy PADI quality management blabla rounds it all up. I bet you were the one back in your class who always told on others trying to get extra points by pointing fingers...

Serious crackdown on tossers please!!!

Well the dive shop answered :they insisted on seing sharks after having troubles with the boat.So it is very clear that the captain or skipper made a big mistake by not saying no still his responsabilty.

Apparently youre the tosser .

He said there were battery problems during the dive, and nothing about sailing to the shark site site after the boat already was in trouble. If you want to be recognized as more than just a greasy smart ass in this forum, apparently you should do your homework before you post such nonsense, Toss..., ahemm, pal !!!

Edited November 16, 2013 by catweazle