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

[PoetDrunkInTheBoat]

Sharks? People pay a fortune to try to see sharks when they dive. As long as it's not a Great White Shark, there is little danger. Usually sharks will head the other way as soon as they hear the diver's bubbles, so all you get to see, generally, is the south end of a north-bound shark. When we dive in Palau, and drop down on "Blue Corner" dive site, we are usually in the middle of 20-50 large gray reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, and the bottom always has a handful of sleeping white-tip sharks. In the Galapagos, divers will dive deep just to swim with huge schools of hammer-head sharks. Scuba divers aren't shark food, any more than humans are bear food. Don't disturb them and they won't disturb you. (The Great White is one the four species of shark on record that will attack humans without provocation... out of over 450 different species of sharks... ) Don't fall of Hollywood Hysteria... Freddy really isn't waiting in the shadows. Neither is Jaws.

Again, not to be pedantic, but:

great white, tiger, bull, oceanic white tip, hammerhead, gray reef, lemon, mako, silky, blue blackitip reef, Galapagos, cookiecutter . . .

Some of these rarely attack unprovoked or where the water is clear, but still, they all have done so, with most having made at least some fatal attacks.

However, the fear of sharks is not too rational given the reality. Unless you were on the Indianapolis or the Nova Scotia, your chances of getting attacked, much less killed, by a shark are extremely remote.

While I appreciate your post for 'it's' accuracy, if you check these attacks you'll discover that most have been against 'surfers,' not scuba divers.

Think about food for large sharks... seals, turtles, and fish, etc. Now try and visualize what the shark sees when he's below a surfer laying on his board... arms out, legs out, and a long thin body, all in silhouette, looking just like a tasty seal. Mr. Shark swims in, takes a great big bite, "Eeeeuuuwww! This doesn't taste like a seal!" and swims off. Have you ever heard of a shark attack where the shark stayed around to finish the meal? It just doesn't happen. People (and surf boards) are not shark food. Granted, when I ask my wife to swim closer to the feeding sharks so I can get a better picture, and she gets too close, the sharks will begin to make threatening, aggressive movements, which to my wife is quick to listen, and beats a hasty retreat. To date, no shark has moved to follow her. They just continue to gobble up fish.

Surfers, people playing in the shallows, people wading in Lake Nicaragua, long distance swimmers, snorklers, but yes, I failed to note the SCUBA caveat. There was a diver, though, killed by a hammerhead in Florida 10 or 15 years ago.

One student at BUD/S, the school where SEALs are trained, was taken off Catalina during a training dive, but that was probably a great white. That was the only SEAL or UDT who has ever been recorded as being killed by a shark, and as a whole, they have logged in quite a bit of time underwater.

Killed by Sharks?

I would say that there are probably many, many more people killed by Sharks than you might know.

Of course, I am talking about those in China who gulp down Shark's Fin while drinking ridiculously large amounts of Cognac.

No doubt, no doubt, many choke on the Shark's Fin,

And die.

[Ulic]

A great human interest story. I would be surprised if it did not make many newspapers around the world.

Not so good the stories that are coming out of Thailand. Whether it involves tourism, business or politics.

[Charlie Cheap]

I can understand accidentally leaving one or two behind.

But to 'deliberately' leave six divers behind is just plain unacceptable.

There is no excuse.

The captain should face criminal charges for this.

Criminal charges, you mean like 500 baht fine?

I was thinking the same thing. 500 Baht fine for the "boat driver". 5,000 to 10,000 Baht fine to the people stranded for felonious touristing in need of help and in distress.

[khunron13]

It doesn't matter what the reason was for leaving them. Attempted murder charges need to be filed!

[bangkokpoppys]

Oh come on. Somchai, the boat captain, probably had something important to get to, like a meal of fried crickets with a caffeine drink, and had to get right back to the mainland. This is Thailand, any excuse will do.

More like the brother-in-law finally tracked down a new set of second hand fenders and guards for the family honda, and they needed painting.

[oz93666]

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.

That national average IQ of 87 bobs up again

This is the real tradgedy, only breastfeeding and better nutrition can help.

[dighambara]

Times like that you can say a prayer of thanks to the fishermen that killed all the sharks in the ocean and the Chinese that ate them all. Amen.

Paraise world wide devastation instead of admonishing the boat captain - very smart..!!

FYI - Sharks usually do not attack people. Blood in the water, or looking like prey can get them to attack, but tests have shown sharks prefer natural prey to human flesh.

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.

Again, it is education. How does a test of knowledge (IQ test) reflect intelligence, when the subject has no experience in that area. Some years ago US IQ tests were evaluated and found to be useless. As a test of the idea, tests were rewritten using inner city lingo - naturally most surbabanites did poorly, while city folks did much better.

You are, of course, referring to cultural differences, where temporary wealth means more than life and where 'pecking order' can mean life or death.

[culicine]

Thailand - You pays your money, You takes your chances.

and it would bug the heck out of my to pay 500 baht at the airport to cover mistakes made by Thai tourism operators.

[FiftyTwo]

no not kidding some people react different physically and mentally to this kind of situations ,remember they where novice divers.

They were certified divers, qualified to dive without instructors.

IMHO once people are certified to dive unaided, a professional journalist should no longer use the word 'novice'.

[SantiSuk]

Oh come on. Somchai, the boat captain, probably had something important to get to, like a meal of fried crickets with a caffeine drink, and had to get right back to the mainland. This is Thailand, any excuse will do.

More like the brother-in-law finally tracked down a new set of second hand fenders and guards for the family honda, and they needed painting.

More like baa ..... or even more like yaa baa.

[therealjride]

Miracle Thailand!

[FolkGuitar]

no not kidding some people react different physically and mentally to this kind of situations ,remember they where novice divers.

They were certified divers, qualified to dive without instructors.

IMHO once people are certified to dive unaided, a professional journalist should no longer use the word 'novice'.

Please excuse the semantics, but I beg to differ with you on this one. These days a person can get certified as an Open Water Diver by P.A.D.I in just three days. They really have nothing but the bare bones ideas of how to handle different situations, and certainly no experience to call upon. I have to call that 'novice.' If they are not 'adventure junkies,' getting left out in the water can be an unsettling experience, which is again why I said it was the responsibility of the two instructors to deal with control of the situation. They have the experience.

When diving in the US, with its 'let's sue everyone' nature, I'll use my Master Scuba Diver certification when joining a dive boat rather than my DiveMaster cert. There are too many cases of people suing everyone on the boat with what can be construed as 'professional liability' even if not employed by the boat or shop.

And I can relate to the problem that the new divers were in, as I too ran into a similar situation on my very first dive after certification...

Diving the 'Shark Island' site off of Koh Tao, I was buddied up with a woman who was also doing her first dive after certification (we had both been certified by the same teacher on Palau Tioman in Malaysia.) There were two other divers, both experienced, but didn't want to get saddled with us newbies. The farang DM for the dive elected to stay in the boat rather than make the dive with us. That was an error on his part. (He wanted to flirt with the beach bunnies staying on board.) There was a very strong current at the site, so we planned our dive to swim into the current for 2/3rds the time, and drift back 1/3rd as we'd been taught. Unfortunately, our inexperience didn't factor in the 5-minute safety stop and the distance we'd drift during that time. We were novices. The current was strong and we surfaced more than a 1/4 mile away from the boat, and quickly drifting further and further away from it. As novices we had no signalling devices. We knew enough not to try shouting, and I could whistle loudly with my fingers, but we were too far away to be heard. We both were wearing neon-colored fins so took them off and began waving. The seas were a bit rough so we were bobbing up and down, with our arms up and the fins in the air, but the DM was more interested in getting laid than doing his job. Fortunately, the woman I was with was not prone to panic, and neither am I. We knew we weren't going to drown, and it was just a matter of time until either someone on the boat saw our fins or a fishing boat spotted us. As it happens, another shop's boat spotted us after about an hour and picked us up. We both had words with the DM, as did the owner of his shop, and the story got around the island quickly. In those days there was nothing else on Koh Tao except a few dive shops and a couple of bungalow colonies. The DM left the island the next day. But yeah... we were novices...

[lostmebike]

I'm sure some of my Thai friends would disagree but this trend of complete irresponsibility and disregard for others seems to be very prevalent in Thai men.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[BSJ]

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.

I think it's pretty gutless not to give the name of your shop....we will find out eventually. Your hidding behind anonymity now, but it doesn't serve you well.

You said " 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. " Procedures! In my time as a diver the standard line has been if there's trouble the boat crew will bang on the hull 3 times, repeating, so all divers can return to the boat. On a long tail I imagine the banging would be on the housing of the driveshaft.

If the boat operator was in contact with you or your shop you should have pointed out the people would have been safer on the longtail boat even if it had reduced capacity to make way.

It would seem your procedures are somewhat lacking!

I think your lucky nothing serious happened.

Ps: Has the boat operator been fired?

Edited November 17, 2013 by BSJ

[PlastikbinLina]

Sorry for this rather verbose tale but I think it's worth telling.

This unfortunate experience is not the first time or the last time it will happen and it happens even with the most highly qualified SCUBA divers . It's happened to me twice over the years, in 1980 and in 1982 in Papua New Guinea. However the worst case of boat gone missing in my memory was in the Celebes Islands Indonesia at Bira a small village on the south coast, south of Ujung Padang. I planned to dive off a small Island at Bira but the Indonesian dive shop there had hired out the fishing boat with Indonesian crew to six Japanese divers. The Island is a good place for drift diving when the tide is right. Accompanying them was the dive shop Indonesian diver. The Japanese divers main interest was to see sharks and there are many to see, usually about 120' or so. They all dived including the Indonesian. Their mistake as was mine, was not leaving someone on the boat to instruct the boat crew to watch out for the divers return. It seems all six got caught in a strong drift tide and came up at the other end of the island to where they entered the water. They couldn't attract the attention of the boat crew and it was getting very late in the afternoon.

They drifted grouped together in a tight circle for 3 days and two nights when the Indonesian diver Azim Bin Yakub decided to try and swim to an island some distance away. He's not sure how far it was but he made it. I spoke to him later. He said the Japs didn't want to try. If ever you've been in a similar situation distance is very hard to judge with only your head just above water and especially if its choppy and land is just a blip on the horizon. It's not al all funny I can tell you. It happened on the 11 December 1998 almost 15 years ago next month.

The following Divers were never seen again. . Mr Kacomiya Assistant Diving Instructor, Mr Matsumoto, Diving Instructor Mr. Ishijima Advance Monitor Diver, Ms Okubo Advance Monitor DIver, Mrs Yamamoto Diving Instructor, Mrs Masoko Kato Diver, Ms Kato Maho Diver.

Very surprising... So many advanced and professional divers, yet none considered ditching weights and tanks, filling BCDs, flipping onto their backs and leisurely finning to the closest land? Doesn't take that long to fin a few miles. They could always return to pick up gear later. Many California shore divers often spend an hour or two finning out to their dive sites.

It is difficult to know what they were thinking. Perhaps they hoped the fishing boat would come looking for them after being away for so long. But they didn't until the next day. No doubt they wore boyancy vests but swimming against a tide in any sea running strong with a tide and at night is difficult. I cannot imagine anyone doing a liesurely swim to some distant island in the dark. Aprehension and fear takes over confidence. I never wore a BC because of that problem of resitance to where I wanted to go to and I was able to keep my gear. I did my initaila training with an Army amphibious unit in 1959 and still do not wear a compensator. The one exception, because we had orders to, was during an exercise when the entire unit was caught in a strong rip and taken out to sea in Bass Strait. We faced very rough seas with waves in excess of 10 metres. Three of my fellow soldiers died and one body was never recovered. Many were picked up by passing cargo and passenger ships and ended up 500 miles away.

[Chao Lao Beach]

No mention of the Dive Company, Did It Really Happen ?

[Bpuumike]

Could have been the Thai version of the Bermuda Triangle

No, that's between Kalasin, Roi Et and KK

[Artisi]

Times like that you can say a prayer of thanks to the fishermen that killed all the sharks in the ocean and the Chinese that ate them all. Amen.

-1

Sharks are not the problem. I've been diving for 15 years, most of that as an instructor. The problem is an incompetent boat captain that fails to protect his passengers. There was a similar incident in Australia a few years ago that resulted in Australia enacting some of the strictest laws in the world concerning boat liability. I wish Thailand would do the same and, of course, enforce them.

David

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

" enforce them' must be the joke of the day.

[earthpig]

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.

I think it's pretty gutless not to give the name of your shop....we will find out eventually. Your hidding behind anonymity now, but it doesn't serve you well.

You said " 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. " Procedures! In my time as a diver the standard line has been if there's trouble the boat crew will bang on the hull 3 times, repeating, so all divers can return to the boat. On a long tail I imagine the banging would be on the housing of the driveshaft.

If the boat operator was in contact with you or your shop you should have pointed out the people would have been safer on the longtail boat even if it had reduced capacity to make way.

It would seem your procedures are somewhat lacking!

I think your lucky nothing serious happened.

Ps: Has the boat operator been fired?

The way to avoid " battery problems" is a) to replace a battery once it starts to show signs of weakening, and this happens with almost all failing batteries and to carry a spare battery aboard.

Yes, this costs a little bit of money. But how much do you lose when this type of mishap occurs and the name of your shop gets written up in diving blogs?

Safety is not only a moral imperative, it is an economic one as well.

[user82374298374]

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

Assuming that you are indeed who you say you are, since the captain of the boat had a working radio and he was able to call for assistance, why didn't he stay in the area until the divers surfaced? What necessitated his immediate departure?

Why didn't he follow the standard procedure of acoustic signaling via making a loud nose 3 times by banging on the boat in order to signal the divers to return immediately?

[NomadJoe]

no not kidding some people react different physically and mentally to this kind of situations ,remember they where novice divers.

They were certified divers, qualified to dive without instructors.

IMHO once people are certified to dive unaided, a professional journalist should no longer use the word 'novice'.

<snip>

When diving in the US, with its 'let's sue everyone' nature, I'll use my Master Scuba Diver certification when joining a dive boat rather than my DiveMaster cert. There are too many cases of people suing everyone on the boat with what can be construed as 'professional liability' even if not employed by the boat or shop.

<snip>

Very few people reading this will understand the significance of this comment. For the rest, at least with in PADI and SSI, Master Scuba Diver/Master Diver is a rescue driver with 50 logged dives and certified in several specialties, It's an experience rating. Divemaster and it's equivalents on the other hand is a professional rating which comes certain responsibilities in the eyes of the law in certain jurisdictions. I do the same but not for that reason. I just don't want to get stuck guiding when I am on holiday.

Edited November 17, 2013 by NomadJoe

[FolkGuitar]

no not kidding some people react different physically and mentally to this kind of situations ,remember they where novice divers.

They were certified divers, qualified to dive without instructors.

IMHO once people are certified to dive unaided, a professional journalist should no longer use the word 'novice'.

<snip>

When diving in the US, with its 'let's sue everyone' nature, I'll use my Master Scuba Diver certification when joining a dive boat rather than my DiveMaster cert. There are too many cases of people suing everyone on the boat with what can be construed as 'professional liability' even if not employed by the boat or shop.

<snip>

Very few people reading this will understand the significance of this comment. For the rest, at least with in PADI and SSI, Master Scuba Diver/Master Diver is a rescue driver with 50 logged dives and certified in several specialties, It's an experience rating. Divemaster and it's equivalents on the other hand is a professional rating which comes certain responsibilities in the eyes of the law in certain jurisdictions. I do the same but not for that reason. I just don't want to get stuck guiding when I am on holiday.

When I did my Divemaster training, P.A.D.I. required 100 logged dives before you began the course. The Master Scuba Diver cert required a minimum of 5 specialty certifications and completion of Open Water, Advanced Diver, Medic/First Aid and Rescue Diver certifications. The Advanced Diver cert REQUIRED a night dive back then too. These days, night diving is optional for the Advanced course, and as long as you have 50 dives (or is it 30) by the END of your certification you can pass the DM class. It takes quite a few dives before a new diver slows down their pace in the water, and I've watched new Divemasters who swam so fast while guiding groups that no one got to see anything. If I'm not taking photos for an article, I don't mind guiding a site that I know, especially in exchange for the price of the boat ride, and enjoy showing divers the highlights of that site. I don't mind following a good Divemaster when diving a new location either. They know where the highlights are! But I won't guide in the US for legal reasons.

[NomadJoe]

^ PADI DM is 60 dives. The candidate must have experience in night, deep and navigation. That is because MSD (and all its' specialties) is not a prerequisite for DM. It's a good idea though. I find DM's that first did MSD are more well rounded DM's. MSD (PADI) and MD (SSI) both require 50 logged dives. There is also a rating within SSI called Dive Guide which requires 40 logged dives.

[Kudel]

I do not question peoples certification or expertise on diving ,but clearly the operating and emergency procedures of said diving school has flaws thats is clear in this case and a foreigner operating or managing a diving school in Thailand who has any logical sense of safety should consider making improvements before people get hurt or killed.Its called lessons learned .

Edited November 17, 2013 by Kudel

[stevenl]

When I did my Divemaster training, P.A.D.I. required 100 logged dives before you began the course.<snip>

Wow, that really is a long time ago. I do remember 100 dives to be certified, so you must have done this in the 70's.

[stevenl]

Why didn't he follow the standard procedure of acoustic signaling via making a loud nose 3 times by banging on the boat in order to signal the divers to return immediately?

Banging on a wooden boat does not make much noise.

But even banging on some metal won't do much good with drift diving, which is the standard in most Thai diving areas.

[NomadJoe]

I do not question peoples certification or expertise on diving ,but clearly the emergency procedures of said diving school has flaws thats is clear in this case and a foreigner operating or managing a diving school in Thailand who has any logical sense of safety should consider making improvements before people get hurt or killed.Its called lessons learned .

Presumably you have read the tourists report and the dive shop owners report. In your expert opinion, what exactly are those flaws? Their boat broke down and so they sent another which picked up the divers 30 minutes after they surfaced. Perhaps you would like some more anti-slip tape on the replacement boats dive deck?

Edited November 17, 2013 by NomadJoe

[NomadJoe]

Why didn't he follow the standard procedure of acoustic signaling via making a loud nose 3 times by banging on the boat in order to signal the divers to return immediately?

Banging on a wooden boat does not make much noise.

But even banging on some metal won't do much good with drift diving, which is the standard in most Thai diving areas.

Not only that, but it's just not practical around most of the dive sites where 3-7 boats may be diving the same area. Then every boats divers would return. Thus the SOP here is to have another boat pick them up, which is what happened.

[harrry]

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 think you should name your shop otherwise I would recomend everyone not to dive with a company ran by someone with the name Chris and that is not fair to anyone else with that name in the industry..

There should always be a boat directly with the divers. You should have, if your story is true, when informed tell the boat to stay there until a boat you sent actually arrived. It was a failure which could have been serious and it was lucky it was not.

People do not pay money to dive unsafely.

Edited November 17, 2013 by harrry

[AngelsLariat]

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 think you should name your shop otherwise I would recomend everyone not to dive with a company ran by someone with the name Chris and that is not fair to anyone else with that name in the industry..

There should always be a boat directly with the divers. You should have, if your story is true, when informed tell the boat to stay there until a boat you sent actually arrived. It was a failure which could have been serious and it was lucky it was not.

People do not pay money to dive unsafely.

No, it would me a mistake for him to mention the name of his company. This isn't just something that's being discussed on ThaiVisa, the story has been picked up by the news wires and run by many new services, including Yahoo, the Daily Mail, and others. Even if it's true that there is no "case" here, this is the time to exercise one's right to remain silent. If there's even a shred of inaccuracy in the owner's public rebuttal of the story it could be a liability if the non-case ever goes to court.