Proper Aquetiquette: Morning of Cancellations

KEY LARGO--We met the sun bright and early today to get on with some serious diving. Marnie, my dive buddy extraordinaire, planned on a friend to join us who had not been diving in a while, so we chose to dive John Pennekamp Park for our first round of diving in the morning. It would be shallow reef diving and hopefully smooth enough for the rusty one. The rusty one cancelled on us….no big deal…..we trudged forward to Key Largo about one hour outside Miami.

C-Card Dilemma

Arriving at Pennekamp Park, we schlepped our gear onto the boat and geared up our tanks. There had to be six of us in order for the boat to leave port. There were six of us. One diver didn’t have his Open Water Certification Card. Without this he wouldn’t be allowed to dive.

“That’s OK,” the lady in the dive shop said. “PADI is computerized so we can look up your C-card number and you are good to go.”

Proof of certification couldn’t be found through PADI.

Errr…Uhhh….oh! He had been certified through YMCA somewhere up north where they were on CST. It’s 8:45 a.m.. The boat is supposed to leave at nine, putting us in the water by 9:30 a.m. In YMCA world it was 7:45 so we waited for them to open. We waited and waited for at least 30 minutes, sitting faithfully next to our gear. Word got to the rest of the divers that all wouldn’t be lost if Non C-card kid couldn’t get his certification verified, the reefs were shallow enough that he could snorkel.

At 9:30 a.m. an hour after initial diver check-in YMCA couldn’t find his certification information. Non C-card kid decided he was out. No snorkeling for him. His C-card carrying buddy was just along for the ride and didn’t care either way.

Trip cancelled.

Lessons for Future Snorkel Snubbers

While obviously I was furious with Non C-card kid, there were obviously two at fault here. Every diver knows that dive operations these days take certification seriously. If a diver doesn’t have a C-card, and it can’t be looked up….the diver doesn’t dive. End of story. Non C-card kid should have been up front with the dive shop when he booked his dive the day before so this could have been avoided. In this case, he didn’t think ahead and instead of wasting the morning of four or five divers, he should have sucked it up and looked at sea life from afar.

The dive shop had a responsibility to us as well. The dive operators were very nice, very apologetic and did refund our money. The offered alternative suggestions like kayaking, snorkeling off shore, and shore diving was an option, but the boat captain admitted there wasn’t much to see from a shore dive. But we weren’t there to shore dive and see sand and we weren’t there to kayak. These alternatives didn’t change that they should have been collecting C-card information upon booking and notified the diver they would be checking C-cards. Perhaps since this was a beginner’s dive site, this wasn’t done because there wasn’t a need to verify advanced certification like dive operators do for advanced sites like Spiegel Grove. While for most divers it is a given that you need to show your C-card, it should be taken into consideration that those who dive once a year, may need to be reminded. With one person holding up the trip, and knowing that this is the last dive boat going out for the morning, the dive operators should have admitted their own mistake as well and went ahead with the trip. Needless to say, my dive buddy and I packed up our gear and contacted another dive shop for the afternoon.