FlowerGardens

The Beverly Hillbillies Go Diving!

How do I begin to describe a trip so bad that I still can’t believe it happened! You’ll think I’m making this up, but the elements are too horrible to make up! Hold on, here we go.

A friend of mine, Raymond*, said he was setting up a trip to the Flower Gardens for the annual coral spawning. The Flower Gardens are located about 150 miles off of Freeport, Texas. It is important to note that I have attempted to do this trip THREE times in the past. The first time, the trip was canceled due to inclement weather, which is something that happens frequently due to high waves in the Gulf. The second time, the trip was again canceled due to weather. The third trip was scheduled for Easter weekend. Several of us loaded up to make the 4-hour trip together, and as we crested the hill which overlooks the boats, we came face to face with a dark boat. Apparently they NEVER go out Easter weekend, although we had a confirmation letter from Winn* Boats for that weekend. After notifying the owner, the boat was opened and we were allowed to spend the night on the boat because clearly it was a booking error. Everyone was refunded their money about four weeks later. Several of the members of our group started a mini party, but I opted to join another friend and return to Austin that same night, since neither of us wanted to participate in the party. I was not on the boat long enough to check it out thoroughly, but it appeared to be in good condition. I didn’t assess the number of bathrooms, showers, or anything like that, because I was anxious to get on the road to go home.

Fast forward to August 8, 2001. Sherrie, Kiran and I drove to Freeport. We arrived in plenty of time to visit a nearby restaurant and have dinner. They had fried pickles! I was in Heaven over this! We had a nice leisurely dinner, anxiously awaiting a fun weekend of diving!

Kiran has polio and is a member of our dive group "Eels on Wheels." Kiran was with us in Roatan, Honduras and Sherrie and I dived with him there. He’s a very able diver, but doesn’t wear fins. He controls his buoyancy through breath control and with his BCD. We wanted to arrive at the boat early so we could get Kiran on the boat and get him settled in. We arrived at the dock at 7:00pm and there was a sign posted: "No Boarding Before 9pm. No Exceptions." Well, since we were diving with someone with a disability, we thought we would go ahead and walk down the long boat dock and ask if any special provisions are made for people with disabilities. When we approached the boat and started to step aboard, we were abruptly told, "No boarding before 9pm." At that time, we asked about Kiran being able to board early. They said, "Nobody boards before 9pm." Alrighty then! We stood by the boat, Raymond showed up and we visited for a little while. He introduced us to the other dive master, Kevin*, the Captain, Bob* and the co-Captain, Ben*. It was very clear that Bob was in charge of this boat, and even making jokes about boarding early upset him. Sherrie put a foot on the boat and said, "I’m on the boat!" We all laughed, except Bob, who was clearly not amused. We got the hint! We were just playing, trying to kill the two hours before boarding. I am a fun loving person, and I enjoy a good time. Sherrie is equally fun to be around. This is one reason we travel together so often. We both have upbeat personalities and people are always commenting about how fun we are to be around! Kiran is from India and he is always cracking us up at his interpretation of life in general! Together, we have enjoyed countless hours of laughter! Obviously this Captain is not appreciating the humor we were trying to provide. Ba Hum Bug! Oh, well, we figured we’d win him over before too long!

Raymond had backed his vehicle onto the dock to unload his gear. We asked him if he could back ours there too, so we could unload our tanks, gear, etc. He said, "No. Can’t do that." So, we asked if we could back it there and unload. Again, he said no. We had to unload our gear at the far end of the dock and wait until 9pm to transport anything onto the boat. We noticed others were boarding the boat, and we inquired about that. Apparently, "group leaders" are allowed to board the boat early and pick out their bunks. This boat does not book directly with the public, but rather through scuba shops, and the person who set up the trip at each shop is the "group leader." Finally, Raymond gave us a quick tour of the boat, but said we needed to wait at the far end of the dock until boarding. During the tour, we were told that once the boat was open, everyone would be allowed to board all at once and put an article of clothing or gear on a bunk of their choice. So, it was evident that friends or couples might not get to share a room if they weren’t quick to stake their territory! The bunks were like shelves built into the wall. Each room had bunks for four to six people in it. The bunks were on top of each other and two people could barely pass each other in the room they were so tiny. I would compare the rooms to the size of a small closet.

While we were outside killing the two long hours before we could board, we were thankful we’d brought bug spray, as the bugs were horrible. I thought we were in Honduras for awhile. There we waited at the end of the pier, with nowhere to sit except on the dock, and remember, we’re all banned from even looking at the sacred dock, so we enjoyed the aroma of bug spray and the taste of dust from every car that went by on the dirt roads. Fabulous! We couldn’t even sit in our cars because we had to park in a parking lot away from the dock. We needed to keep our places close to the dock in order to make a mad dash for rooms. I am already not liking this! More and more people started to arrive. I assessed the crowd and it looked more and more like a Baby Huey convention. I couldn’t believe so many overweight people were going to be diving. Where did these people get gear and wetsuits to fit them? Omar the tent maker? How much weight would some of these people need to descend? Would the boat be able to stay afloat? Would there be sufficient food? These were serious concerns of ours!

However, we made friends with people as they approached us waiting at the dock. Everyone acted as though we were going to be diving in the South Pacific! Many people had been on this boat numerous times and couldn’t wait to go again. For others, this was their annual vacation and they were thrilled to be here! We were optimistic that the diving would be good if all of these people were returning and were so obviously delighted to be here again!

Once they gave us permission to board, it was like Pamplona's "running of the bulls" to get bunks! I don’t know how they expected Kiran to participate in this "grab a bunk" free for all, so we told Kiran to stay with our bags while we fought for bunks for the three of us to be together! Luckily Sherrie and I were successful in that attempt! We were thankful that we could at least share the room with each other and not strangers. Each bunk had a little curtain in front of it for privacy.

Once we had secured our bunks, we had to return to the dock to bring our gear on board. We had to carry three tanks, gear, suitcases, weight belts etc., from the far end of the dock to the boat. Picture 30+ people doing this in the dark! It was a fiasco! Nobody had a dolly to assist us in loading, either. Several trips were made back and forth in order to get our stuff loaded. We hoped we hadn’t left anything behind, because there was absolutely no light to assist us. We were exhausted by the time we had our things in order. They also said they wanted our gear to be set up, so we started looking for places to set up our things together. No such luck. We found two spots toward the back platform of the boat (where we planned to exit the boat to dive from). Raymond said, "Those two spots are usually reserved for the dive masters." I said, "I was just looking for two spots together because Sherrie and I packed our dive gear together." (Not to mention nobody’s gear was in this location, and there was no indication to us that it was reserved for anybody.) Then the Captain came up to me and said, "What are you doing over here? You’ll be going off the sides of the boat." I said, "We don’t do giant strides because I have a knee problem, Sherrie has a back problem, and Kiran has polio." He barked, "EVERYBODY DOES GIANT STRIDES OFF MY BOAT." At that time, Raymond came to our rescue and informed the Captain that we had indeed obtained prior permission to go off the back of the boat rather than a 10' giant stride drop! (Of all the trips I’ve been on, this has NEVER been an issue, much less a problem!). I remember thinking to myself, "We can’t do anything right on this boat, this Captain already hates us!" In the meantime, nobody offered to lift a finger to help us with Kiran. They told us to set up his gear at the opposite end of the row from us. But, we thought, "he isn’t carrying his gear to the back of the boat, we will do it for him, so I guess it isn’t that big a deal." We just thought people might be a tad more courteous, and that maybe they weren’t aware of the inconvenience, and maybe we can make an adjustment after the diving starts. Surely something can be worked out to set him up closer to us so that we could assist him if needed.

We finished setting up our gear and then went down to our room to get our things in order there. Sherrie and I took top bunks while Kiran took a bottom bunk. The other bottom bunk had already been taken by a group leader, although we did not know who it was. We settled in and went back upstairs for the Captain’s briefing. We had already left the dock to begin our trip to the Flower Gardens by the time the Captain announced time for the briefing. The room that we were all gathered in was too small for all of us to be seated, but we crammed in the best we could. The Captain addressed us as if we were in the military. There was no "Welcome to our boat, I hope you’ll enjoy your diving here, and if we can do anything to assist you, please let us know." WRONG. He stood there like this was a mission, a quest, an assignment! He barked orders at us to the effect of, "IF YOU RUN OUT OF AIR, YOU’RE OUT FOR THE TRIP. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? IF YOU USE A PONY BOTTLE, YOU’RE OUT FOR THE TRIP. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? YOUR PONY BOTTLE WILL NOT BE FILLED WITH NITROX. YOUR PONY BOTTLE IS ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES, AND NOT TO BE USED TO ACQUIRE MORE BOTTOM TIME. IF WE HAVE TO FILL YOUR PONY BOTTLE, WE WILL ASSUME YOU RAN OUT OF AIR IN YOUR TANK, THUS ENDING YOUR TRIP. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? IF YOU HIT 100' YOU’RE OUT FOR THE TRIP. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? IF YOU HAVE A BEER, YOU’RE THROUGH DIVING FOR THE DAY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I WANT TO SEE A SEA OF NODS IN AGREEMENT." Words to Moses couldn’t have been clearer. Out of fear, we all shook our heads. We’ve dived all over the place and have never heard such rules, with the exception of the beer rule. That’s very consistent with other dive operations. But since we had already left the dock, there was no going back now. Besides, very rarely do I go below 100' anyway, so why was I concerned about this? Surely this would not be a problem!

Also, equally important to note, we were also given lessons on how to "fluff" our barf bags, and to take them to our rooms in the event of a hurl. Picture 30+ people learning the art of barfing after fluffing. The boat was rocking so much that you were lucky if you could keep your balance, much less hit the fluffed barf bag! We spent more time learning how to "fluff" our barf bags than on dive safety, dive briefings, or dive profiles combined. I had to question the mentality of the group we were in the midst of. Was it really necessary to cover this topic? Do these people really need assistance on the art of barfing in a bag? Apparently so. That in itself frightened the three of us. We also learned that there were two normal toilets located on the main deck, and one complicated toilet located close to the front of the boat. The complicated toilet required a minimum of three steps of turning valves on and off in a certain order. If you mess up, you’ll flood the Captain’s cabin, and woe unto you if you upset the Captain! There was ONE private shower and one outside community shower. No towels or wash cloths were provided. Luckily we brought a couple of towels with us. Sherrie had sent several e-mails to Raymond prior to the trip, trying to get the details of the boat, but she received no response. Now we knew why! We reminisced that last year at this time we were diving in Fiji aboard a luxurious live-aboard. We all agreed we were not in Fiji anymore.

During all of the rules there was one guy, John, who seemed to be the group’s "know it all." He was the Mr. Cousteau of the boat. John was obese and obnoxious, but out of 36 people, there’s always one in every crowd. As luck would have it, guess who was our roommate? Not only were we not in Fiji, we decided we were in Hell! We also noticed some type of vacuum cleaner hose hooked up to John’s bed. Apparently he has to use a breathing apparatus at night. Wonderful. The picture of a perfect diver in excellent physical condition. Such a device would certainly be understandable for a man in his 50's or so, but John was barely 30 years old. I was surprised that he was even cleared to dive.

Finally, after Captain Hitler barked his orders, we all retreated to our rooms. I climbed into my bunk. It was damp. Turned out, the air-conditioning unit located above my bunk was dripping. I just put a T-shirt over the area and laid down. During all of this, the boat is crossing 5 foot waves, so we’re rockin’ and rollin’ all over the place. We slept like a baby - up every hour on the hour! Due to the massive rocking of the boat, we were afraid we were going to be tossed out of our bunks. It was like was riding in a rodeo. Yee Haw! We hung onto our bunks for dear life! I got up to take a potty break and discovered with at least 2/3 of the population of this boat being male, and with the thrashing about of the boat, it would be a bad idea to enter the bathroom barefooted. Too bad I discovered this a tad too late. What a mess it was! I knew that Martha Stewart would faint at the condition of this boat, much less the status of the floor and toilet seat! I knew that prior to a visit in here, I need to arm myself accordingly. All I can say is that I hope these guys stick to diving, because if they participate in anything requiring hitting a target, they’re outta luck.

When Raymond came to our cabin at 6am to announce the first dive was going to be at 7am, the three of us decided to skip it and get some much needed sleep. Also, they had mentioned it might be a tad chilly in our rooms in an effort to aid those with motion sickness. That was an understatement. It was a FREEZER in our cabin. I had on shorts, shirt, socks, sweats and two blankets and I was still freezing. So now we knew we were in Hell with air-conditioning! Sherrie discovered "something" on her blankets.... could it be someone missed the fluffed barf bag, or something worse? We cringed at the thought of what it could be.

They called us for the second dive and we geared up to go. We looked forward to getting into the water in an attempt to thaw out. Kiran’s tank was still on the other side of the row from ours and it was obvious nobody cared or offered to assist us with the situation. So we decided to live with it. Sherrie and I carried our tanks to the end of the boat and then hoped someone would help us lower them to the platform. We also brought Kiran’s tank (having to bounce off the flab of about 10 people along the way) to the end of the boat as well. It was apparent that nobody was eager to assist us with our tanks, but we all agreed that we were NOT going to attempt to try to lower our tanks with this rocking boat. (Nobody bothered to help Kiran as he tried to make his way around the boat. People just ignored him. They were outright RUDE. I guess it would have killed them to offer him a steady hand or something, because nobody went out of their way to make a place for Kiran to sit to have lunch, or anything for that matter.) We continued to wait until someone could help us. The rest of the group was lined up doing giant strides off the "gang plank" on the side of the boat. I went to the trash can to throw something away. As I opened the lid, I discovered the trash can was filled with FULL plastic fluffed barf bags. Lovely! I needed that first thing in the morning, I really did. You should try it some time. You just thought the smell of fresh perked coffee woke you up!!

Raymond finally came and helped us with our tanks, and helped us gear up to get in the water. When we went for the first dive, we asked the dive master about the site, and he said, "Just go down the line to the reef, it's about 90' or so." That was the shortest dive briefing in history. Helen Keller could have provided more information! No picture of the site, no map of points of interest, no depth direction, nothing. Fantastic. We all entered the water and started down the mooring line with the rest of the group. 30+ people down the line looked like a group of ants making their way to the ant hill! We finally made it down the line to the reef and we started exploring the area. I checked my computer and saw I was hitting 70' and I was close to the bottom. I remember thinking, "If we hit 100' on this site, we’d have to dig a hole." So, depth was not an issue at this site. I also looked around for one of the boat’s dive masters. When we signed up for this trip and knew we were going to be diving with Kiran, I e-mailed Raymond to ask him if he would dive with us since he knew the area. He requested that we help Kiran in the water and said that he would be diving with us. Although Raymond had been Kiran’s dive instructor, he knew that with 30+ people, he would need Sherrie’s and my HSA (Handicapped Scuba Association) assistance with Kiran, and we were happy to assist. However, Raymond wasn’t even in the water with us on this dive! I was not happy. There were no currents at the time, but if we got into trouble, I was concerned how Sherrie and I would be able to handle ourselves AND Kiran without help. This is worthy of note: Along with the exchange of e-mails, Raymond sent me this: "The boats are not favorable toward handicapped divers, so I want everything to go smoothly with Kiran. I could handle that myself, but I also (have) Advanced and Nitrox classes going on during the trip so will need to spend some time diving with them (at least half the trip). I think the boat's main concern will be Kiran holding up the divers at entry time. We can sit him down on the swim platform, help him gear up and then get him in there instead of mid-ships (giant-stride entry). The other concern, at least, will be him getting swept away if the currents pick up. A diver was lost last weekend at Stetson, last seen hanging onto the ascent line; the Coast Guard is still looking for him, so a very real concern." So you can now see the concern we had initially, and that we thought we had addressed the matter. Little did we know we would be diving unassisted. We received no help whatsoever in the water. I was just thankful there were no currents! We finished the dive, came up the same mooring line with the rest of the ants and got back on the boat. We decided it was an easy site and an easy dive with no current, but that there really wasn’t a lot to see down there. The three of us changed into dry clothes and had a little lunch. Sherrie and I hunted high and low for an outlet to plug in a hair dryer, and finally we unplugged John’s breathing gadget and used that outlet for our hair dryer. After that we all resumed our nap.

I have dived many places and there have always been dive masters in the water with us to guide us if we so desired. Some enjoy the tour, others do their own thing. However, on this boat, only the Captain and co-Captain were paid. Everyone else works for tips. This totally blew me away because part of the dive master’s job is to assist the divers. However, with this piece of dung boat, they just want you in the water, then out of the water so they can hurry up and do it again. No dive briefings were given! Nothing to inform you of the lay of the land. Nada. Later I was told that each "group leader" is supposed to be your dive master. That’s helpful, especially since none of us knew who the group leaders were! Ours was Raymond, and that’s all I knew, and it was really beneficial to us since Raymond wasn’t even in the water with us! He was checking divers into the water and then checking them back on the boat after the dive. We were put in the water and were on our own. And they wonder why people are lost? Duh.

They called us at around 2pm for the next dive. Sherrie and I didn’t move. We were sacked out. (The rooms are warmer during the day, thus enabling us to sleep without having to worry about freezing to death.) Kiran decided to dive without us and asked Quattro (an instructor from our group) to buddy with him. They had a good dive, and when Kiran returned, we hadn’t even realized he had been gone! The next dive was around 5pm so we all geared up to go again. We still had the same problems that we had to deal with the first time, trying to get Kiran’s gear across 10 people who were about as helpful as two year olds. When we finally managed to get all of our gear ready on the back platform, Kiran said, "I hate that we have to back to the SAME site for the 3rd time, because there is very little to see there." We all agreed that with 30+ people diving the same site and in close proximity to one another, no respectable fish would hang around there long! I said, "Well, maybe we can go the other direction for a change." So, as we were gearing up, we asked Kevin (the dive master gearing us up) if it would be a problem if we just dropped off the back of the boat instead of going down the line?" He said, "No problem, just come back up using the descent line when you come up." We said ok. At that time, we all agreed to stay right under the boat and look around. Since none of us would win awards in underwater navigation, and with no dive masters to be with us on the dive, the last thing we needed was to get lost! The three of us went into the water and descended. We headed down and we were just swimming along and within about five minutes or so, we saw a shark. We were watching it swim around and it was down toward the bottom, and we just kinda lingered around watching it swim around the reef. Kiran was down lower than Sherrie and I were, and I could see him continue to descend further and further. Remember, Kiran does not dive with fins, so his BCD and breath control are his only means of ascent and descent. He was far enough from us that if he had a problem he might have panicked, so I started down a little further to get closer to him and Sherrie did the same thing. Visibility was excellent although the boat was no longer in sight. Apparently a mild current had carried us slightly. I glanced at my computer and to my horror, it was right around 100'. I knew if we just let him continue to drop, he might look up and see us way above him, over inflate his BCD and have an uncontrolled ascent, creating a HUGE risk of DCS. So, we went to 110' to meet him, helped him with his buoyancy, and all slowly came up together. We stopped at 30' and 15' on the way up to make sure we did a really safe safety stop! Then we all three surfaced and saw the boat at a reasonable distance from us. I don't know exactly how far away we were, but easily manageable. No current to speak of, so it would be a nice short swim back. As we all know, it is much easier to swim a few feet under the surface, so we all three agreed to go down a few feet and swim toward the boat. We swam for a few minutes, and then I went back to the surface to make sure we were all heading in the right direction. When I surfaced, there was Raymond in the dingy. He said, "Do not go back down, Captain's orders." I said, "We are just down a few feet to swim back." He said, "No, do not go back down again." So they expected us to swim on the surface back to the boat, which wasn't far. I couldn't figure out why they sent out the dingy of shame for us because we were in no means distressed.

When we got back on the boat, Kevin grabbed my wrist and looked at the depth. Strange, they weren’t looking at anybody else’s gauges, just the three of us. We later found out that another couple, Steve and Paulette, were truthful, told their depth (102') and as a result were banned from diving as well. They said, "We should have lied like everybody else was doing." As the five of us sat and awaited our fate, John joined our group announcing that he, too, had broken the 100' barrier. He said he saw a weight belt along the way and decided to pick it up and tell them that he was retrieving gear! So now our group has grown to six. We laughed and said the rest of the group was probably glad we were all banned just to be out of their way! It was very crowded on the deck and getting rid of six people would be a relief, no doubt.

The next dive was a couple of hours later and to our surprise, John was gearing up to dive! So, we thought, "Great! They are letting us dive after all!" Kiran started gearing up, but the Captain quickly informed him that we were banned from diving. We inquired as to why John was diving and were told it was because John was a group leader. Well, group leader or not, rules are rules, and if one person is given an exception, then an explanation is in order. So we went to the Captain and politely inquired as to the status of our diving for the remainder of the trip. He barked at us, "DID YOU NOT HEAR THE RULE ABOUT IF YOU BREAK 100' YOU ARE OUT FOR THE TRIP?" I said, "Yes, sir, we did, and we did not intend to break 100' in the first place. He repeated himself screaming, "DID YOU NOT HEAR THE RULE ABOUT BREAKING 100'. DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT RULE? DID YOU NOT LISTEN TO THAT RULE?" On and on he went. I felt like I was in kindergarten again! He couldn’t stop barking at us! He continued, "WERE YOU NOT TOLD TO GO DOWN THE DESCENT LINE?" I said, "Yes, but we'd already done several dives there and we wanted to see something different so we asked Kevin if we could go straight down and he said no problem." So he yelled at Kevin and said, "Did you tell them they could go straight down off the back of the boat?" Kevin got a petrified look on his face and said, "I told them they could do it on the first dive, not the last one." Bold-faced LIE. I said, "Why on earth would we have requested to go straight down on the FIRST dive???? It was this last dive!" But the Captain would not listen to us at all. (And even if he HAD told us we could have gone straight down on the first dive, what difference would it have made? We were at the same site the whole day!) I also tried to explain to the Captain that when we realized we were at 100' we immediately assisted Kiran and then began our ascent. All of us still had 2000 psi of air left! Our point was that yes we hit 100' but we didn’t do a full dive at that depth, we made it brief and made a safe ascent. I think our total bottom time was 17 minutes. A far cry from a normal dive to that depth, which could last considerably longer. Finally, I said, "I would like to speak with the owner of the boat because we have a real problem here." He said, "I’ll call him in the morning, but we’re not going to call him at 10:30pm at night." Fair enough. The three of us returned to our sardine can freezer of a room, where I lay on my damp bed and awaited the next drip of the air-conditioning unit. We were all so mad we couldn’t sleep. We thought we were in hell before, we didn’t realize we were REALLY in hell now. We were looking at three full days of doing absolutely nothing! No diving, no videoing, no rigs, no coral spawning, no nothing. And we paid for this, to boot! To make matters worse, after every dive, they came around to each passenger on the boat and asked, "How are you feeling?" When we were asked, we would answer, "Oh we’re just great. Couldn’t be better."

The next morning, Raymond knocked on our door to wake me up, and announced there was a phone call for me. I had been elected the spokesperson of the group, the self-proclaimed, Queen of Diplomacy. I was confident I could talk some reason into this man. Half asleep, I went upstairs knowing that the Captain had already told the owner his version of how things should be. I figured I was fighting an uphill battle already. I told Mr. Winn that we were assisting a disabled diver and that we certainly did not intend to break 100', but we did, and we were very sorry. He would hear none of it. He said his rules were for our safety and that there were no exceptions. I then informed him of an exception that was indeed made. Upon hearing this, he wanted to talk to the Captain again. The Captain informed him that he gave John an exception due to him being on a "search and recovery dive." I wanted to laugh out loud! It was at that time that I determined it was ok to retrieve a weight belt, but not to assist a fellow diver. If that is their policy, then fine. I’ll never be back and I’ll make sure none of my friends take this trip without prior warnings.

I also informed the owner of the critical factors that caused us to hit 100', such as we were never given a briefing on the site to start with, no map of the site or anything else. NOBODY told us that the back of the boat was anchored in the deep end and to watch out there. The other couple who hit 102' were in the same area. They did not know about the depth either, and they also thought the depth in the back of the boat was similar to the front of the boat. Had we have been told when we asked if we could descend off the back, "Watch your depth, because it's deeper back here than up front," we would have at least been advised, but that wasn't the case. And of course, had we known, we would have told Kiran we were going back to the same site, because there wouldn't have been any way to hit 100' there. We would have avoided the area or we would have watched a whole lot closer. Yes, we should have watched our gauges more, but when you're at 70' and you think the site doesn't even hit 100', you don't worry about depth limits, because you aren't aware it is a concern. I also asked Mr. Winn how long this new rule had been in effect since none of us were made aware of it until we had left the dock. He informed me that this was the first four day trip that the rule had been in effect. So this was not only NOT standard practice, this was a new rule that has just been applied! They had used this rule for the past 6 weeks on two day trips but this was the first time on a four day trip. What luck. This just gets better and better. No fried pickles, either.

So, after the chat with the owner produced no results, I returned to the cabin and informed Sherrie and Kiran that we would be doing nothing for the three remaining days. I was furious. We all were. Of course, John continued to enjoy the trip, and it really infuriated us to see his obese self get up and go diving when we'd all broken the same rule. Oh, I forgot, he is a group leader and, after all, he DID save the weight belt! For that, we should all feel relieved.

The day had just begun and it was already ruined. Sherrie and Kiran decided to sleep half the day, since there certainly was no reason to get up. I was in the main cabin trying to chat with others to pass time. I was totally ignored like I had the plague. Nobody wanted to make friends now that the Captain hated us. So I sat alone at a table trying to see if anybody would come and visit. No such luck. I chatted with the two cooks! (I wonder if they know how to make those fried pickles!) Finally a few people started to get brave and talk to me. In addition to diving, I enjoy meeting new friends and keeping in touch with people I have been diving with in the past. This was indeed a challenge to make friends on this boat. They didn’t exactly bring out the Welcome Wagon. I was determined not to stay in that bunk for 3 days, although this wasn’t much better. It’s hard to chit chat with people when all you have in common is diving, and you’re banned from that. People kept saying, "I hate that you don’t get to dive, and I feel bad gearing up and leaving you on the boat." Well, I was not thrilled over that fact myself! People came and went as the day continued. I have no idea why I was so hell-bent on making friends with this group. Perhaps I might have a garage sale someday and need customers to buy junk. The caliber of this group would be a prime target group for a Sanford and Son sequel. As if things weren’t bad enough, John would grace all of us by waddling all over the boat in only his shorts, leaving his blubbery belly to enhance all of us. I wanted to get sick. Disgusting. He was there breakfast, lunch and dinner in all of his bare chested non-glory.

It would not be fair to say the entire boat was unfriendly. There were a few who were absolutely wonderful to us. Tom and Ninh were two of those people. Most of the trip, thus far, they had kept to themselves and we thought they were probably newlyweds. Actually, they’d been married for four years. When Sherrie and I first saw Ninh, we hated her! She was tiny, petite and cute as button! Now that we were getting to know her, we found her to be friendly and fun to boot! There was another very sweet woman who came to us and offered to help us if we decided to seek legal action. She said she admired us for standing up to the Captain, especially when others were permitted to dive after breaking the rules. She was truly a caring lady who expressed her heartfelt disappointment on our behalf. Those people will never know how much their kind words meant to us.

Friday night was going to be the night of the coral spawning, which is what we came for. But now that we were banned from diving we would be prohibited from experiencing this dive. The anger continued to build as the day went on. There was absolutely nothing to do except sleep or sit on the main deck and watch videos. But if you are on the main deck, you are also subjected to watching everyone gear up for the next dive which you are banned from participating in. Then you get to watch everyone return from their dives with stories of what they saw. You can’t participate in that either because remember, you didn’t dive, therefore, you saw nothing! And of course then you get the routine question, "How are you feeling," after every dive. It was not amusing. Our anger grew. I didn’t know I could be so angry, but then again, I’ve never been on a dive trip that banned some and not others from diving on a live aboard boat! Whoever heard of a live aboard boat that you aren’t allowed to dive from? Paulette and Steve were suffering from this, too. Steve had become physically ill from anger, and Polly was often crying. This was their annual vacation. They had 2 kids in college, and they had to fly in a family member from Florida (at a cost of $600) to stay with a younger child at home. They had made numerous efforts to contact boats to come and pick us up but none were available. There was absolutely no way to leave this boat.

The atmosphere of the group was greatly affected because people felt uncomfortable talking about their great dives in front of us. The majority of the group thought it was unfair to ban us from diving, especially since some of them broke the 100' rule themselves but lied about it. Some went to the Captain on behalf of the five of us asking for a reprieve. The Captain barked "RULES ARE RULES" (unless of course, you’re retrieving gear!). So we remained banned from diving. Friday evening, three researchers boarded our boat from a sister boat, the Spree. They were there to give us a briefing of the glorious coral spawning that we would all be witnessing soon, well, almost all of us, anyway. It was all we could do to stand there and listen to this. The coral spawning was the highlight of this trip, and these people were giving specific details on what to look for, where to watch, and things like that. We tried to focus on other things because it was almost more than we could stand to hear details on something we would not be allowed to see. Finally, they left.

Kiran couldn’t stand it any longer. He went to the Captain for one final pleading. The Captain said, "The decision has been made. You broke the rules. You’re banned from diving." Kiran continued to try to persuade the Captain to understand that we were only asking for what was fair, and that letting John continue to dive was totally unfair. The conversation became heated, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had reached my limit with all of this, as did Sherrie. So the three of us totally lost it! This is what happens when you subject dive lovers to an environment of diving, and then prohibit them from diving, yet allow others to get away with doing the same thing. Let me tell you, people don’t take too kindly to it when there is absolutely nowhere to go! After many loud words were exchanged, Sherrie, Kiran and I refused to back down and the Captain finally said, "Against my better judgement, I’m going to allow you to do this ONE dive, and then I don’t want to hear another word from any of you for the rest of the trip. Do we have a deal?" We said, "Deal." We were still banned from diving for the remaining two days but at least we could do the coral spawning. Everybody had already started getting ready to get into the water, so there was no time to get the camcorder prepared or anything other than gear up and go. As we started gearing up, cheers were sent our way from our fellow passengers! They were so excited we were allowed to go. We just wanted to hurry and get into the water before Hitler changed his mind! The dive was wonderful. We were able to witness the full stages of the coral spawning and that was well worth the horrible fight that we had to put up in order to go. After the dive, we shook Hitler’s hand and thanked him for letting us do that dive. Then I was thinking, "I’m thankful for him allowing me to go on a dive I PAID for?" The thought of that made me mad again! Everybody was out of the water taking a shower in the outside community shower, which was a sight within itself. I could tell you all kinds of interesting things that went on during the community bath. Be thankful I am sparing you these details! "Just Say No To Crack!" Yeah, there was lots of crack action going on. Scrub-a-dub-dub. While I was showering, one girl started shaving her husband’s face and she rinsed her razor in the shower, right on my head! How classy! I’m telling you, this was a group of the most disgusting people I’ve ever met in my life. Finally, we returned to our rooms and again, bundled up for the freezing night that awaited us. Drip drip drip continued the air conditioner. One of the cooks even tried to add more duct tape to the already duct taped dripping air conditioner. It held almost all night, but soon started dripping again. At that point, it was the least of my worries! I woke up during the night for a potty break and it was after 1am. I noticed a small party going on, including John. Beer was being consumed. Interesting, I thought the rules included if you drank a beer, you were finished diving for the day. Guess some are exempt from that rule as well. Kiran also noted a similar party after midnight on a different night. We knew it wouldn’t do any good to tattle because it was obvious nobody cared if rules were broken unless a "certain few" were the guilty culprits.

At 6:00a.m. sharp, there was a knock on our door, "It’s 6 o’clock, first dive is at 6:45." Glorious. We’re being awakened just to tell us there will be a dive, but that of course we won’t be allowed to go. It just reminded us of the hell we were in. We still had two full days of doing absolutely nothing but watch the rest of the group go diving. The anger was more than any of us knew we were capable of feeling. There was literally zero to do because you couldn’t read with the boat rocking all over the place. It would be like trying to read in a car, which gives me a headache. There was no place to escape the rocking of the boat, except of course the water, and we’re banned from that. There was a small TV/VCR in the main cabin but it was usually already in use with some movie from 10 years ago. Plus, considering the accommodations of the main cabin (restaurant type booths) it was anything but comfortable. The top deck of the boat had no cover for shade, and it had two picnic tables (one of which was totally broken into pieces. Termites were holding hands to keep it together) and several plastic lounge chairs. We spent some time up there in the evenings to watch the sun set but there was no way we could spend any considerable time there during the day without getting sunburned. We decided to take advantage of everyone being gone on a dive and make use of the one private shower. It felt good to have warm water running on us, again in an effort to defrost! The third toilet was located in this area. It was on a throne type pedestal. (I guess since the Captain considered himself a king, he needed an adequate throne in which to sit.) Because the toilet was somewhat elevated, we were treated to seeing how filthy and disgusting it was. It was apparent that the Tidy Bowl man had abandoned ship! The bathrooms were not cleaned the entire time we were there, and it was obvious they had not been cleaned in some time prior to our arrival.

The next morning at 6am, here comes the cheerful wake-up call. NOT. It’s so nice to be awakened again just to be reminded that you’re not going anywhere. Also, between each dive, Raymond or Kevin would make their daily rounds to each person on the boat to ask, "How are you feeling?" This was noted on their chart to detect if someone was getting the bends. Since we hadn’t been diving there was a slim chance to get bent. Oh, we were bent alright, BENT OVER! We didn’t know why they insisted to antagonize us with those questions. Needless to say, when they approached us yet again, we asked them to NOT ask us that question anymore, because we were so happy we couldn’t stand ourselves. If we were any happier we’d be twins. It just fueled our anger. Another day of counting down the hours.

Finally, Sunday morning came. Here came the 6am wake up call, only this time we were cheering because we knew that in about 12 hours, we would be released from our capture. Normally you dread the day you have to leave, but this would be one vacation where we would welcome the finale! We remained in our bunks as there was nothing else to do but sleep. We thought we might as well stay put until we could start packing! Soon after the first dive, here came Kevin into our room asking, "Sherrie, Jill, Kiran, are ya’ll in here?" They do a physical count after each dive to make sure everyone is back on board. Since we were STILL not diving, there was no reason to include us on the count. After three days of frustration, we all simultaneously barked from our bunks, "YES, KEVIN, OF COURSE WE’RE IN HERE, WHERE ELSE DO YOU THINK WE’D BE? PLEASE DO NOT ASK US THAT QUESTION AGAIN." With his tail being completely chewed off, he backed out of our cabin. He did not ask us that question again.

We were probably the first ones to be completely packed. Everyone else continued to dive while we counted down hours. While we waited, several others came up to us and mentioned they felt we were treated unfairly, and that they’d let the Captain know their feelings. It felt good to know we had support. After lunch, the "tip" jar was placed on the counter for everyone to tip the crew! You can only imagine what we tipped, nada, zip, nothing, zilch! I hope the tips were slim, although I do hate that the two cooks were suffering for what the Captain did to us. But, like Sherrie said, "The mistakes of a few causes suffering for many." The cooks were very friendly to us and said they didn’t think we were treated fairly, although they never produced fried pickles. I would have left a tip on that alone!

As we sat around, counting the minutes to be released from this nightmare, all of a sudden fatso John leaped from the Captain’s area and bulldozed through the main galley, his arms flailing about, knocking things over, breaking the cup holder from the wall, and broke through the back door in an urgent effort to talk to the Captain. We all watched in amazement that the walrus could move so fast. Someone even said, "Did somebody say buffet or something?" We all laughed. I swear, he hasn’t moved that fast in years, and it was sheer momentum from the boat that caused him to move that quickly. Thank goodness nobody was in the way or they would have been flattened!

Outside there was a helicopter at the sister boat, the Flea*, to care-flight two people with decompression sickness to the chamber, which is what fatso was in such a hurry to tell the Captain about. Thank goodness for that fabulous 100' rule. That sure stopped those nasty decompression hits..... WRONG. Gee, I’m so happy these new asinine rules are working. NOT. It is so nice to know that we were forced to give up three days of diving in the name of safety in order to be assured that we wouldn’t get bent. HA. Funny? Hardly. We were not laughing.

And if that weren’t enough, within an hour we were all called to the top deck to search for a missing diver who apparently was lost at the site where our group was going to do their last dive. That dive was aborted. We watched as the Coast Guard planes were doing their grid pattern overhead, and the Coast Guard boat arrived to assist in the search and rescue. Hey, we have such an expert on "search and rescue" among us, why not let great and mighty John jump in and assist in the endeavor? He was so helpful in saving that weight belt, surely he could assist in a life! No wait, that was what Sherrie and I were doing with Kiran, and remember, we were banned from diving. Keep in mind, on this boat, weight belt recovery is fine. Assisting a human, not fine. Our boat continued to pass by the site of the missing diver. We couldn’t help but feel like we were abandoning the search by just leaving. I don’t know what I expected us to do, but it was a horrible feeling knowing we were just sailing past the site where someone had possibly lost his life. It was later confirmed that the diver was never recovered.

We finally arrived back at the dock at 6pm on Sunday night. I felt as if we’d just been rescued from the Titanic. I was never so grateful to step foot on land in all my life. We unloaded our stuff from that boat in record breaking time and got the heck outta Dodge. We never looked back. We’d been mentally tortured and publicly humiliated.

A friend of ours had plans to dive with this operation within a week. We warned him not to break any of the rules, otherwise he would sit in "time out" like we did. He immediately inquired as to these rules and was informed that if you break any of the rules you only miss one dive, not the entire trip. Amazing, isn’t it? They’d changed the rules back to their original policy! Unfortunately, we got caught in the middle of somebody’s ludicrous idea to change the rules. It was bad enough to change the rules, but to do it after the boat left the dock was outright deceptive. Funny how they just "changed the rules" for one trip and "changed it back" for another trip.

This is a sorry excuse for a diving operation. Actually, lots of people enjoy this trip. For the life of me I can’t understand how. Obviously none of them were banned from diving. But then again, do you remember the story of the Beverly Hillbillies and how they didn’t know the difference between the good life and the gutter? Apparently this boat is some divers’ version of the good life. Join us as together we sing,

Swing Song - to the tune of "The Beverly Hillbillies"

Come and listen to our story ‘bout a boat called the Swing*,

You sail around the Texas coast and barely see a thing,

They say the "Flower Gardens" is a place you want to dive,

But once you’re on this vessel, just pray to get home alive!

(Dangerous, that is, currents, lost divers, the bends)

Well the first thing you know, Captain Bob’s on a tear,

Someone went below 100, someone else ran low on air,

So he ranted and he raved and he said "You broke the rules"

"No more diving for you," and we all felt just like fools!

(Punished, that is, treated like children)

So we sat on our bunks and we plotted and we planned,

We did nothing really wrong, this is getting out of hand!

The annual coral spawn, this is what we paid to see!

Yet we are not allowed to dive, You have never seen ANGRY.

(mad, that is, FURIOUS)

So let this be your notice if you plan to dive a Winn,

Don’t step out of line-with their rules you just can’t win.

Forty people and 3 toilets is not a place you want to smell-

If you don’t heed our warning, you will think you are in hell!!

(Hades, that is, with air conditioning)

Photo of the prize winning picnic table.

(Be glad we spared you the photos of the bathroom!)

RECENT POSTSCRIPT: Undercurrent just published a story on this boat's rules, and they included the fact that we were banned from diving for 3 days!!!! Hurray for Undercurrent!

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty!