Some dive trips can be a nightmare, but "compoculture" can also lead people to moan about holidays they should never have booked in the first place. John Bantin offers some words of advice
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YOU'VE MADE YOUR HAMMOCK - LIE IN IT
PEOPLE WERE OFTEN BADLY SERVED when the cheap-holiday market was still burgeoning. They would turn up at their hotels to find that they were nothing more than a building site. So much for artists' impressions.
Legislation was soon put in place to give consumers a right to compensation for such blatant breaches of trust, and this gave rise to the "compensation culture" so familiar today. Which brings us neatly to holidays on boats.
If you book a holiday aboard a boat and it has not yet been launched, you have good reason to complain.
If you book a holiday on a boat that has no functioning facilities, or even ceases to float while you are on it, likewise. But boats are not hotels. They are bundles of wood and metal that displace water and float on its surface. Their function is dictated by the ocean's motion.
I often get emails from people who return from diving trips on liveaboard dive-boats and are disgruntled because they didn't get what they expected.
"The boat didn't go to the sites we expected"... "We nearly sank"... "The vessel wasn't seaworthy"... These are the most common complaints. The first is usually the result of the captain making the decision to avoid the second. The third is often the impression of passengers who are being violently seasick.
I was recently on what is probably the most seaworthy boat in the Red Sea. The dive guide was new to it. It was his third week and he was ready to resign.
We'll draw a veil over what happened the first week. Suffice to say that the group of passengers concerned got a mention in Beachcomber.
The second week had been subject to exceedingly strong winds and rough water. However, while other less able vessels were limited to inshore sites or even stayed in harbour, this one made it to all the offshore sites on its itinerary.
Obviously, the captain had to be circumspect about the places he moored when he got there, always keeping the safety of the boat in mind. This might have limited the diving to a degree. Getting from the main vessel into the support boats would have been fraught with danger, too. But they did it.
Even Cunard ocean liners are subject to wind and waves. Don't expect your luxury stateroom to be as stable as it was when you left Southampton, once you're in mid-ocean. All boats rock and roll.
The brochure for your liveaboard might have pictures showing neat cabins, an immaculate saloon and passengers enjoying romantic interludes on the sun-deck, but remember, brochures promoting Scarborough always use photos taken on a sunny day.
The Red Sea is surrounded by vast areas of desert, which get exceedingly hot by day and cold at night. This generates very strong prevailing winds. It may be mirror-calm in the lee of the Sinai or even the Egyptian mainland, but get out to sea and you will notice their effects.
Force eight is not uncommon. Mariners worldwide know the Red Sea's reputation for a short sharp chop, and they are most often in million tonne bulk-carriers and super-tankers, not little 35m motor yachts.
I once worked on a Red Sea liveaboard. There were times travelling north when our newly fitted GPS said "ETA - Never". That's because we were going backwards, the waves were so big. We took water over the prow, and my job was to field passengers who came washing down the companionways to the aft deck.
Years later, I found myself on another big steel-hulled liveaboard returning from the Brothers to Hurghada into the prevailing north-westerly wind. My first sign of trouble came when I noticed the dive-guide managing to force almost the entire bulk of a bath towel into his mouth. He was obviously not a good sailor.
We rocked and rolled. Water played over the windows. The decks heaved.
I had taken the precaution of stowing all my kit in my cabin so that it would stay where it was, mainly on the floor. The sound of crashing and tinkling came from the cabins of more optimistic guests. It was probably their dive kit.
I visited the cabin of a friend and was surprised to find his cabin-mate, a man in his 50s and an experienced diver, the owner of a busy dive-shop, on his mobile phone to his wife. Tearfully he told her he didn't think we were going to make it!
For goodness sake! Professional seamen are on their vessels all year round, come storm or shine. They don't suddenly expect to be beamed up when things get a bit uncomfortable. Yes, boats do sink, but not often. Captains usually see that as a bit of a failure on their part!
I recently came back from a Red Sea trip to the offshore reefs on which the sea was like a mirror all week. We were lucky, though I'm not sure how many of the other passengers realised that. They won't be asking their tour operator for a refund.
But never expect a cabin to be like a hotel room and, if you are prone to uncontrollable seasickness, stay ashore. Don't expect a refund because your holiday choice was unsuitable for you.
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