Hi Jenkins, thanks for your comments.
The Nitrox charge I didn't have a problem with, but some of the other divers on the boat mentioned that some other liveaboards provided complementary Nitrox. I thought it worth mentioning it as some divers may, like them, have had experience of having it thrown in.
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| Originally Posted by Jenkins As you say with a full boat "someone" will land unlucky and get the cabin by the engine room. |
I agree, Cabin 9 has been allocated to staff now as it is also adjacent the engine room. I just wanted to mention its location so if there are any light sleepers and only cabin 10 is left they should consider this factor. You may notice that I didn't mention it as a negative just as a FYI. My issues were with the air conditioning smell and the diving incident.
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| Originally Posted by Jenkins The bathrooms on boats are (in my experience) always a little smelly, but nothing that keeping the bathroom door shut and opening the batroom porthole won't sort - sounds like you had an actual problem, so yes I would complain. |
This wasn't a problem with our bathroom smelling - it didn't. This was the smell being pumping in via the air conditioning, much worse. The air conditioning pipes feed in from the engine room and it appears the pipe was letting in smells from the sewage system.
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| Originally Posted by Jenkins I have been refused dives at Abu Nuhas because of the conditions, when other operators have still been diving. Unfortunatly it's a fine line between keeping guests happy and keeping them safe so whichever they do they will get moaned at - loosing you in a current is another matter entirely and not acceptible. |
Another RIB with much less experienced divers managed to get in-and-out with no problems, but they had a guide on board that no doubt directed the boatman to the correct place to drop us.
One of the issues seems to be the boatman we had dropped us in an entirely different place further around the reef so following the instructions in the briefing left us in a different and more dangerous place.
The conditions were a go, no questions asked, at the beginning of the dive. They were worse at the end and then much much worse as we were being dragged away from the shelter of the reef into the main shipping lane at over two hours laster.
I would not dive in unsafe conditions regardless of the recommendation of the diveguides, the captain or Neptune himself - a couple of dives were called off on this trip and no-one moaned.
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| Originally Posted by Jenkins Regarding Tony Backhursts complaints procedure, one year we had serious concerns regarding a couple of (non safety) matters and expressed these in no uncertain terms both during the holiday (phonecall to Tony himself) and on our return - compensation was offered. |
I will no doubt update this thread to let everyone know what happens, but let us hope something good comes out of it. At the start of this whole thing I was willing to put it behind me, but some many people have told me in person or via PMs to take this further as it just shouldn't have happened. I know I am stewing a lot less about this than a couple of the other guys who were in my group.
Once again, thanks for the feedback. It is all helpful and helps clarify things for others reading the thread.
James