Best ways to look for and book dives for small groups

[Finless]

Most of my diving is done on boats where there have been 'drop outs' or 'couldn't get enoughs'. Once you have dived a few times with a Skipper they are usually happier about having you on the known reserves list .

If Brighton/Eastbourne are within your proposed area then PM me your email address and I can send you a couple of links.

Pls bear in mind, as I'm sure you do anyway, that you make sure you and your buddies are up to the dive being done. The resposibility will be yours NOT the original boat booker or the skipper.

I know Andy, Taurus, Dover has his own web site with a virtual Club to which all members rcv emails about bookings/places etc.

[divegyrl]

Like Finless we joined up with the 'drop outs' or 'can't get enoughs' and through that got to meet other like minded divers, exchanged e-mail & phone numbers (great thing the Kinky Divers business cards) and got invited on other trips.......

It does help that I bring chocolate..............

Now we could fill a boat twice over with the 'contacts' we have.
We also belong to a number of diving lists who do the deeper stuff & who know that I can get out midweek if I'm in the country.

Trip spaces are gobbled up like hotcakes if you post them on YD, so take a chance, chat to/e-mail/text the friendly skippers like Dave, Steve or Andy et al, see what they have available and then post & stand back before you are trampled in the rush!

Places like Dive 69 still have spaces for individual divers, the 'Kinky Divers go deep weekend' arose from a conversation with Tony about a free weekend in June, a few e-mails later and we have the whole boat booked for 2 days.
Every person on the trip knows what the depths are and have made the decision that they are happy to do the dives.

So in my rambling way I'm saying, get out there, chat to other divers on boats, get on lists, and sorry, but you may have to make a few phonecalls!

[Finless]

I may have mentioned this in my PM - forgetful AND too lazy to check. Anyway, midweek dives are, obviously, a lot easier to find spaces on + skippers are (usually?) prepared to go out with less than a full boat load.

[Crisspy Fiver]

Agreed that the phone is still the best method but in this day and age it would be great to type in one area and have a list of charters with spaces and dives.

When I book accommodation for diving weekends I normally visit A1 Tourism and take it from there. I do have to call but I have a basis to narrow my search down. Places put up costs and details of their business. If I just have a number from say the yellow pages 9 times out of 10 I wont call unless I have to. Same with boats really. I can go onto web sites with lists of boats but I want to be able to see these boats. See what sort of wrecks they do. As has been said if places are not normally busy then perhaps they are not worth diving from.

I sent out over 10 emails friday. Today Most have replied. By the looks of one of the emails Iv even been booked onto a dive. I dint ask that though. I simply asked what the plans are for certain dates.

It just so Happens that Im probably going to be going out of Eastbourn now. Not sure of the boats name as my buddy has sorted it. As he said on the phone though we have now dived a few of the wrecks there more than once and some of them aint even worth diving that many times. Maybe im to fussy

Dave (Skipper) I truly think your site is way up there and should be the sort of site that others look at and follow. There just needs to be a way Skippers can easily update the info. I built a few sites a long time ago. Im not saying its the simplest thing in the world as its not but once the site is uploaded its just a matter of updates and maintanance. This could be achieved on days that diving is blown out. We do seem to have a few days like that. Dave perhaps there is a way you could sell the programme to hotels and things? Just a thought. Any way nice site keep up the good work.

Anke thanks for the suggestion. I will look further at your link and see what the situation is. Im glad im not the only one in this situation.

One other thing I just dont get. I looked on Break Waters site for a few dives over a weekend. On both days the wrecks listed were not very deep and basically not really the kinda wrecks high on my list. Now say they had the Aelion Sky, UB74, Pomerainian, M2 listed I would have been jumping up and down to book. How do you skippers decide what wrecks to dive. Novice stuff say Saturday and deeper stuff Sunday? The tides ? just wondering.

Jamie

[David Wallace]

Originally Posted by Crisspy Fiver

Dave (Skipper) I truly think your site is way up there and should be the sort of site that others look at and follow. There just needs to be a way Skippers can easily update the info. I built a few sites a long time ago. Im not saying its the simplest thing in the world as its not but once the site is uploaded its just a matter of updates and maintanance. This could be achieved on days that diving is blown out. We do seem to have a few days like that. Dave perhaps there is a way you could sell the programme to hotels and things? Just a thought. Any way nice site keep up the good work.


Jamie

Cheers Jamie
Basically thats the way the site works - takes about 10 minutes a day on admin which is quicker than clearing spam from my inbox By the way there is no updating - the site is in real time and dynamic! make a booking and then go back to the schedule and see that the available spaces has actually changed. All the confirmatons are automatic. weather cancellations by email and SMS are done with one mouse click and sent to everyone booked on a dive. changes to schedules are automatically sent out as the changes are made. When I went online with the system I went from 2.5 hours per dive day admin time down to 10 minutes and my mobile bill wend down from £350 per month in season to £75. Basically, before I would spend all day getting calls or messages and spend all evening ringing people back at my cost.

The site setup for a season takes a bit longer but lets face it.... you can do that off season or on days off.

Overall the plan with the turtletec software is to get at least 10 charters on line and then we launch www.nationalcharterboatbooking.co.uk. this site will automatically (read..... do nothing!) list all the charter boats using the system and show all the dives and availability and give you the ability to book on the boats individual site with just a click of the mouse.

I find that 90% of divers are happy to book on the net using a good system, 5% tend to send a few emails and sort things out and 5% either dont have internet or want to talk things over even if they are looking at the system whilst they are talking.

talkings good, and less experienced (no offence) divers or people new to an area sometimes need that personal touch. But as most skippers tend to be operating out of mobile range, its hard to get hold of them just when you want to. Even at Breakwater, where because of the size of the operation they always have someone on the end of a phone, its sometime difficult to get through on the phone due to the volume of calls they get. Giving the majority of divers the ability to sort things out simply with a few clicks of a mouse will enable the primary contact in any charter operation to focus their time on the clients that need it.

regards

[David Wallace]

Originally Posted by Crisspy Fiver

One other thing I just dont get. I looked on Break Waters site for a few dives over a weekend. On both days the wrecks listed were not very deep and basically not really the kinda wrecks high on my list. Now say they had the Aelion Sky, UB74, Pomerainian, M2 listed I would have been jumping up and down to book. How do you skippers decide what wrecks to dive. Novice stuff say Saturday and deeper stuff Sunday? The tides ? just wondering.

Jamie

I have copied your question to Breakwater..... they may help answering it

regards

[Andy the Coastie]

Hopefully , mine will online soon ....

TAURUS DIVING... ONLINE BOOKING

Me old matey , Nick is making it for me still some work going on , but we be good when finished

[Paul Oliver]

With breakwater if you get a group of 4 together then book on and you can change the dive site, i have done this before when it did not suit us. This is as long as it fits the bigger plan, but with so many boats Budgie has flexibility, just try and do it early.

[TerryH]

Originally Posted by Crisspy Fiver

Terry sounds like you dived with some of the people I dived with. The one who springs to mind was nicknamed VR3Man. Him and his buddy took two hours in the morning to plan a dive then ended up running out of air, losing an smb and bending the computer!. Now that is a dive muppet. I didnt take or give that group my email. I did mention to one of them though that if they continued to dive like that they probably wouldn't be diving for very long. The only time iv ever stuck my nose in someone else business. They were extremely dangerous though.

Saying that no one has ever asked for my email so maybe im a dive muppet to

Well I've dived with quite a few muppets and I bet at times I've looked like
one too.

Here's a few gems.
1. Doing Dive Leader in a year is not something to shout about if you havnt
got the dives to back it up.
2. If you are going to bend somebody it's not a good idea to say to the
coastguard on the quayside "Dive marshal? Suppose I'd better do it".
3. If your buddy is in the pot Saturday because of a dodgy drysuit inflator,
best not to test the same suit again on the Sunday (without any repair) on a 35m wreck.
4. If a member of your party is extremely unhappy about dark spaces and
wreck penetration, you dont want to pick a wreck that you are almost guaranteed to get lost in.

And guess what. All the same club and all the same weekend!

I've got there email and no I wont be calling them.

Originally Posted by Crisspy Fiver

I sent out over 10 emails friday. Today Most have replied. By the looks of one of the emails Iv even been booked onto a dive. I dint ask that though. I simply asked what the plans are for certain dates.

One Weymouth skipper who will remain nameless, has the habit of calling an
enquiry a booking. Even kept a bad weather cancellation deposit, when he
decided that one of his "alternates" was an actual booking. This was dispite
(and he admited so via email) having no verbal or written confirmation by us
of the date.

TerryH

[David Wallace]

Originally Posted by Andy the Commie

Hopefully , mine will online soon ....

TAURUS DIVING... ONLINE BOOKING

Me old matey , Nick is making it for me still some work going on , but we be good when finished

so what happened to you going on line with my system mate?