This is the second part of a review we've already started…read more
Florida Trip- Feb 14th/17th
We had a Friday night meeting with dive group in Stuart Fl. To go over basic dive plan. I asked to speak with Ken Charnock and Kalley Laymon after the meeting. Both Ken and Kalley were supplied with a copy of the original issues we had with Dan and the shop. They both seemed to show concern over the issues and stated that they needed time to process the issue, and that they would get back to us after they had spoken with Dan.
This trip was sold to us by Dan as a 3 day, 7 dive trip included with hotel in Stuart Fl. It ended up being a six dive, with the option to add a night dive for an extra fee-
We were also told that we would be loading from the hotel marina in Stuart, and it ended up being a 45 minute drive one way to Blue Herron Bridge/Riviera Beach-
Part of the group did a boat dive on Saturday morning, after that all boat charters were canceled Saturday and Sunday due to adverse weather. We drove both days down to Herron Bridge to do dives with the assumption that they were going towards dive 1 and 2 for certification. I will openly admit that I did not directly ask this question to Ken or Kalley-
We did two boat dives on Monday with the assumption that we would be certified, only to find out Monday afternoon that they did not count either Saturday or Sunday as dives towards certification, but as "buoyancy testing and weight checks." I have no understanding of why we did all the above and below water safety checks and requirements if these weren't going towards certification-
With obvious frustration over the fact that we still weren't certified, we reached out to Force E dive shop in Riviera beach in an attempt to try and set up 2 more dives to complete our certification before leaving Fl. This would have been an additional added cost of approximately $350.00 per person plus hotel to us. Anna at Force E took the time to set the dive up for us for Feb. 18th, but needed either the SSI referral, or if not available, simply a picture of the paperwork that had initials and sign off.
Out attempts began at 3:54 by reaching out to both Ken and Kalley to get whichever form of paperwork was easier for them. From our understanding, the paperwork came through at approximately 7:20 pm, long after we canceled the dive Anna set up. It seems obvious that due to past issues, I couldn't afford to pay for dives without the actual paperwork in hand- Between Ken and Kalley, 10 calls and a plethora of texts were sent in an attempt to get this taken care of.
Probably the best part of this continuing saga is the knowledge we received from Force E while speaking with them- they do open water dive 1 and 2 at Blue Herron Bridge, and dives 3 and 4 are done from a boat dive.So, EXACTLY WHAT WE DID on this dive weekend..... Even if we didn't go out on a dive boat, there was a CLEAR PATH that could have been taken to finish the certification this weekend- Either via a lack of knowledge, or simply not caring, no one was certified and this could have been avoided-
So, to wrap up our SSI experience:
- Neither Ken or Kalley at any point got back to us, tried to deal with the issue, or seemed to care. I guess this was an attempt to simply "sweep it under the rug."
- there was every possibility of being certified last weekend, they simply didn't take the steps to do so....
- Dan lied to us about what the trip included, and where the dives were happening, including the money above and beyond the trip cost.....