Going diving? Do your research first

What could go wrong? Diving is fundamentally dangerous, an 8 year old knows that but accidents are few and far between. That’s not to say that things can’t go wrong, you spend months planning and looking forward to your annual two week trip, and it costs a small fortune. Thankfully scuba diving accidents are relatively rare, however that doesn’t mean all dive trips are good.

Many experienced divers will be familiar with the gap year divemaster who spends more time enjoying the dive than ensuring those in his care are behind him. How about the trip where you were partnered with someone who’d just passed their open water course and hadn’t experienced a current before and very nearly drifted off? Or the time when you paid to dive the pinnacle where the mantas and whale sharks hang out but when you get to the dive site there’s only a shallow reef and no pinnacle, the tide/weather/visibility explanation comes only when you ask after the dive and nobody on the boat knows that you paid for a different dive. These things, and worse, do happen – all too often.

Diving is an odd industry, people travel half way across the world and put their lives in the hands of a business/people they have no prior knowledge of, apart from their website, without any references whatsoever. In many countries where the diving is good you need little more than a website, a base and some equipment to setup as a dive center, it would be impossible for a dive organisation to inspect every dive center before providing accreditation.

What can you do if things go wrong? Who are you going to complain to? What do you think your chances of getting a refund are?

It’s not all bad, far from it, the majority of dive operators offer a great service and have many, many, happy customers however there are operators to be weary of. How can you tell who to trust? A good way is to read