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Hotel Scuba

Her Highness and I just returned from a visit to St. Maarten-St.  Martin, a hyphenated island with a split personality as well as divided nationalities.  Our usual trips to the Caribbean are for diving but this time we just wanted to get away from the cold, wet, miserable weather here in the states.

St. Maarten-Martin is an unusual island in that each side has taken on qualities of it's country of affiliation; St. Maarten for it's Dutch heritage and St. Martin for it's French.  There are subtle but noticeable differences in the ambiance, cleanliness, quality of the roads, attitude of the population (friendly and outgoing on the French side-- surly and rude on the Dutch side), and lack of clutter on the French side.

Glitzy high-rise hotels, brightly neoned gambling casinos, and fashionable boutiques abound on the Dutch side and in it's capital Phillipsburg, seemingly in awe of Las Vegas and Miami Beach, all competing for the dollar of the cruise ships.

The French side, although not luxurious, appears to have a higher standard of living.  Streets are cleaner and better cared for, housing is better kept and the general atmosphere is one of a more relaxed way of life.

The volcanic island is almost completely surrounded by beaches and has large enclosed lagoons and bays, lending itself nicely to watersports such as snorkeling, water-skiing, sailboards, parasailing, jet skis, and scuba diving.

After about three days lying on the beach of the hotel, I couldn't stand to see the dive boat go out without me any more and decided to try out the hotel dive operation, which we’ll call "Hotel Scuba".  Having heard that the diving on St. Martin is mediocre at best, I opted for a three-dive package, checking out the dive operation and dive sites before committing myself to a larger package.  This was a wise decision, as I can’t remember having had three more dangerous diving experiences in my 30 years of diving.

All three dive sites were relatively shallow in about 45 feet water, located near the sea buoy outside Phillipsburg harbor.  Surprisingly beautiful, the area is covered with a large number and variety of soft coral, growing on and between lava rock overhangs, narrow crevices and small caves and tunnels.  Relatively few fish were noted but there were numerous barracuda in schools and the usual reef inhabitants were seen.  No eels, turtles, sharks or large pelagics were noted.

"Hotel Scuba" is located at one of the hotels on Simpson Bay, one of the large lagoons inside the island.  The operation is archetypal of most hotel dive operations with the exception that there was no associated dive gear boutique.  The owner, a very pleasant Frenchman in his thirties, spoke reasonably good English and seemed to be more interested in his young wife and a treasure-salvage operation than diving.  He and his dive master had PADI affiliations.  The divemaster, a friendly, helpful young Frenchman, had a very poor grasp of English, and it was he with whom I dove on all three dives.

Rental gear was included in the dive package at $40/dive or three dives for $95, The gear was old and unfamiliar but serviceable.  The regulator had a pressure gauge but no depthmeter or octopus rig.  The tank was noted to be filled to only 1800 psi on all three dives; somewhat less than the 2500-3000 that I've grown accustomed to.  I really missed my computer, and there were no decompression charts or dive tables to refer to.  Without depthmeter, compass or computer I felt as if I were a pilot flying by the seat of my pants, reminiscent of the early days of my diving career.

The main dive boat was a 25-26 foot Boston Whaler type with center console and twin motors.  Return access to the boat was by a two step fold down ladder.  This required complete removal of gear in the water and boarding with no help, as no one was left on the boat during each dive.  The motors were consistent in that one or the other failed to start at the beginning of each trip, but functioned very well after some minor maintenance was carried out.

I questioned the owner about diving safety features, such as oxygen on board the boat, two-way radio services, and whether or not there was a recompression chamber on the island.  I was told that the boat had 02 on board; but later I was unable to find it on the boat.  There was a radio on board but it was never used and I did not see a base station in the dive shop.  His answer concerning the chamber may have been a language problem but I think he said that there was no need for a chamber because "there was no deep diving".  He seemed to lose his command of English when I then asked him what he would do if a diver developed air embolism.  It turns out that there is a chamber on the neighboring island of Saba, where I assume the diving is "deeper".  He did state that they had had no diving accidents--a hard to believe fact if all the diving was as haphazard as my three dives turned out to be.

All of my three dives were in shallow water between 40-50 feet in the area previously described.  The first dive was with 7 divers in a chop of 5-6 feet and swells of 8-10 feet.  Seasickness was a problem and gearing up prior to entry in the rocking boat was very difficult.  I never heard a dive plan given, other than there were " large anchors to see".

 On each dive the divemaster dropped a weighted line about 10 feet, set out a trailing floated fine about 50 feet and carried down an inflatable tube and placed it under the anchor.  He lost the dive boat on each dive, surfacing twice on the last dive to locate the boat.  He also dove once more after all the divers were up so that he could inflate the anchor tube.  This means he made four 50 foot dives in less than an hour without any effort at decompressing.  If he continues this type of diving one can predict that his diving career will be short-lived.  No effort was made by any of the divers to do a decompression stop and I was given the questioning O.K. sign when I tried to decompress with buoyancy control on one of the dives.  By the way, buoyancy control is extremely difficult in the surge caused by 8 foot waves.

We never found the "wreck" which was our dive site on the last day.  We ended up swimming in a "great circle" and I finally surfaced when I reached 100 psi, inflated my BC and back-kicked the final fifty yards to the empty boat.  Needless to say, even the most experienced diver can get stressed out with this kind of haphazard operation, and I'm concerned that they either are ignoring their accidents or don’t hear about them from hotel guests who get decompression illnesses later on after returning home.

I cancelled a night dive after this last episode and forced myself to do other things during the rest of our stay at the hotel.  I suppose that I've been spoiled by the excellent dive operations that I encounter with my usual dive group, Medical Seminars, out of San Antonio, Texas.. It's probably unfair to compare "Hotel Scuba" with a Peter Hughes or Ron Kipp operation, but there are certain diving safety practices which even the smallest dive shop can follow.  Some of these are very basic and can be adhered to without financially breaking an operation.

1). Always have oxygen on board.

2.)  Have an operational two way radio, resuscitation equipment, (first aid kit etc.) on board.

3). Have a dive plan and dive your plan. (It helps to be language compatible)

4). Leave a competent diver on the boat during the dive.

5). Avoid diving if the seas pose a problem with entry or exit.

6). Insist on 15-20 foot decompression stops.

7). Top off tanks so that there will be adequate air for the dive planned.

8). Plan the dive so that divers can be under the boat with 500 psi, in order to provide unhurried decompression stops.

9).    Run all dive operations the same-- as if it's the biggest and the best.

I'm sure that for every dive operation such as this one that there are hundreds who perform in a more professional manner.  "Hotel Scuba" and small hotel operations such as this all seem to cater to the occasional, casual diver and it's quite fortunate that they don’t have "deeper diving",  because I'm certain that their haphazard manner of doing business would lead to many more diving accidents.