 silent world dive charter, key largo, florida
I would nor recommened silentworld dive charter out of key largo, florida. Below is the email that I sent to the owner, and still have not recieved a response.
Hello Chris and Alison,
Steve Stasiukonis and myself arrived at your dive shop at 7:45am. The shop was closed and we attempted to ascertain where we would have to board the dive boat, without fruition. Steve called your shop and left a call back message which you promptly returned. We returned to your shop and signed the nessacerry paper work etc. We then proceeded to the dive boat without delay.
Upon arrival, the greeting that we received from the boat captain was I'm leaving in six minutes. Steve and myself rushed to remove our dive gear from our pelican cases, that we had Fedexed from New York, rapidly donned our 3mm suits, and raced to get our remaining gear to the boat.
After the captains dive briefing, I inquired if I could run back to my vehicle to get our dive gloves that were left behind in our hurry (at the captains insistence to board the boat) The captain's reply was and I quote " Unless your hands are susceptible to the cold, you will not need them. You can not touch the coral, so that will not be an issue. This being my first ocean dive, I have had several (75) in the great lakes, I acquiesced.
I have to add here that the waves were 5-7 feet and at a depth of 28 feet, the surge was tremendous. We were forced to grab hold of anything that we could in an attempt to keep from tumbling over at times. I now understand, why so much of the coral has died. Most of the hand holds we were forced to grab hold of were sharp and or rough to the touch. I sliced my hand and Steve's hands soon became maroon and had a burning sensation. It soon became apparent that what Steve had been forced to hang on to was fire coral. Steve, who has a boat and his sea legs, became ill underwater due to the surge and vomited through his regulator. I do not feel I am exaggerating when I say It was not an ideal day to be diving.
The second dive was as bad as the first one. Upon returning to the boat, Steve and I decided that we would abort the remaining dives that we had booked, partly because of the rough sea, and mostly because of the captains manner. Do not confuse this with the captains ability to do his job, he did it. However, It was felt that he could have been just a tad more gracious and accommodating, for instance, as you were when we informed you that we were canceling our remaining dives. You refunded our money without argument.
I can not speak for the remaining divers, however, myself and four other divers were ill. One diver could not do the second dive and spent it on the boat vomiting. I believe it safe to say that it may have been to rough of a day on and below the water to dive for most of us.
Regards,
Rick Georgiade
Alpha-Omega Investigations, Inc. | 
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