Ten Fathoms ledge- KeyWest

[Whodat26]

Will be arriving in Key West on Carnival Freedom on May 27 2013. Has anyone been to this dive site? And what dive ops will go here?

[divinmule]

Will be arriving in Key West on Carnival Freedom on May 27 2013. Has anyone been to this dive site? And what dive ops will go here?

 

Can't help ya there,Sorry.

 

But if your going to Key West...Capt. Corner will take you to the Vandy. Its a fun site that will give you lots of different dive profiles depending upon what your looking for.

 

Have fun!

[Whodat26]

Found this review on a different website. Glad you had better luck with them than he did. But I think I will pass.

 

I don't usually write reviews unless the experience was really good or really bad. This was so bad that I felt compelled to write it to warn folks thinking of diving with them in the future.

 

I am PADI certified and I usually go scuba-diving at least once a year, especially during Thanksgiving and this was my first trip to Key West to scuba dive on Thanksgiving 2012 (Yes, even after more than a month and a new year, I still felt compelled to write this review).

 

First warning flag was reading bad reviews of this dive company on tripadvisor prior to my trip. However, I thought they may have cleaned up their act since most of the bad reviews were in 2011. In addition, they were a 5 star PADI certified company so they couldn't be too bad right? Wrong!

 

Second warning flag was after signing up, I had asked if we should choose our wetsuit and equipment while waiting and the lady said "no, we are lazy, we have everything on board"?

 

Third warning flag was after boarding, I never saw any head-counts/roll-calls done. This is usually a basic requirement and all the previous dive companies I had dived with had done it religiously.

 

So what happened? Let's just say that they didn't see us surface and signal to be picked up, and we were finally picked up by the US Coast Guards 2 hours later! (I am not really proud to say this but like I said, I want to warn others)

 

As a single diver, I was buddied up with another single diver (Advanced PADI Certified) on board that day. They did warn us that the currents were pretty strong that day and that we should descend immediately upon entering the water. However, after they dropped us off at the Eastern Dry Rocks, we found out that the currents were strong all over and our air ran out pretty fast. As a result, we had to surface after around 15 minutes, which was fine. After we surfaced, we realized we were about 100 yards away from the boat. We tried swimming towards the boat but the currents were too strong and kept pushing us away from the boat. So we signaled to be picked up and waited. 1 minute became 2 and then 5 and then 10 but the boat got further and further away; it also appeared to be moving in a totally separate direction. We tried swimming towards the boat again while signaling the distress sign, using our fins to provide more visibility but the boat just got further and further away! After 30 minutes and after our boat disappeared from the horizon, my dive buddy and I decided to swim towards a huge structure which appeared to be fixed (we found out later that it was the Sand Key Lighthouse). While swimming we kept looking out for our boat but it never return. We waved for assistance whenever we saw a boat but no one saw us. I truly understood the meaning of the “big ocean” after this incident. To cut the story short, after 2 hours of swimming more than 2 miles, just before the sun set and the water turned totally dark, and just 20 yards from the lighthouse, we heard a boat approaching. We waved and were relieved when we saw it was the US Coast Guards coming directly for us. After getting on board the boat, I asked the US Coast Guards how come they saw us and came directly for us but our boat never did, they answered simply “we were looking”. After all this, the dive shop personnel, including the various dive masters on board never once apologized for the incident and gave all sorts of excuses about why they didn’t see us, including the unbelievable “the other dive shop was worse as they left somebody out in the water overnight” and "God has something better planned for you"! That is why I will never dive with them again and will never recommend this dive shop to anyone. Beware!

[divinmule]

Wow that had to be awful for them! Can't imagine what they went thru.

 

As for us we've dove them several times and have never seen the problems they described. But I can only speak for the days we dove with them.

 

We will dive with them again given the opportunity. Nice operation, friendly people, close to the ship, and safety conscious the times we've been with them.

 

Have fun in Key West...hope ya get to enjoy some nice diving. Get to the Vandy if you can she's very impressive.

[G.C]

When I went with Captians Corner last year to the Vandenburg it was a every Thursday trip at that time. Very good operator at least the day I was there. Looking forward to diving with them again soon. You are required to be at minimum AOW certified to do this deep dive. This is an outstanding dive location if you enjoy deep large wrecks.

[divinmule]

Yeah seems bad that Capt. Corner gets all the bad rep out of this review. While I feel sorry for the folks that went thru this... reading their review does have to make ya wonder a bit....

 

They had to surface after 15 minutes at a spot that has an avg depth of 15ft up to 35 ft. max.

They were a couple 100 ft from the boat and couldn't at least get to the tag line. Or use their whistles enough to be heard.

Or deployed their safty sausage to be visable.

 

Don't get me wrong. I can by no means say where the blame lies. But it certainly sonds like the divers can't put all this on the dive operator.

 

But none of us was there, so each person just has to make up their own mind and go where they feel comfortable. Heaven knows their are plenty of operators down in that neck of the woods.