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Blackbeard's Cruises Bahamas SCUBA Disaster With Psycho Captain who has, obviously, been too long at sea. ripoff Miami Florida
We truly experienced a living hell vacation in the Bahamas with a nightmarish captain who has, obviously, been too long at sea.
The following is the text of a letter I sent to the owners of the company who have, to date, denied any responsibility for the actions of their employees, ignored phone calls from multiple aggreived passengers and even hung up on a customer they bothered to call back.
These people don't understand the slightest nuance of customer service and I don't wish anyone to be exposed to their lack of care and concern, much less waste their hard-earned money and be abused as much as we were.
To wit:
October 15, 2002
Bruce and Peggy Purdy
Blackbeard's Cruises
PO Box 661091
Miami, FL 33266
Via Certified Mail
Mr. and Mrs. Purdy:
This letter is to inform you of my great disappointment and to document certain actions by your staff on board your boat, Sea Explorer, during the week of October 5-11, 2002.
My wife and I purchased passage on your vessel through our local SCUBA shop, Big O Scuba, and eagerly anticipated a week's vacation diving and enjoying the beauty of the Bahamas with a group of friends. Your literature led us to believe that we would experience sailing (including the opportunity to help sail the vessel), plenty of diving, snorkeling, fishing and spearfishing for lobsters and fish throughout the trip. I, along with several others in our group, even went to the additional expense of buying our own pole spears in order to be certain our spearing expeditions would be fruitful.
The weather during our week was most cooperative and the diving was world-class. However, several events led to a most disappointing finish to the trip and a genuine distaste for your company.
We helped hoist the main sail on our departure from Miami but, after that, no canvass ever saw the light of day (or dark of night) again. Our sailing experience was completely diesel-based.
From the start, the captain of our boat, Yolanda Goode (and I hope I'm spelling her name correctly), seemed to make it her goal to leave every fish and lobster in the sea, in the sea. She refused to let us spearfish on any dive sites, which we were able to accept, for the most part.
Unfortunately, on the few occasions when she reluctantly let us off the boat with our spears, it was on sites that were virtually barren of game to pursue. With her length of experience in the waters of the Bahamas, I have no doubt that she was completely familiar with sites rich in fish and lobsters.
As an example, when we pulled into port in Bimini for the evening on Wednesday, the 9th, another of your vessels followed us in (and I honestly can't remember whether it was the Pirate's Lady or Morningstar) and, even though their passenger manifest was a fraction of ours, had speared 20 lobsters to our two.
Along that same issue, the fishing poles we used to troll for the three barracuda we used on a shark dive and the very few other fish we caught (two other barracuda, two small mackerel and a skipjack, essentially) were interesting short-lined. That is, there was 40-60 yards of monofilament on each reel, certainly not enough to maintain efficient trolling distances from the boat, not to mention any fighting line should a fish have been caught. My requests to fill the reels were met with an explanation that the previous passengers had entangled the lines and had to cut them. I hate having to pay for the mistakes of others, I suppose.
Throughout the trip, Capt. Goode was arrogant and unresponsive to our concerns and requests, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were customers and had reasonable expectations to be treated as such. She was never hesitant to inform us as to the fact that she was the captain of the ship (and, in my opinion, treated her crew in much the same way) and had ultimate authority and control over our activities. To me, that seems a very strange way to generate goodwill and return business.
The food on board was edible but not much more. Upon departure, the ship's cook informed us that he wasn't really a very good cook and did all he could during our trip to prove that. Several of us on board helped with suggestions and we would have been better off cooking for ourselves.
Our divemaster, Mike, seemed a helpful and concerned fellow but I was surprised that, as divemaster, he was never in the water with us. When questioned, he told us that Capt. Goode had insisted he remain on the boat, not in the water with his divers. That, you'll have to admit, is an unusual situation as we count on persons in his position to be our guide, leader and first safety officer during dives. That's hard to do from 40-100 feet above the bottom. It was obvious that he was not particularly comfortable with the arrangement but, once again, he was working under captain's orders.
Our first mate, Bill, was always responsive to our questions and did what he could to maintain relations between the passengers and captain. He seems a very stable and capable mate and I credit his calm demeanor with keeping irritation levels and complaints to a nearly tolerable level.
Steve, the deckhand, also did what he could to placate our concerns and make our trip enjoyable. I can't recall a request that, so long as it didn't involve challenging the captain, he didn't do his best to fulfill.
Our engineer, Jackson, seemed to start out on a good footing but, as the week wore on, became unresponsive and extremely defensive of Capt. Goode. He had responsibility for cleaning the head nearest my berth, #2, I believe, and by the end of the week it was, in a word, filthy. He had the audacity to not even complete the checklist that he'd looked at the room by the last two days of the trip. I counted his checked cleanings on the posted list and, of some 18 required, he had checked seven. The captain seemed to hold a separate set of rules for his behavior and attention to duties from the rest of the crew.
On a more serious note, one of the ship's crew from the other boat in port and our cook, Brad, made a very lewd and inappropriate sexual advance toward my wife. She spent a good part of the last day of the trip in tears and was disgusted with their brazen and assumptive attitude. Had we been on land, I can assure you that they'd have been dealt with severely and thoroughly. I am considering possible legal action against them and you at this point and am awaiting a photograph of Brad urinating from the vessel (taken by another passenger) as well as comments and observations by others to determine how to proceed.
Our night in Bimini seems to have sent Capt. Goode over the edge.
After an evening of revelry at The Compleat Angler and a very strange set of events at the residence of Piccolo Pete (highly recommended and attended by Capt. Goode), several of us returned to the boat and participated in what the cook later labeled shenanigans. He was extremely inebriated and a part of the activities.
I observed the following:
It was suggested that an article of one of the crew's clothing be obtained and added to the flags flying from the boat but, after some consideration, determined that a pillowcase might be less challenging and problematic, given the captain's already difficult demeanor. Along with the cook, the crew's quarters were entered and his pillow was tossed up to the deck. At his protest (it was, after all, his pillow), he suggested we use Jackson's pillow instead, which was then tossed up to the deck.
In the end, neither pillowcase was used. They were simply tossed below again.
And that, apparently, is what caused Capt. Goode to go off the deep end.
When she returned to the boat (around midnight, I believe) I was on the deck, dozing on the compressor box. My wife, unbeknownst to me, had just been insulted by your employees. Capt. Goode, upon discovering the moved pillows, confronted all of us on deck demanding to know who had violated and rummaged through the crew's quarters. Her attitude was very confrontational and accusatory and, rather than do battle with her, I and everyone else on deck essentially shut up and denied any knowledge. You'd have done the same.
After some time, I stepped forward and apologizedalthough I personally had no involvement in the shenanigansin order to placate her enough that we could all get to bed. At that point, she accused Bill Beal, the owner of Big O SCUBA and the one who booked his customers on the trip, of being the ringleader and responsible for the violation. Bill, since I had been on the boat, was in bed and asleep. He had nothing whatsoever to do with the event.
The next day, Capt. Goode confronted Bill individually, although he suggested that she do so in front of the rest of the passengers, and made her accusations to him. He,
rightly, indignantly denied them. At that point, Capt. Goode addressed the entire group of passengers as if we were a group of children and challenged us, if we were man or woman enough, to confess to the crime. No one spoke up (among the passengers or crewand keep in mind the crew was not completely innocent) and Capt. Goode was, in a word, infuriated.
She informed us that, as captain, she could turn the boat and return to Miami right then if no one confessed. As a group, most of the passengers were then equally infuriated and she was told to do exactly that. Bill spoke up and told her not to threaten us but, instead, return to port. We'd be happy to do so and take this up there.
At that point, she backed down to some degree and continued the trip, not directly addressing any of us in the Big O group for the rest of the time we were on board.
Upon our return to port in Miami Thursday night, we voiced our desire to leave the boat as soon as possible to Capt. Goode. She told us she'd try to contact Customs and Immigration to see if they could meet us at the dock, clear our paperwork and let us disembark so we could separate ourselves from what had become a barely tolerable situation. Later, she informed us that she had contacted the authorities and they were not able to accommodate our request.
When we questioned the immigrations officer the next morning, he assured us that it was certainly possible for both agencies to be called and meet us at any time, they simply made additional charges to do so. That possibility was never presented to us by Capt. Goode as I can assure you that money wasn't much of a factor at that point.
Essentially, Capt. Goode only told us the part of the story she wanted us to hear. Essentially, she lied to us.
Suffice it to say that what we expected to be a pleasant, memorable and exciting vacation was, instead, turned into a miserable and humiliating experience for which we paid our hard-earned money. I can't recall being treated less as a customer and more as chattel in my life. I am disgusted and deeply angered by the entire turn of events. I have already begun to share those feelings with those who ask about our trip.
I await your immediate contact and plan to make this right in whatever way might be possible for all involved.
Mark
Omaha, Nebraska
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Bryan
Palo Alto,California,
U.S.A.
Sympathy for you, Mark
#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, February 24, 2009
Well, 7 years after the negative experience that Mark reported with Blackbeard's Cruises, I came across this report/article which he wrote so long ago. I was an employee of Blackbeard's Cruises at the time and I personally knew the employees he mentioned, so I thought I would provide my own perspective.
First and foremost, I sympathize with Mark's plight. As employees doing the same scuba trips week in and week out it was sometimes hard for us to remember that our customers were only there for a "once in a year" or perhaps "once in great while" experience. This being your precious time for a much needed vacation, an event you probably anticipated for months, it is not unreasonable that expectations were very high. Now I don't know exactly what happened on the boat Mark was on, but in general it would have been great if all crew members could fully appreciate these facts and try hard to make each week special even when it feels like just another week.
It sounds like Mark had real issues with Captain Yolanda. I'll admit she was a real tough case. Once you got on her bad side you were in a world of pain, most likely forever as patching things up was not her strong suit. Her personality could be really tough to deal with and a lot of crew members, myself included, felt like she was impossible to deal with. That said, she was also tireless and put a lot of effort into many trips, and her crew seemed to make the most money in tips at the end of each week, so they must have been doing a few things right. But if you ruffled her feathers, probably without even meaning to or realizing it right away, she would become, irreversibly, a downright _________.
You should understand that Captain Yolanda held a full captain's license which is important to note because the Coast Guard requires that a vessel like the Sea Explorer operating 24 hours a day have TWO crew members with such licenses--the captain and the first mate. While it was easy to find employees who wanted to work on a diving live-aboard boat, finding capable employees with captain's licenses was another matter. Blackbeard's Cruises needed 6 such crew members each and every week (3 ships x 2 = 6 captain's licenses required). The point is that captains were in short supply, at least for the wages that were being offered, and so quite a bit of negative feedback could be tolerated by the company management for crew in these positions. Furthermore, it was hard for the management to know if the complaints they were receiving were genuine or the result of people who might complain under virtually any circumstances. The default action was to give the captain or first mate the benefit of the doubt, if for no other reason then because these positions were very hard to replace. Other positions were easily expendable and thus negative feedback given about a dive instructor, engineer, cook or deckhand could have much tougher consequences.
Now don't get me wrong, I have no intention of burning my bridges with Blackbeard's Cruises and I am hoping that anybody reading this does not think I have reflected negatively on the company in any way. Overall, I think they did a good job for their niche. So let's state that niche: Blackbeard's Cruise, at least in 2002, was offering a no frills, economy class scuba live-aboard package. The crew were not paid highly and that probably contributed to a real diversity in the quality of employees. Also, turnover of the crew was high--anyone there for more than a year or two was a veteran. The boats were older, heavy, and had undersized masts which meant they would never really sail well unless the wind was blowing hard. The sails were mainly decoration and helped to provide a fantasy image of cruising the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas under the power of the wind. It sounds romantic, but is not very practical for the nonstop diving and activity schedule that was maintained. Most days included three dives plus a night dive, interspersed with port calls, beach bonfires, island exploration and such. To get in that kind of an agenda, sailing was largely out of the question. Even if there was enough wind to move a heavy boat with an undersized mast and sails (like the Sea Explorer), it would eat up a ton of time each day and result in fewer dives. Think about it: how could you pull up to a mooring at a dive site and secure the boat to that mooring under sail power? You couldn't. You would have to drop the sails first and then use the motor. Furthermore, the chef can't do anything in the galley under sail power because the boat is heeled to one side, so too much sailing might delay meal preparation. It all boils down to the fact that you have one week, 20+ passengers, and an expectation to pack in a lot of action. That requires a system that can run efficiently and productively. Mark, maybe you would be better off next time getting some friends together and chartering a "bare sailboat" that might come with just a captain. You could then have total control over your agenda and could maybe trade less dives for more sailing and fishing, and you could opt for a real sailboat with true sailing capabilities.
I would also like to address the frustration you expressed with the divemaster staying on the boat and not getting in the water with you. Believe it or not, the best place for the divemaster is on the boat acting as a lifeguard. Most diving accidents happen at the surface or become serious once the diver reaches the surface. Furthermore, with 20+ divers hitting each dive site and scattering both in space and time, a divemaster in the water could hope to keep his/her eyes on a few divers at most. That does nothing for the rest of the divers. Ultimately, a diver in distress can at least make it to the surface, and if you are following your training then your buddy is next to you the whole time to offer assistance as needed. Once on the surface the dive instructor on the boat can spot your flailing arms and come to the rescue with the dinghy, provide first aid and oxygen, and call for the backup of the rest of the crew. I personally made dozens of such rescues, sometimes of divers who were so far away from the boat that I had to use binoculars to affirm that the speck I was seeing was a diver who had no idea how to navigate underwater or deal with an ocean current. To sum up this paragraph, if you want to dive with a divemaster, you will have to find an operation with a larger staff that provides guided dives and likely this will be a substantially more expensive live aboard experience. And never get in the water without someone stationed on the boat as a lifeguard--that is the person who will most likely save your life.
One last topic to cover with you Mark. You talked about your disappoint with the lack of spearfishing. Well I myself was a lobster terrorizer, and I tried hard to nail juicy lobsters for a treat. But it was hard to do, even though I knew the good spots. You see, Blackbeards Cruises visited the same geographic area week after week, year after year. I only had much success at bagging lobsters when we visited spots we didn't normally frequent. Blackbeard's Cruises tried hard to maintain the health of the areas it visited, but the impact was inevitable. And we weren't the only company that roamed the area. There just weren't enough lobsters to supply our 3 boats totalling 60 or so divers each week, week after week.
As a final note I will say that I am personally disappointed that my fellow crew members were rude to you and one even acted inappropriately to your wife. You deserved to have the best week possible, so you have my apology for what it's worth. On the other hand it is hard to pull off a perfect week--most of the time our customers came away satisfied, but there was always some weeks when things just went south for whatever reason. For us crew we just had to get to the next week, but for you it might take quite a bit longer to have another chance, so I hope that your next scuba adventure is remarkable. Going forward, remember to be flexible, complain only when justified, and expect things to not always be perfect when you are shopping for an economy class adventure.
Fletcher
Pitcairn Island,Hawaii,
We had the same problems!
#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, October 16, 2002
Captain Goode took us on a trip to pick up some breadfruit in the islands. For a time everything was idyllic, then the Captain became prone to fits of rage culminating in an incident with some (allegedly) stolen cocoanuts.
After calling the fair Captain on her numerous threats and boasts she attempted to cow me with various dangerous sounding adventures, like walking the plank or "kissing the gunner's daughter". She even threatened to "run me through" with her cutlass! The image of her staring at me with her one good eye (she wore an eyepatch) and the sound of Blackjack (her parrot) shrieking "Avast!" at me from her shoulder still gives me nightmares.