In Reply to: Re: In thinking it over posted by Funny! on June 25, 2007 at 08:28:26:

I've been on quite a few Sport Chalet trips, particularly on the Great Escape. That's one of our favorite boats, so if there's a weekend we want to dive, we'll hop on it no matter who's chartered it.

I don't mind being on the same boat with classes, or going to "boring" dive sites - I can still have plenty of fun in shallow, easy areas. And I love being around new divers. I don't want to start bashing newbies, or SC instructors.

But for some reason, the SC trips tend to feel a little more chaotic and stressful. I've never figured out where to lay the responsibility for that - I like all the individual DMs fine, but I suspect part of it is that there often aren't quite enough of them on a boat, for when it's full of a lot of new divers. And we've had quite a few miscommunications and such between the shop/divers/DMs about schedule, destination, etc - moreso than with other charters, or open boats.

So I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. Mainly, I don't want to see the boats lose business. I'll certainly continue to dive on them - in fact, this arrangement means SC will be losing my business, since they now mostly dive with boats than I'm less likely to sign up for.

-Anastasia