During the week in week in Grand Cayman, it became apparent that our Lebanon trip was rapidly falling apart. The trip that started with 12 people for the first week and 10 for the second had within the past thirty days dwindled to 6 people for both weeks. During Tek Week two more people dropped out leaving the “Houston contingent” (Dave Snyder from Manhattan, Nat Robb from Cayman, Randy Terrill from Atlanta, Mark Conrad from Houston, and me)as our travel agent termed us. While we were committed to the trip, with deposits and air seats it became apparent that others were not as committed and for various reasons felt the need to drop out.
The problem for those of us remaining is that we have barely enough people to safely dive the Victoria and if someone has any issue (Ear clearing problems, equipment problems, etc) the dive would be scrubbed for everyone. Additionally, the costs for the dives would now be covered by 4 divers instead of 10-12 divers.
So after a lot of late night discussions, talking and soul searching we all decided to cancel this year’s trip and put one together for ourselves next year. I sent several notes to Walid in Lebanon, who was understandable upset about everything falling apart especially after he had purchased $5,000 of sorb and supplies for the trip, and explained our position and then told him we wanted to put our own trip together for next year. We also promised to handle it more like we would a conventional Oceanic Ventures trip complete with deposits for everyone.
This was a very disappointing development. We had all spent money and time preparing for the trip and the diving. It was especially disappointing since I spent the week in Grand Cayman diving in a DRY SUIT!
But as they always say in baseball, there is always next year.
