Unprofessional and dangerous
This operation is nonredeemable, and I mean there isn't one single aspect of this operation for which one could write a positive note when viewed through an objective lens in comparison with other operations along the east coast of Florida. I'll try to break this down in sections, here we go:Professionalism and operational efficiency: The first thing you'll come to realize is you won't know who actually works for SFDH, no one is wearing a common uniform, and even when you have your gear with you trying to find out where to go, or what to do, people just walk by you without saying a word. You have some people wearing shirts from other shops, yet they apparently worked for SFDH. This is like wearing a Winn-Dixie shirt when you're working at Publix, yet it gets more confusing when you finally approach someone and ask if they work there and you get an unprofessional sarcastic response of "yeah, I do", but make the point by saying to them "Well, its hard to tell since you're wearing a Force-E shirt". Profanity is thrown around carelessly, which isn't exactly as issue for me, per se, but one should exercise a bit more caution when children are present and not to use so many within a single spoken sentence. The captain and the "dive master" will openly talk badly about other paying customers on the boat, in front of others. This is sickening and unprofessional. Safety: I will start at the dock with people smoking, and not just smoking on the dock, but actually on the boat. My husband and I both noticed cigarette butts on the boat deck and in the trash can too. While this would normally be in the "cleanliness" section of any review I wanted mark this as a safety issue because they will smoke right next to tanks with oxygen content over 30%, and we even witnessed someone smoking right next to a bottle which had 100% oxygen. Perhaps they don't understand what an oxidizer is and how dangerous smoking on a boat is, but this is not only bad for safety, it is also not unsanitary and trashy.Safety Part 2: The second part of safety is the boat crew and their careless nature. There is only one captain and one "dive master" on the boat, even with a boat with 20+ people on board! If this isn't bad enough we witnessed the crew asking paying customers to help with lines, ladders, and doing crew duties as they relate to other paying divers. Who is actually in charge on the boat when they're employing the help of a paying customer? What would their insurance company think of this? Even better, what would the coast guard think of this? We have never witnessed such loose protocols on a boat here in Florida, this was the first and hopefully the last time we ever see this. Safety Part 3: To wrap up safety I'll talk about the tag line, an uncommon means of getting a diver back on board here in Florida where we have the prevailing currents generated by the Gulf Stream. Not only is this a lazy means of getting divers back on the vessel they're forcing divers to pull themselves against the current to reach their ladder. The shear amount of pressure against the body with all your gear on creates a lot of drag and will exhaust most divers. But in my experience they deployed the tag line so sloppily it wound up wrapping around my neck, chocking me, and when I finally fixed that issue(after the 'dive master' told me we'd fix it when I got back on board) of being chocked to death, it was found the tag line was wrapped around my legs and Jade, the far too young captain, was screaming at my husband to hold the tag line, but he yelled back "NO, if I pull this line it will pull her leg and yank her off the ladder, I'll be fine, do your job". This is where Jade got her little attitude and said "I'm sick of this F-ing guy". I mean, Jade, put two and two together here, we're diving together, we sat together, its probably a great idea to hold your tongue in front of someones significant other, but just don't do it general, it shows a lack of professionalism.Go elsewhere, save your life, this place will kill someone.
Nikki P
Dangerous dive operator
In business it is never how you manage things when everything is fine, it is how you manage a situation when it has gone awry; with an open ear and mind to listen to your clearly frustrated customer and understand the faults in your operation to come to a common ground resolution. However, at SFDH, this isn't the case, as you'll soon realize this operation is poorly run by people who lack basic customer service, and safety, skills. Its worth noting, you may believe you're in a T-shirt shop instead of a dive shop.I called and talked to Mike, who I guess is the owner/manager (or at least acted like it), because I was more than angry about the crew and the operation in general, but Mike doesn't like "cuss words" (tip for ya, most adults use the word "Profanity"), but he and his crew should check their language in front of everyone too, especially since the expletives were flying out of their mouths in front of a child who was on the boat! I chose the words I did with him because there was simply no other means of describing the operation. But I get it, Mike wanted to control the conversation, this isn't how you handle customers, especially when your service is so terrible it can actually be life threatening, a total failure in listening to your customers.Set aside their rancid business practices and horrible customer service, this operation is dangerous, they simply do not care about safety, at all. I have never witnessed such chaos on a boat in my entire life. In fact, I now understand why this operation has sank more of their boats than any other dive operator here in South Florida, it all finally makes sense to me (don't believe me, look it up). What makes this worse is no employee is wearing anything which would elude they're staff of SFDH, and when you're waiting on the dock to see where to go, or when to board the boat with your gear all around you, the staff just walks by, ignoring you, but how can you tell who actually works there? You can't, no uniforms, no single piece of clothing common among the crew, you'll love being ignored. On the boat they had passengers doing crew work with the lines, ladders, and all other things, I was half expecting a passenger to take the helm. Worst of all, they do a half baked roll call at the start and NEVER do another roll call again, even after a dive, it truly is a wonder they haven't killed someone yet, but the day isn't over.There are complaints about them calling a dive over trivial means, and I will second the complaint. The young and incompetent captain called the dive down to Lady Luck because one diver didn't just drop negative and descend, like the gentlemen before him, to a depth where there was ZERO current. The current at the surface you ask? Easy, ~1 knot, nothing more, a child could counter that; however, since the passenger came back on board whining and complaining (I'm not exaggerating) they "called the dive". Seriously, we drop negative all the time in WPB and hit the wrecks perfectly, even in ripping currents, but this is assuming the captain knows what they're doing, and young lady who was captain simply does not know what she is doing.I have to make mention on the use of a tag line, this isn't normal when you're in these waters due to the effect of the Gulf Stream nearby creating a north bound current. Every dive operator just positions the boat north of us on surface, gets close enough to us, and calls us into a short swim to the ladders, even with a catamaran. SFDH deploys the tag line so it has to go with the current; thus, you're going to be fighting the current to get back to the boat, on the tag line. When we did shallow dives closer to shore, where the current was about 4 knots, its tiring. One final mention was how divers became entangled in the tag line while climbing the ladder, super dangerous. To wrap it up, they smoke and vape on their boats, even around cylinders with 100% O2, think about that for a second. All of this and at the end of each charter they beg you to write positive reviews online for them while you're on the way in; however, if you leave a negative review, they will fight to have it removed, go on any Scuba forum and see how many people simply won't dive with them, it is staggering, yet they seem to have a low number of negative reviews. I wouldn't have thought that they would actively try to get reviews removed until they attempted that with me and my review. This place simply isn't worth the money, or your life for that matter, you have many other safe and professional options.
Robert P
