CAYE CAULKER, Belize (21 Nov 2005) -- Managing Director Bill McKenzie of Belize Paradise Limited disputes Tony Reid's claim that conditions were ideal when Discovery Divers lost a customer in strong currents off Caye Caulker. McKenzie says that conditions were so dangerous the day of the accident his company had no choice but to cancel the trip and return to safe harbor with over 100 tourists from the same cruise ship Norwegian Dream. "It was just one of the decisions you have to make and it just seems like it was unsafe and I was concerned whether someone could loose someone or have a heart attack or start to drift away," McKenzie said. "It was just too dangerous to continue operating." McKenzie says that his company terminated all tour diving activities and called the tourists back after only 10 minutes. "We monitor the weather constantly and we got a report about ten o'clock that the wind picking up and starting to gusts to maybe fifteen, twenty miles an hour. They got to the site, they started radioing that the conditions were bad, there were swells, there was a current, and I got on the radio with the supervisor of the boat and I simply made the decision that it was just too unsafe to continue the tour. I ordered the boat to pull all the people back in and leave the site area and within a half hour after that the gusts were picking up to over twenty-five." | | Donald Dresp, the brother of missing diver John Dresp, said that tourists on the Discovery Divers tour were not warned about the difficult conditions they encountered at Shark Ray Alley. "It was not four to six feet deep! It was so deep that I panicked...and the current took me way, way down the line. What I want to know is...how many excursions went out and how many were cancelled because of the bad currents," Dresp said The Dresp family also maintains that the Discovery Divers boat crew did not check the equipment and did not take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of the passengers. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORK |
