Wow, what an unnecessary,unrealistic and out of place review! To all guests thinking about joining us, please review comments from guests that have ACTUALLY done an entire trip with us.
Now let’s be fair here, if you went on an entire trip with us, and we were unfriendly, gave you shark education or insight then yes, by all means judge and criticise us.
I would like to respond piece by piece to your review.
We departed Simons Town harbour with the sea conditions looking much worse than forecasted. Rob Lawrence, has spent over 16 yrs. working at Seal Island, and has more sea hours than any skipper handling shark boats in False Bay personally, skippered the boat. He got half way to the island and made the call to turn around. Rob said “sorry guys, the weather is too bad to continue and we have to turn around”. He is a very wise skipper and made the correct call. I fail to see how that is not explaining to you why we can’t do a trip…the weather is too bad to continue.
You said that we should have pushed on to at least see the natural predation activity. If Rob had thought, that would be the best option; we would have done a short “predation trip”. But the sea conditions were horrid and we made a safety call to turn around. You don’t mess with the ocean.
When the boat got back to the harbour, the crew was not being “unfriendly to you”. They were just not able to sit and chat as crew then had to go and dock the boat. Rob said “our office will call you later to reschedule”. We did chat to you later but we could not get you on another trip as we were full.
The “other boat” you mention came back early having seen NO sharks, NO predations, nothing. Again, Rob had made the correct call.
Just to let you know that the shuttle company is an outsourced and we personally had to pay them for fetching and returning you to your hotel, which you probably didn’t realise. So I think it’s incorrect to state that we “ripped you off”.
You sound very pleased that you went on another “overloaded boat”. ASEC does not contravene our permit regulations to squeeze extra guests on a boat. Not only can we lose our licence, but should an accident occur, the boat’s public liability insurance will not be valid. It would also be unfair to guests who have booked to discover that max 12 is actually 13, 14, and 15….We clearly state that we take small groups only.
So be fair here, if you went on an entire trip with us, and we were unfriendly, gave you shark education or insight then yes, by all means judge and criticise us.
The bottom line is that we paid for your shuttle to pick you up, tried to get to sea, the weather was bad, we had to turn around and come back, and you were taken back at no charge to yourself.
By the way, that very day, we got a call from another guest wanting to re-book. She thanked us so profusely for turning around as she said she felt quiet scared. She did re-book and had an amazing trip with us and will be putting her comment on TRIP ADVSIOR.