Neal Watson — King of Hypocrites
Neal Watson, President of the Bahamas Divers’ Association and owner of Undersea Adventures, has done it again: He used the recent fatal dive accident in the Bahamas (Tiger Beach) once more to blast the foreign competition — US live-aboards that take divers to Tiger Beach — to promote Bahamian shark diving operations which include his own.
Why does Mr.Watson have to go public and talk about “negligence” and “incompetence” on the part of the US shark operator, Jim Abernethy, when it hasn’t been clearly established yet what caused the death of the diver?
Does Mr. Watson, undoubtedly a very experienced diver, not realize that whilst diving, with or without sharks, has become a perfectly safe sport / hobby, “shit can still happen” as bluntly stated by Mike Neumann in a related blog?
I know Jim Abernethy, and I know that he runs a very tight ship, literally. A bit too tight for me, to be honest, as he would not allow me to free-dive at Tiger Beach. Because of this restriction I never went diving with him.
I certainly don’t wish Neal Watson a fatal accident on one of his trips, but I wonder how he would handle such a mishap… But that is a moot question.
What really bugs me, though, is that Mr. Watson is now doing precisely what he vociferously accused other shark-dive operators, obviously all competitors of him, of: ‘Recklessly putting his guests’ lives at risk’ by diving cage-less with “potentially dangerous” sharks such as big hammerheads, lemon sharks (!!), and, of course, tiger sharks which in my (and many others’) opinion are “potentially” no more dangerous than a well maintained car.
Photo: Wolfgang Leander (Bahamas 2003)
Only Neal Watson knows what made him change his mind, and I don’t want to speculate upon it, although it wouldn’t surprise me at all that money, money, money was the motive to go cage-less so as to not lose the business to the competition. He must have recognized that nobody wants to be behind bars watching sharks, except when they happen to be great whites.
I called Mr. Watson a “vulture”*) when he maliciously tried to sink Jim Abernethy and his tiger shark operation after the most unfortunate Markus Groh accident back in early 2008.
I now appoint Neal Watson “King of Hypocrites” in the shark dive industry. However, despite my utter displeasure at his two-faced attitude, I wish him well — he is an old fart, and as such deserves some empathy from a fart his age. :-)
Thus: “Long live the King of Hypocrites!!”….
Also, to be fair: Watson is probably sincere trying to establish some standard safety guidelines within the boundaries of the Bahamian waters. However, and to finish this here, I just can’t escape the feeling that envy is the other, equally strong driving force behind his campaign against the gringo rivals.
