Dear All,
I KNOW THIS THREAD SOUNDS ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE BUT IT IS VERY TRUE
I have just returned from a charter trip to some amazing islands in the Andaman sea with Dieter Dongphrajan onboard his boat Nakamal.
The destination was great, but the captain was a real danger to our lives! As soon as we got far enough from port he started to drink openly and was drunk all of the time from beginning till we all (5 total) left via airplane in fear of going to jail or getting killed through his crazy attitude.
Since we were aboard he encouraged divers to go beyond their limits and think of Nitrogen Narcosis as an alternative to LSD.uke
Took an in experienced diver to over 40m+ and left him there alone!
Was drunk at thee helm with our 5 lives in his hands, the amount of times we nearly hit something was amazing. He was to drunk (and night blind) to see a huge marker buoy in a busy harbor, we missed it by a few feet!
He told us how he loves to Dive on LSD
He lied to the Authorities about his EPIRB giving false details and removing the "use by date" the EPIRB is 7 years out of date! We made a 450 mile crossing coming across only one other vessel with no EPIRB and no other safety devices other than 3$ life jackets and a ring on a rope. Dieter Dongphrajan claims to be a registered captain with a license but he doesn't know how to use an SSB, doesn't know how to use flares (which were also nearly a decade out of date), had never used the short wave before and told us that if the boat was to sink that all 7 of us could get in his tender. The tender was tied to the back of the boat and took nearly 10 minutes to release!
We all left the charter after only 3 days at our destination with this mad man, he was violent, rude, offensive and drunk the whole time. He broke a number of laws while we were onboard and we all decided that paying over 500 U.S.D to fly home and cut our charter short by over a week was the safest thing to do.
We are all in the process of doing what we can to bring this man to justice.
PLEASE help us to bring this man in front of the correct governing body responsible for issuing a captains license. He also claims to be a SCUBA course director and we have reported him to PADI for further investigation.
Dieter Dongphrajan and his boat Nakamal are based in Thailand, we will of course be talking to the police, immigration and coastguard here, but what we believe is that his license must be investigated as he is risking peoples lives at sea and is totally incapable and has almost no sailing ability.
Any assistance would be most appreciated by all of us.
Best Regards,