My name is Sean… DAN was there for me?

It is always a source of great joy for the DAN team to hear testimonials from our members. Therefore I want to share another DAN member story with you!

Don’t dive at Devil’s Beach!

My girlfriend and I recently embarked on a last-minute trip which would have taken us quite a bit more than halfway around the world if we had made it to our final destination, that is…
We joined a last-minute yacht trip that would essentially take us from Cape Town all the way over the Atlantic Ocean through the Panama Canal and then across the Pacific Ocean. Our final destination was to be Australia.

This is the kind of event most people dream of attending: a luxurious yacht, a few friends and miles and miles of open water dotted here and there with some of the most diveable islands one can ever hope to see. I have seen many nice places in the past years, but this was the trip to beat them all. St. Helena, Brazil, St. Vincent and Barbados, zip through the infamous Panama Canal, and then off to the Galápagos Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand and finally Australia. It is a list you just can’t beat.

The Atlantic trip went as planned and my girlfriend and I got to see some amazing sites. Barbados is by far my favourite place. Every time you put your feet near the water you see a turtle looking back at you and the water is a comfy 26°C! Added to that, the people there are very friendly and have an accent that can make you crack a smile all day. It’s a great place to plan your retirement.

Panama, however, presented us with some serious challenges. All was going according to plan for the first few days but on the last day before departure darkness loomed in the distance. That distance was approximately 30 minutes’ hiking from the marina on a beautiful stretch of reef and beach suitably called Playa el Diablo. Yes, the Devil’s Beach!
My girlfriend and I went for our last snorkel on the Central American coast, which ended with me slipping and breaking my left hand in four places. I had to hike the 30 minutes back to the marina (as it was getting dark) with pumas lurking nearby in the forest. I should have known better than to go diving at a place called The Devil’s Beach!

The rest of the story is a whirlwind of expensive taxis, late-night emergency hospital X-rays and mental stress associated with trying to figure out how we would get back home to have an operation on what I had then found out was a badly broken hand.

I decided to contact DAN Southern Africa to get some advice on the situation. What followed was something you would never expect of service and delivery from any insurance or business these days in South Africa. The team, not only assisted me in getting home safely but also made sure I knew they were taking care of things the whole way through. I received numerous calls and emails assuring me every step of the way that I was in good hands

A big thanks to the dan medics and the whole of DAN Southern Africa.

Alert Diver and the DAN Blog is read almost exclusively by the DAN members. As such, important messages like Sean’s do not reach non-members unless DAN members make the material available to them or talk to them about it. As such, I would really like to ask you, as a loyal DAN member, to tell your diving buddies about DAN and the value of being a DAN member. DAN is so much more than diving medical cover. DAN represents a culture of care, a heart for diving. It goes beyond helping in the occasional emergency towards serving and protecting the very enjoyment of this wonderful sport of diving!

We’d like to ask you a favour! Do you mind posting a Google Review via the DAN Google platform? It will be great if you can add any images you have with a DAN flag, t-shirt, sticker etc. or at your favourite dive shop or dive site. More importantly is the review! You can use this link https://bit.ly/dangooglereview

We look forward to reading your DAN review!