This guy seems to have had several "mishaps" while diving. And then, there
is the conflicting story around this...

Oh, and while it is possible to have things "happen" to you underwater, getting
lost from the anchor line is something that I have not down in all my many
years and hundreds of dives of diving have done.

Agreed, if that is what really happened.  The problem is that that
statement is in contention:  Neely/Dalton have rejected the claims
that they had disobeyed instructions from dive masters.  Again it
comes down to the question of who really said what.  More below.

That comment sounds like what "Rebecca Sharkey, a UK Backpacker"
inferred.  Unfortunately, no info on if she's a naive novice who's
still terrified of the water, or someone reasonably qualified to make
an informed statement.  And considering that there was this quote
(which I assume was from Sharkey):

"Everybody else was on the trip for a bit of a dive and a couple of
drinks but they were really focused on their diving and that they were
going to see a specific thing."

In light of recognizing that they were focused on their diving - -
while the commenter was apparently focused on their 'couple of drinks'
part - - makes the claims they were being unsafe to be questionable.

Granted, on the question of the dive plan and in/out of the lagoon, it
is quite possible ... if not downright probable ... for a very
experienced diver to blow off parts of the typical safety briefing
today.  Unfortunately, a big part of the reason why is because it has
not become uncommon for the said "briefing" to not be brief at all:
I've had to suffer through ones that have lasted upwards of 30 minutes
and included every possible bullshit hazard including sunburn.

Thus, the question that I would ask is how long did the safety
briefing take?

It can't all be of critical importance and 2 minutes of important
stuff hidden in 20 minutes of banal Kumbaya's (that make lawyers
happy) will invariably result in people missing the important stuff.

IMNSHO, if the operator can't hit the important points and be done in
<5 minutes, it isn't a recreational dive and thus, the briefing
compromised safety by being too long.

Yes, there's special interests who are blowing smoke.

For example, I also noticed a comment about how "suspicious" it was
that they were wearing "full-length thick wetsuits with hoods in the
tropical 23C waters".  23C is 74F and for a planned 60 minute dive,
I'd probably go for a full 5mm suit, possibly with hood.  I typically
wear a full 3mm suit in 27C (82F) water because I find that otherwise,
I get chilled at around 45 minutes...but gosh, what do I know?
Afterall, my first dive was back in the 1970s.

Similarly, the "bottle of fresh water" routine...sounds to me like a
cheap variant of a "Scuda", which has been discussed here on
<rec.scuba> many times over the years.  Casually polling the
<rec.scuba> archives, I find that there have been over 100 hits from
{"cotton mouth" / "cottonmouth"} problem and that discussions of
hydration through regulators with moisture vanes (Sherwood Oasis) or
moisture wicks (Apollo Bio-filter) are both clearly less common than
'Scuda' (which returns 100+ hits).

And comments to "stand on the reef" (to prevent drifting away) sounds
like local knowledge that the visitors were not privy to...and I know
that if I were awaiting a boat pickup, I'd probably avoid getting into
areas that I feared were too shallow...that's potentially unsafe for
the boat and unsafe for the diver.

-hh

 Cite, please.

 Try not to take six posts this time.

 Cite.

 Like why the boat took three hours to call for help?

 After "Open Water", that's not a surprise.

 No doubt:

al·le·ga·tion     (al'i-ga'sh?n)  Pronunciation Key

3 A statement asserting something without proof:

4 An assertion made by a party that must be proved or supported with
evidence.

 Unsupported allegation; Your specialty.

"But speaking on Channel 9 last night, Mr Neely rejected claims he and Ms
Dalton had disobeyed instructions from dive masters and claimed the dive
company did not do enough to locate them.

"I don't think they were looking for us in the right direction," he said.

The pair were adamant that they surfaced were they were supposed to and at
the allotted time.

Ms Dalton said they tried to attract attention after watching the dinghy
return to the boat with two nearby divers.

"We were signalling with our surface marker buoy and then Richard used his
whistle," she said.

Police yesterday finished inquiries and confirmed no charges will be laid."

      There's no way this guy would make a public statement like this after
having told the police a completely different story.