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Bishop posted:Cenotes are serious dives. They are often extremely deep and have caves branching off of them. I would treat them like Blue Holes. It's an adult swim dive and honestly there is probably nothing much to see from a snorkeler's prespective. If you want to do that dive, get at least a PADI AOW cert or something equivilent and stay out of the caves. While I am cave trained and usually never advocate that newer divers do any sort of overhead training, the cenotes (cavern dives) that are near Tulum are usually very shallow, have extremely wide passages, are very well marked and have ample light sources and entry points. These caverns are very different from central Florida caves which are often much deeper and a bit more smaller. Running cenote tours for open water divers is very much "the norm" here much to the controversy of other places in the world. As long as divers have solid buoyancy skills they can do these cenote tours. Even still, these dives are very much overhead and should be treated with utmost respect. The typical cenote tour in Dos Ojos or Gran Cenote for example is a maximum depth of about 30-35ft and lasts about 30-35 minutes if you're not cave or cavern certified. The dive guide must be full cave certified and will be diving in doubles. The dive guide ratio is 4 to 1.
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Mar 11, 2013 20:21
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Not an Anthem posted:Question: in mid-April I'm going to a destination wedding in Mexico at a resorty type place, Playa del Carmen. There's a cenote or two around within walking distance and I assume cool stuff like scuba diving. Sorry I didn't see that you weren't certified when you asked the question about cenotes. Definitely get certified while at home if you cant. No dive shop is going to take you on a scuba tour of a cenote without being certified. If they do, run away! A snorkel tour however is definitely possible. If you want to "try diving" there are heaps of places in Playa Del Carmen that will offer what they call a "discover scuba" diving course on a shallow reef (max 40ft) somewhere. This typically consists of about 1 hour of pool instruction and then a shallow dive with an instructor watching you like a hawk. This is not a certification course but it's a good way to find out if you like scuba and get you hooked before comiting to the actual open water certification class.
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Mar 11, 2013 20:32
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SlicerDicer posted:Molokai March 9th in Motion drat you and your never ending shark encounters. Just got back from 2 weeks in Cozumel. Saw about 8-9 blacktip reef sharks on this trip. Did a fair bit of lionfish hunting too and had some overly friendly nurse sharks looking for handouts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eqp5eYsoUo I'll try to post some black tip videos when I get done editing them. I don't really have anything too close up for them. Tried to entice them with lionfish but they weren't having anything to do with that. Probably best that I don't encounter real sharks to expect to be fed by divers, might not end well..
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Mar 12, 2013 05:21
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Good weekend of diving although pretty lovely visibility (<5ft). We haven't really experienced typical "good" visibility with all the recent snowstorms and weather systems this winter. Water temperature 38f. Did a scallop charter on Saturday with some friends and a wreck charter on Sunday. Found a couple old bottles from late 1800s while scalloping. Warrented Oval 7oz whiskey bottle. (c1890s) Sawyer's Crystal Blueing (c1890-1905)      
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Mar 18, 2013 02:50
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Gargonovitch posted:Hello, SCUBA goons. You can get good quality instruction anywhere but I think it makes the most sense to try to take your training locally, especially if you plan on diving locally. Diving in cold water lakes with low visibility is a lot more equipment intensive and can make you better aware of your surroundings. Lake diving can be pretty cool (pun intended), cold temperatures and fresh water can preserve wrecks and artifacts very well. You can find wrecks that have intact wood carving that are 200-300 years old. I like ocean diving better though, bigger variety of life, coral reefs, etc. Koh Tao is basically one giant open water factory. I think that the entire island turns out more certified divers in a day than most dive shops do in a year. That doesn't mean it's bad, you can get instructors that have tons of experience teaching open water students and/or you'll get instructors that rush and cut corners. One option is to do a combination of both. You can do all your classroom and pool work back home and then do your checkout dives somewhere warm. This is very common and is called an open water referral. Almost all dive shops can do this. It gives you the best of both worlds, hopefully good quality instruction at a slow and reasonable pace and then you'll do 4 checkout dives in warm/clear surroundings then when you're done you can spend the rest of your holiday diving. The plus side of doing all your open water training in a place like Koh Tao is that it can be cheap, very cheap. Cheap doesnt necessarily mean bad instruction. Just do a little research before choosing a dive shop and you would be fine. Don't just pick any random dive shop or guy off the street. As for ice diving, I've only done it once and I can't comment too much. Watch this youtube video if you haven't yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs00QjiJZQ
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Mar 25, 2013 17:02
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Bishop posted:Unless they seem to be naturally OCD, I distrust people that know exactly how many dives or underwater hours they have logged. I know for sure that I have no idea exactly how many dives I have made with a margin of error of around 200. SlicerDicer posted:Well I have somewhere around umm 400 hours on my rebreather give or take 50.. but thats easy to calculate as I know how much how often I dive :P Ohh and I dive WAY More than most people and deeper than most too! I agree with both of you. I really have no idea how many dives I have but I suppose I can make a estimate. I will have been certified for 11 years this August; I stopped logging dives for a period for 4-5 years and I was never really good about logging when I first got certified. In the last 3 years I decided it made sense to log my dives so I've been keeping an excel spreadsheet. There were some years where I was really active and didn't log entire trips where I did multiple dives for 2-3 weeks. I average 100-150 dives a year based on the last 3 years (145 dives in 2012) which I think is pretty good for someone who lives in a cold climate and doesn't work full-time as a dive professional. I think this year is going to be a smaller number of dives since I'll be doing longer deco dives. (quality/length of time over quantity of dives). I tend to give instructors/divemasters working in warm climates the benefit of the doubt when they talk about their dive count since some of them can dive 4x a day. People around here that claim to have 1500-3000 dives and have only been certified at most 5 years piss me off. It's pretty trivial math to realize they're full of poo poo. Even at 150 dives x 5 years is ~750 dives. I know these people are'nt doing liveaboards twice a year and I know for a fact I dive more than them. Not sure where I am going with this but I think I'm just venting. My bullshit meter immediately goes off when people start rattling about the number of dives they have.
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Mar 25, 2013 17:27
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Crunkjuice posted:No personal experience, but my shop sells them a whole bunch. I'm gonna turn off the DM salesman and give my honest opinion. They are solid devices. You let your boat know what frequency its on, it operates on emergency frequencies that all navy/coast guards hear. If you have one, you'll be able to get help. I have no personal experience either but I know Aldora Divers in Cozumel has all their DMs carry one if they're diving far northern sites or east side of the island. The reason being, there are very few support boats at these sites and if you get caught in a strong current the next stop is Cuba. See this thread: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/411877-nautilus-lifeline.html They've tested them and are able to call back to home office (downtown) and the boat although I guess while the boat could hear them, the boat had trouble communicating with them. I would imagine Coast Guard/Navy has better antenna. If I had the extra money and I was diving in remote places or places with unpredictable current then I would probably invest in one.
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Mar 27, 2013 17:34
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SlicerDicer posted:
Yes but I gather your dives are deeper and much longer duration than most people :-) 50 is pretty typical number for tech divers around here. Rather than doing two dives a day, they do one longer dive. Most of my dives are shore dives or off charter boat I work for in less than 70ft of water.
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Apr 2, 2013 17:07
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Most working DMs will not do anywhere near 800 dives a year unless they're working every single day with no days, doing three dives a day and working for a large operation. :-) Went out diving this weekend. Tried my hand at making a time lapse video with my GoPro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzYUV2mWuCo I need to practice a bit more. I had it taking a picture at 5 second intervals. Dove at one my my favorite sites called Graves Light. One of the outer most harbor islands in Boston Harbor. Tons of harbor seals out there. Great for lobster in the summer. The site is basically extremely rocky with huge granite cliffs/rocks that form channels with large cracks and crevices. Goes to about 65ft and 5-20ft the closer you get to the island. Perfect site for open water checkout dives when the conditions are right. The harbor seals aren't as friendly here as some of the other sites that divers frequent but they're definitely getting more curious. Water is still 37-39F. I will be so happy when it warms up to high 40s/50s.
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Apr 4, 2013 00:25
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I just got back from diving North Carolina. It was my first trip down there and definitely won't be the last. Loved the diving down there. I've never that many sand tiger sharks before. On the USCGC Spar and the Aeolus there must have been seriously 75-100+ sand tiger sharks. If you looked in the sand they kept going on and on.. Most of the wrecks are in 110-120ft range. I did some short deco on all dives but most other people in the group were diving the wrecks with Nitrox 30% with an HP100/HP120 and a pony bottle. Long boat rides (2-2.5 hours). Here's a quick clip of the sand tiger sharks. I have about 3-4 hours of video I need to edit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIHBI5Lndw
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May 21, 2013 21:34
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SlicerDicer posted:Awesome Macado, I thought about that as I was spearing lionfish. Luckily none of them bothered me. Have heard from mates on the boat they have to be careful as the sharks will sometimes try stealing their catch.
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May 22, 2013 13:25
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On a side note, I will be doing my first official trimix dive this Saturday if weather holds. Wreck is about 160fsw at deck and 170fsw in the sand. I've done this wreck previously on air and deco'd with 50%. I'm curious how much more of the wreck I will remember with helium. I'll report back as long as I don't die :-) I'm diving it with 21/35, deco with 50% and 100%.
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May 23, 2013 01:45
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Weather is poo poo this weekend. My Friday and Saturday charters were canceled. I may have to break down and actually go shore diving. Still out on charters this Sunday and Monday if weather improves. I posted a couple more videos from North Carolina. U-352: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVu2-VxpfXw USCGC Spar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEqFTAOkzao
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May 25, 2013 07:15
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Bishop posted:A guy on a dive boat with me yesterday was telling me to do some diving in NC. Now I'm definitely sold! Next time I'm passing through there ill take a day or two to dive. Was the shop you used good? I used Discovery Diving and Diver Down Scuba Diving Charters. Captain Bobby Cox of Diver Down is a pretty cool guy. I liked their dive boat a lot. Discovery Diving has 3 boats, including a small six pack boat. Olympus Diving is the biggest dive shop/charter down there. Sort of a cattle boat but I've heard they run a good operation. Olympus has a really awesome display of all the artifacts that pulled off the U-352, including the deck guns.
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May 25, 2013 19:23
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Tomberforce posted:I've also got a question for the instructors here - do you reckon if I migrate my setup over to a tech orientated one, do you think I'd also be able to run that system while working as a recreational divemaster? I guess I can always grab hire stuff from the shop, which I do for pool sessions anyhow, but I wouldn't really like to dive guide wearing hire gear. I'm not an instructor but I'm a DM who often assists with open water classes in the pool and also assists with open water checkout dives off the boat. In the pool I like to be in the same equipment as the students so I always grab a rental jacket BCD. It makes it easier to demonstrate PADI skills (E.G. removing BCD, removing weight system, gear assembly/disassembly, etc). It's kind of hard to demonstrate these skills to students if you're in different gear. Plus, I don't like chlorine destroying my own personal gear so I use shop rental gear. When I'm diving off the boat assisting with students or diving purely for myself then I always dive with my backplate/wing. At this point in the game I feel it's nice to be able to introduce students to another type of setup they may encounter in the wild. If they ask I will briefly explain the differences. I am not a backplate/wing zealot but I feel they are a good choice, especially for cold water diving. Getting into tech is certainly not a cheap endeavor. I'm a big fan of traditional backmounted doubles (aka twinset). I'm not sold on sidemount yet to be honest and I don't believe it to be any cheaper than diving a twinset. Used twinsets can be found cheap, at least in the United States. You'll need at least 3 regulator setups (3 first stages and 3 second stages). Two first stages for your twinset and two second stages plus an additional first and second stage for your deco cylinder (or more..) This is not including additional deco bottles, stage bottles or backup regulators. In short, you'll have a poo poo load of regulators eventually. Hollis F1 fins are awesome. You'll be fine with those. Others may argue this but only your deco regulators need to be o2 clean since they're the only regulators that will be seeing high o2 content. Your twinset regulators are fine without being o2 clean.
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May 30, 2013 17:37
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SlicerDicer posted:Pfft what kinda tec diver does not use jets. I'm a big fan of OMS Slipstreams and I don't really like a lot of OMS gear, especially their huge bungee wings of death but I absolutely love their fins. The OMS Slipstreams are made of monoprene and are pretty much neutral in the water. They are basically jetfin clones made of a lighter material. They're great for wetsuit diving but I even use them with my drysuit. I have very heavy legs (big calves) so I don't need the extra weight that the jets provide. I'm also a huge fan of Hollis F1s. Heavy and longer than jet fins. Awesome fins all around.
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May 30, 2013 17:41
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No crazy tech dives this weekend but conditions were excellent for New England. Water is starting to warm up. I'm still getting about 48-49f at depth and around 53-54f on surface. Better than the 36f I was getting this winter! Visibility was about 20-25ft on all dives. Took half day Thursday (twilight and night dive) and full-day Friday off and did some shore diving for lobsters. It's still a bit early in the season but the lobsters are back. Did a little scalloping at night. We dove a site called Old Garden Beach which is very common for openwater checkout dives. Most people only go about 30-35fsw here but if you do a really long surface swim you can hit depths of around ~60fsw where there is a nice little scallop bed that you can hit from a shore dive. Took of a hidden secret, a lot of scallop beds are only diveable via boats. Friday's dive site was Loblolly Cove. Another relatively shallow site without doing a long surface swim. Average depth around ~40fsw. Tons of lobsters out here. Got 3 lobsters on Thursday and 4 lobsters on Friday. Took an offgas day on Saturday and went to beach(It was like 94F in Boston). On Sunday, went out on a charter to Graves Light in Boston Harbor; probably one of my favorite dive sites in Boston Harbor when the conditions are right. Huge granite boulders, tons of cracks and swim-thrus. Site goes down to about 65-70fsw to the sand. Got another 4 lobsters, huge schools of pollock and tons of harbor seals still out there.
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Jun 3, 2013 14:53
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SlicerDicer posted:Is it crazy to bust out a full CCR rig with 18/45 and 30/25 bailout to dive to to 60ft or shallower? LOL... Haha. There are people that come on the dive boat and bring their rebreather setups for recreational lobster and scallop dives above 60ft :-) Happens all the time. Makes sense I guess if you want to log more hours or have a little time left in your scrubber to kill? :-) I'm not a rebreather pilot yet so I dont know. I'm thinking i'm probably 2-3 years away from purchasing my first rebreather. Everyone up here dives rEvos it seems. I'm thinking a rEvo or Hollis Prism 2 but I guess a lot can change by the time I'm ready to purchase. I've started carrying an AL80 stage bottle to get used to the drag along with my AL40. I still bust out my doubles for a lot of shallow stuff but I prefer single tank diving for scallop diving or anything with a lot current. Trying to fight current in doubles sucks, for those dives I like my HP120s. A lot of times we don't always hit some of the dive sites at slack tides and I like to be able to swim into current when I'm scalloping for better visibility. Having only done two trimix dives so far it's hard for me to say yet. My goal this year is to get a lot more technical dives in the 150fsw-180fsw range with normoxic trimix. I've done some stuff around ~150-170fsw on air (*shutter*) so it will be very interesting to re-experience those dives in trimix. I certainly notice that I feel much better doing my deco on pure O2 as opposed to 50%. For most techish dives, I cut tables using VPM-B (V-Planner), photocopy them and tape them to my wrist slate. I'll still run on my computer's deco profile but do the stops spit out by V-Planner
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Jun 3, 2013 21:20
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BlueBayou posted:Any good places to dive on Cape Cod? I'll be on Buzzards Bay for the 4th of July and lord knows I'd love to get away from endless family stuff to dive for a bit Most of the shore diving off Cape Cod is very shallow. There used to be a charter run by The Dive Locker but for whatever reason they are no longer running their charter anymore unfortunately. Shame because they were the only charter out of Cape Cod that I know of and the lobstering is awesome at places like Race Point. There is Hathaways Pond which is pretty popular for dive training. Goes down to ~60' has some dive platforms, a small cabin cruiser and some cars. http://www.dtmag.com/dive-usa/locations/HathawaysPondMass.hte Sandwich Town Beach and Corporation Beach are the only two shore dives I know but they're 15-25' and mostly sand, still fun though. Need to be out on a boat in Cape Cod to get any sort of depth.
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Jun 7, 2013 06:53
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Orions Lord posted:I did see some divers with a GoPro strapped on their head. I mount mine on my head (with a piece of bungee cord on the head band to act as a chin strap to prevent it from falling off). Either that or put it under your hood (if you're diving cold water) otherwise it will fall off your head. I can't tell you how many people have lost their GoPros with the normal head mount. Head mount is nice because it's hands free but you definitely get a lot of movement in the video and sometimes bubbles in the frame. I like having headmount because I'm often doing a scallop dive or wreck diving/running a light which requires use of both my hands. You can see some of my YouTube videos if you want to get an idea how the movement is underwater. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAFJioNkQsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--o0yDx2hWA I also built a pole mount out of an old ski pole. Video is definitely a lot more stable on that.
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Jun 7, 2013 15:45
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Dove the New York Central 14-II (also known as Pug Wreck) http://bostondeepwrecks.com/wrecks/pug.html ~120fsw to sand. Great dive. Pretty cool wreck. 43F water temperature with about 20' of visibility. Max depth 118fsw, total runtime was 59 minutes. I've been practicing for my normoxic trimix class so I dove it with 30% backgas, AL80 with 50% and an AL40 filled with Oxygen/100%. Trying to get comfortable with multiple stage gas switches. I spent the entire deco practicing valve drills. Overall it went well although one of my computers malfunctioned in a very odd way. I own a Hollis DG03 which is capable of 3 gas switches. I programmed it for 30%, 50% and 100% which is very easy and I've done it a million times before. The entire dive it was fine on Gas 1 (30%) and Gas 2 (50%). As soon as I switched to Gas 3 (100%) the computer basically reset all my gasses back to Air and told me I had about a 28 minute deco obligation. Luckily I have my backup computer (Hollis DG02) along with tables cut with Vplanner so the malfunction was uneventful. I knew I wasn't in any danger and I cleared my deco using tables and with my DG02. Moral of the story: Have a backup computer/bottom timer if you're doing any deep or technical diving.
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Jun 10, 2013 05:36
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SlicerDicer posted:
Nothing crazy. Up until now most of my deco dives have been with a single deco bottle so I wanted to get a bit more practice carrying two on something more shallow. 35 minutes BT at ~110-118fsw with about 24-25 minutes of deco. Way more deco than needed for this dive. Most of that was padded and was spent a lot of time at 15fsw on O2 just practicing valve drills. 1 min 70fsw (50%) 1 min 60fsw (50%) 1 min 50fsw (50%) 4 mins 40fsw (50%) 5 mins 20fsw (100% 13 mins 15fsw. (100%)
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Jun 10, 2013 15:04
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SlicerDicer posted:Not bad BT there Macado, how did it feel to be down there that long? I bet that was weird yeah? Done longer bottom times before but definitely feels odd being on a wreck with nobody else. Definitely felt a little impaired/narc'd, especially with low viz and cold. I can't wait to re-dive some of these sites with trimix to see what I have missed. We had one diver go up the wrong (old broken) mooring line which abruptly stops at 90fsw (Oops). He claimed he wasn't narc'd but he should have noticed that we had set 3-4 flashing strobes on the correct mooring. Claims he didn't remember them but the actual mooring was lit up like a Christmas tree. Standard protocol around here is to clip a strobe to the mooring so you know which one you used if the site has multiple mooring or ghost moorings. The charter yesterday was mostly recreational divers. After the crew set the mooring I was the first to splash in and last one off the wreck. It's quite relaxing being the only person on a wreck. Most of my dives up here are solo dives anyway. It's weird. There a few dives up here in 90-100fsw range that I can function and "feel" perfectly fine. I know my way around them and have been inside them a bunch. At the other end of the spectrum, I know that I'm definitely impaired in the 120-170fsw range but can function through the dives. I really can't wait to re-dive some of these sites with trimix.
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Jun 11, 2013 01:12
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My drysuit is finally back in action! I sent it off to Dive Right in Scuba to be repaired. I have been borrowing a suit for the last month while mine was out to service. I had my drysuit retrofitted with a new TiZip (plastic zipper) and had a new neck seal installed. They were also nice enough to patch a couple small leaks I didntk now about. Hopefully everything is dry. I'm crewing on the boat tomorrow but I'm hoping to get one quick dive in to test it out. Probably one of the last scallop trips of the year. Boston Harbor has way too much residental boat traffic in the summer making it much harder to hit the scallop beds.
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Jun 15, 2013 02:31
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jackyl posted:Hey, y'all, do me a favor. We have tickets to Belize in December, which is why we did our AOW recently, since we read some places require that for the Blue Hole. We are stoked about doing the Blue Hole, but now we want some advice on where to stay there. Ambergris? Caulker? Somewhere else? Help! Depends what you like Caye Caulker is a lot more smaller than Ambergris. You can pretty much walk around the entire island in 15 minutes. It is more budget/backpacker friendly, more laid back. Ambergris Caye is a more built up and has more resort style hotels. It also has more traffic (golf carts) whereas most people in Caulker get by on foot or bicycle. There are more amenities here (large supermarkets, condos, high end hotels, more bars) Ambergris has more "beach" area although neither islands are really known for beaches. I prefer Caye Caulker but you could always do a dual approach and spend a couple days at one location first.
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Jun 17, 2013 02:36
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Aquila posted:I am considering getting: http://www.spareair.com/ because why not add more safety for a (relatively) insignificant cost. Are there any horrible downsides to this device I am not seeing? Please don't get a spare air. There is sort of a running joke with them. If you get one and you run out of air on your dive then you'll probably run out of air twice using a spare air. It will only serve to provide you a fault sense of security. Spare Air does not really provide a sufficient volume of gas to make a safe or even controlled ascent at a reasonable depth. If you're really concerned I'd recommend getting a small pony bottle. An AL19 or AL30 (19cuft or 30cu ft aluminum tank) would be the MINIMUM sizes that I would recommend. This is a completely isolated unit that you never factor into your gas planning. Even a AL19 should be able to get you to the surface from 130ft as long as you're within no decompression limits. With that being said..this may sound harsh but there is simply no excuse (barring major equipment malfunction which is rare) to run out air. Plan your dive and dive your plan while monitoring your air consumption. If you or a dive buddy make it a regular habit to run out of air then you need to find a new dive buddy or find a different sport. Nobody should be running out of gas on a dive.
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Jun 20, 2013 01:05
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jackyl posted:Y'all have no idea, or maybe you do, how many loving times we've watched idiots run out of air on Caribbean dives. It is definitely a common occurrence although it really shouldn't be. I believe gas planning is something that should be taught early on however it is very easy to get away without knowing any of this on a typical profile in the Caribbean or somewhere in SE Asia like Thailand. There are lot of people who even at higher level have never had to plan or execute dives by themselves. A lot of people even at OW/AOW/Resue level are taught to simply follow their friendly dive guide/divemaster. The often heard phrase is "return to boat with 500psi/50bar." without regard or actual understanding of what that means or how much gas is involved. At 500psi, an aluminum 80 (typical tank used in warm warmers) has about 12.9cu/ft of air. 500psi/3000psi x 77.4 = 12.9cu/ft. At 130fsw with a paniced diver with increased breathing rate this is a very dangerous situation.
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Jun 20, 2013 03:15
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I had a great dive yesterday. Also my deepest dive that wasn't a bounce dive in cold water. We were supposed to dive the Baleen which is 170fsw in sand with top deck at 160fsw. We arrived at the site and found there was a massive gill net right next to the mooring so that was quickly ruled out. We dove the Snetind instead. Awesome wreck! It was my first time diving it and I can't wait to go back. Max depth is around 190fsw. I hit 185fsw for a little bit spend the majority of my dive at 170-175fsw. http://www.northernatlanticdive.com/shipwrecks/schooner_barge/schooner_barge.htm Did around ~26 minute bottom time. My total runtime was about 65 minutes. I had a partially flooded drysuit (leak in one of my boots near the seam) but still managed to stay warm on my deco. Bottom temperature was around 42F. Most deco was spent in 56F. I dont have drygloves so my hands were freezing at depth. Trimix is addictive. I can't compare my narcosis because I had never done this dive before but I definitely felt way more focused than on air. I dove it with 21/30 (all I had available) but I would have liked to dive it with 18/45. macado fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Jun 24, 2013 |
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Jun 23, 2013 15:44
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Bishop posted:Oh my god that water temp. I would die. Probably even with a drysuit on. Also without gloves I can only imagine how lovely it was to deal with boltsnaps or other clips on your rig. I dream of doing some deco dives in warmer waters soon but right now I have to use what I have in my backyard. Have two charters planned this weekend. Friday (exploration charter in 150fsw range to look for new wrecks and Saturday diving the Miss Sonya in 160fsw. http://www.northernatlanticdive.com/shipwrecks/Miss_Sonya/Miss_Sonya.htm Thinking of going down to Pompano Beach soon and diving the Hydro Atlantic. Anyone ever dive that?
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Jun 24, 2013 14:44
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BlueBayou posted:I am going to Cancun in 2 weeks and have been doing all my classroom and pool stuff here in Boston. Then going to do the open water dives in Mexico I must have missed when you said you did your classroom/pool in Boston. What shop did you go through? If you want to lobster or do any shore/boat diving in New England and want a buddy let me know.
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Jun 24, 2013 14:58
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BlueBayou posted:East Coast Divers. Easier to get to than Boston Scuba on the T/bus. Cool. I know new owners (Nick and Alex) of East Coast Divers pretty well. Good guys. I also know a lot of the instructors there. I'm always up in Gloucester. Lobster diving is fun; It's the thrill of the hunt, definitely not boring since the lobsters in New England fight back.
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Jun 24, 2013 15:43
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Part of the issue with lionfish is that they can be found at all depths ranging from 1fsw to 500fsw (Other sources even reference 1000fsw too). What people end up doing is only policing a fraction of the dive-able reef. A lot of places have done a great job about spearing lionfish in recreational depths down to 130fsw. It's very hard to do population control when you're only spearing a small percentage of the area where lionfish are commonly seen. It does seem to have helped a lot of places though. Lionfish are also territorial and tend to stay in the same area. If you drop below a lot of the walls 150-200fsw you will often seen tons of lionfish. That being said, I do like spearing them and they taste good but I just don't have any false beliefs that I am actually affecting the population or providing any reasonable control.
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Jul 2, 2013 17:33
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jackyl posted:
This is actually very common in Cozumel now. Nurse sharks and eels are trained to basically eat lionfish. The DM puts on a nice show for the paying customers but now a lot of them will come out of their hole as soon as they see divers. I'm neither for or against it but it's definitely a behavior that i've started to notice. Had a couple friends have eels swim up to them and up their arm. Video of an overly friendly nurse shark I took. We were spearing lionfish and this nurse shark followed us through half the dive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eqp5eYsoUo
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Jul 2, 2013 17:39
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Yeah, I have no hopes in putting any sizable dent in the lionfish population but spearing things is fun. There really is no effective solution until another local predator learns to develop a taste for lionfish and their eggs. Possible predators that could adapt to eating them like Goliath Groupers have had their populations virtually wiped out due to over-fishing. I believe in the pacific there are species of groupers, sharks and coronetfishes that are known to eat lionfish. They're basically one invasive species that is here to stay weather people like it or not.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:10
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Tell the Chinese or Japanese that they cure impotence or restore vitality and they'll be gone within a generation or two.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:43
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First world problems... One of my sets of doubles has air and the other set has 21/35. Do I blow my $75 trimix fill on a 100' dive or do I just use air and suck on some more o2 and take the longer deco obligation and nitrogen loading? Or.. carry another stage with 32%, breath that down first and then switch back to doubles :-) Although trimix at 100' might be lovely...
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Jul 3, 2013 04:58
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Bishop posted:I'm more interested in how you got a 21/35 fill on what I'm assuming are steel doubles for only 75 bucks... Pay by cubic foot for helium and o2 here; It's around .80 or .90/cuft. Oxygen is .35/cuft. I guess it's pretty cheap compared to most places except Cave Country. There are shops that charge 2 or 3 times that much around here though. 21/35 in Double 100s is about $65 of helium. (72cu of Helium x .90 = 64.8) and 19cu of Oxygen (19x .35 = 6.58) $6.58 + $64.8 = $71.38 if I did my math right. Air top off is free.
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Jul 3, 2013 14:00
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rockcity posted:Haha, ok, we didn't lose the boat, but we did have to come up the wrong mooring ball. Did you guys come up the wrong mooring because you got disoriented or because you were running low on gas? Do you guys not mark your moorings down there? Standard procedure up here is to place a strobe on the mooring, one making it easier to find in low viz and two, you know which one to ascend. EDIT: Nevermind, saw the explanation. macado fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 19:43
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BlueBayou posted:Did my first cold water dive yesterday. Dont give up on it just yet. Sounds like your gloves were too small. A properly fitting 7mm with a normal 5mm hood with bibb can be great this time a year. Alternatively, the expensive and inevitable option for New England diving is to invest in a drysuit
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Jul 18, 2013 00:57
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 00:04 |
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Back from another Cozumel trip; Already booked again for September. Love diving with Aldora. Steel 120s and Steel 100s are great for Caribbean diving. With 32% and 36% our average dives were between 70 and 80 minutes. My longest dive on the trip was 101 minutes. :-) My Hollis DG03 was not very happy, hit some deco on just about every dive. My Oceanic backup computer is pretty aggressive but never actually hit deco. Also got to snorkel with whale sharks & manta rays. I've been wanting to do that the last 10 years but finally had a day free to do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up-0lZTlgw4 Diving Brenton Reef Lightship LV 39 on Saturday. Not quite the 83f that Cozumel was but it should be fun if conditions are good. http://www.northernatlanticdive.com/shipwrecks/brenton_reef/brenton_reef_39.htm macado fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jul 25, 2013 |
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Jul 25, 2013 20:14
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