Belize in April

On Feb 23, 12:36*pm, mag3 <zmpmag3-plon...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I don't intend to. I simply want to have sufficient gas with me to get a
> decent dive in (ie. whatever their standard run time is) and not have to
> go back early and perhaps disappoint those with whom I'm diving.

You don't always get that choice. The best solution is improve your
gas consumption. Otherwise, stick to those dive ops that at least
allow individual divers to ascend on their own, that don't demand a
specific "buddy". Then no one cares too much if you abort twenty
minutes before the rest (though they still might if the dive gets
turned too quickly). On wall dives, you can certainly stay shallower
than the rest of the group to buy some time. And while skip breathing
is hardly recommended, it does work in a pinch.

> And if they do, then I'll just have to live within their policy. If that means
> I have to ascend early, then I ascend early. Maybe they'll get the message
> and try to accommodate me somehow. They will if they want that nice 10%
> tip on the night before departure!

Screw that. Follow their suggested profile and if you run out air,
grab the DM's octo. That will definitely teach them a lesson.

> Again, I don't plan to extend anything. I just want enough gas with me to
> get in a decent run time. I admire some of you that can go 1hr on a single
> AL80 and come back with > 500psi. *I can't yet. I'm closer than I was 1yr
> ago, but not quite there. I know I can't on a "Blue Hole" type deep dive. *I'd
> be much more comfortable with a bit more back gas.

Your Blue Hole dive won't last an hour. But all the Belize reefs tend
to be deep. That's why I appreciated the 95s on the Nekton.
Otherwise there's no way I would have lasted an hour each dive,
especially with the light current.

[scraig]

Hi,
I stayed at Mayan Princess next to Amigos Del Mar our dive shop---I highly recomend the dive shop. Walked past Ramons and it looked like one of the nicer properties in town. We dove one day with people staying at Ramons and they liked it.

Wild Mango restaurant was the best food we ate.

Go diving at Turneffe Elbow----early start and a 2 hour long boat ride there but better than the local dives---worth it to us. If you are lucky there have been schools of hammerheads sighted at the Turneffe dive sights--also a good drift dive. Local dives are still nice and all within 15 minutes---saw dolpins, eagle rays, turtles on the local dives but coral is more colorful at Turneffe.

Enjoy the trip

Greg Mossman wrote:
> On Feb 23, 6:02 am, mag3 <zmpmag3-plon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Nonetheless, God forbid I be the one to "call the dive" for everyone else by running
>>"out of mix." Like I say, I'm sure I'd get through the deep part of it, but I'd be running
>>dangerously close to below 500psi with a single AL80 on the shallow part of it later on,
>>especially if the full run time is the standard 40min or so. Even in Palau last year, I was
>>given a steel 100 with 32%. And on our dives in the keys, it was a Steel 120.
>
>
> You might not want to get used to bigger tanks. They simply don't
> exist in many/most parts of the divable world. In Belize, it might be
> possible to rent them from a land-based operator. The Nekton Pilot
> carries 95s, but they don't do the Blue Hole.

I did the Blue Hole with the NEkton in January 2002. It was a dive boat
request. It wasn't that great



AFAIK, the Aggressor
> and Peter Hughes boats there, like Aggressors and Peter Hughes boats
> around the world, only carry 80s and if you're real brave, 63s.
>
> Dive boats in Maui routinely take people to 140' off the back wall of
> Molokini on AL80s. Plenty of people do 140' and deeper in Bonaire on
> AL80s. I'm not sure why doing the Blue Hole on an AL80 seems to stand
> out as such a big deal.

-hh wrote:
> Dan Bracuk <bra...@pathcom.com> wrote:
>> Star <lcl...@gmail.com> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in:
>>
>> :I, too, found the Blue Hole highly overrated. 130 ft for 10 minutes
>> :on a single Al80 was stupid; next time I would at least take bands so
>> :I can make a set of independent doubles, or sling an extra 80 as a
>> :stage.
>>
>> To accomplish what?
>
> Probably to spend a bit more time actually seeing the formations,
> rather than simply punching the "I did the Blue Hole" ticket.
>
> Given what one can expect to find off of a generic diveboat/
> liveaboard, I think that Independent doubles would be the way to go,
> with a loooong explanation in advance to the DM that you're interested
> in being first in / last out, and want to get in some extra
> photography @ depth and on the way back up...main goal is to assuage
> his fears, which would be that the real reason you're asking is
> because you instead intent to dive-bomb down to 200fsw, or something
> else grossly out of line with their customer hand-holding of a deep
> 'special' dive.
>
>
> -hh


Just sling the extra 80, but tell the DM and or Captain your plans at
the beginning of the week, at least then you have a chance to convince
them you'll be safe, and demonstrate you can handle the configuration
you plan to dive.


John

On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:57:59 -0800, Greg Mossman wrote:

> You might not want to get used to bigger tanks. They simply don't exist
> in many/most parts of the divable world.

Agreed... Get used to AL80s and have a way to combine them for longer time
(banded independents, stage bottles, etc)... They're what you're pretty
safe in assuming that you are going to find no matter where you go, so if
you base a solution on these, you're going to be the most flexible...

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On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:38:08 -0500, Dan Bracuk wrote:

> That's less of an issue on liveaboards where you can spend up to 5 hours a
> day in the water. More if you ask for a dawn dive.

Agreed... On an overnight trip to the rigs, Flower Gardens, and Stetsons
Banks, I in the yellow on my dive computer on nearly every dive and I
didn't do every dive that I could have... If I remember correctly, I had a
mandatory deco of nearly an hour on the last dive of the trip when I tried
to do a quick bounce dive...

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mag3 wrote:

> On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:08:21 -0800 (PST), Greg Mossman
> <mossman@qnet.com> wrote:
>
>>Unless it's a deco-oriented trip,
>
> It is not....
>
>>While PH now apparently allows solo diving off a couple of their
>>boats per their website, I don't think they'd allow you to combine
>>solo with a decompression obligation.
>
> I don't intend to. I simply want to have sufficient gas with me to
> get a decent dive in (ie. whatever their standard run time is) and
> not have to go back early and perhaps disappoint those with whom I'm
> diving.
>
I hear you loud and clear -- I was in a similar situation on
a livaboard here in Oz -- actually contacted the office prior
to arriving and discussed the problem. I went out and purchased
soft bands specifically for the trip. (At home I dive with manifolded
twins with SS bands, but I started with independents.)
When I got on the boat the DM freaked and refused to allow
any sort of twin cylinders. I was less than impressed.

>> If a DM isn't willing to do the dive with you, allowing
>>you to complete it on your own profile will at the very least
>>endanger their schedule, but I'm sure they'd fear it would endanger
>>a lot more and would find it a lot easier to just tell you "no".
>
> And if they do, then I'll just have to live within their policy. If
> that means I have to ascend early, then I ascend early. Maybe
> they'll get the message and try to accommodate me somehow. They will
> if they want that nice 10% tip on the night before departure!
>
Well, it won't happen instantly, but I believe that you will
notice that tropical diving is a *lot* easier than temperate
diving. Another point, (and I'm willing to potentially embarrass
myself here) is that really nailing neutral buoyancy makes a
vast difference in gas consumption. In my open water course, the
instructor kept us somewhat negatively buoyant so we didn't
bounce all over the bay. And, with a background of swimming
a lot (high school and university) I just automattically
compensated for being negatively buoyant by adjusting my trim.
Finally, after over 200 dives I'm learning what I should have
learned at the start. Go to your intended maximum depth, get
really neutrally buoyant -- then cruise around. What it does
for air consumption is amazing. (OK, before someone else says
it, Yes, I should have learnt this a l-o-n-g time ago.) But
what I found was that my gas consumption dropped to about 60%
of what it had been. (I won't quote numbers since I'm used to
litres per minute and I'm not sure how to convert to the US
system.) But I really reduced my gas usage.

Note that, with a thin wetsuit or just a skinsuit, this whole
neutral buoyancy exercise is a lot easier.

Another point is that, if you are correctly neutrally buoyant,
it is a lot easier to avoid crashing into the reef and
damaging the coral. So it's a good thing all around. What you
need is a buddy who is sufficiently relaxed to help you
to relax and get to the point where you use less gas. Looking
back at my 6 days on a livaboard, my dive times increased by
over 50% from the start to the end, partially thanks to some
of the people I dived with.

When I got there, I had the idea, "I'm an air pig" idea firmly
in my mind. By the end I wasn't so sure. And, a couple of weeks
ago I did a dive (in 5-8 metres under a pier) with a consumption
rate lower than I usually plan as a deco consumption rate.

I'll say it again -- get really neutrally buoyant and watch your
consumption drop.

-Don

(Let the abuse begin. But I've been as honest as I can be about
my mistakes in the hope that others may learn from them. I'm a big
boy, I can take it.)

By the way, if you're interested, I've got a couple of photos up
on my web page at http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~gingrich -- look
at the bottom.

>
>>As for a pony, they will allow you to bring one for a redundant air
>>source, but not to allow you to extend your dives. As a matter of
>>fact, they stopping filling the pony of a diver on my Galapagos trip
>>who was guilty of doing just that, his Extended Range certification
>>and 600+ dives notwithstanding.
>
> Again, I don't plan to extend anything. I just want enough gas with
> me to get in a decent run time. I admire some of you that can go 1hr
> on a single
> AL80 and come back with > 500psi. I can't yet. I'm closer than I
> was 1yr
> ago, but not quite there. I know I can't on a "Blue Hole" type deep
> dive. I'd be much more comfortable with a bit more back gas.
> ____________________________________________
> Regards,
>
> Arnold

In article <x6CdndJc0pGC7l3anZ2dnUVZ_qiinZ2d@wavecable.com> ,
pugetsounddiver@gmail.com says...

> Al, you *have* to make time to come out here and dive. If possible, you also
> need to go up and dive Agamemnon and Skookumchuck off the Topline.

I'll get there.

> Also, ping me offline, a very dear lady friend of mine is going to be out
> snooping around Ocracoke Island.

I've been to Ocracoke, but only passing through on the way to Hatteras.
I have friends on Hatteras who can probably help more. I'll get with you
by email.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:39:43 -0500, Dan Bracuk wrote:

> Don Gingrich <gingrich@cs.rmit.edu.au> pounded away at his keyboard
> resulting in:
>
> :Let the abuse begin.
>
> Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries.

Since he's from Australia, wouldn't it be something like:

"Your mother was a sheep and your father was a dingo"

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On Feb 24, 10:22*am, Grumman-581 <grumman581-usenet-2...@spambob.net>
wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:39:43 -0500, Dan Bracuk wrote:
> > Don Gingrich <gingr...@cs.rmit.edu.au> pounded away at his keyboard
> > resulting in:
>
> > :Let the abuse begin.
>
> > Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries.
>
> Since he's from Australia, wouldn't it be something like:
>
> "Your mother was a sheep and your father was a dingo"

"Your mother was a wallaby and your father smells of dingoberries"