Cruise Ship Dive Excursions

"Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> pounded away at his
keyboard resulting in:
:Sounds like an inexperienced newbie to me, at least in the warm water
:diving environment.

Let's be realistic about this. If you can dive in cold water, you can
dive in warm water.

Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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"Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> pounded away at his
keyboard resulting in:
:Sounds like an inexperienced newbie to me, at least in the warm water
:diving environment.

Let's be realistic about this. If you can dive in cold water, you can
dive in warm water.

Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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Dan Bracuk wrote:
> "Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> pounded away at his
> keyboard resulting in:
> :Sounds like an inexperienced newbie to me, at least in the warm water
> :diving environment.
>
> Let's be realistic about this. If you can dive in cold water, you can
> dive in warm water.

Heehee ... I am seeing history repeat itself!!

That was what Dave Waller (PADI instructor) said in 1989, soon joined
another PADI instructors (Nick Simicich, who even had a rec.scuba FAQ)
in engaging this Feeesh into my very first rec.scuba flamewar!

These two cold water wimps don't have ANY concept of proper weighting
and buoyancy control that are ESSENTIAL in warm water diving.

Dave was teaching his students to DUMP ALL AIR from their BC before
surfacing, and then kick like hell to ascend -- instead of ascend
slowly in NEUTRAL buoyancy without any kicking or unnecessary
motion. So, we had a LONG flamewar about buoyancy control, proper
weighting, etc. Nick Simicich was caught saying that HE (having
done a little armchair physics calculation) that HE needed 45 lbs
of lead to dive in COZUMEL, in the SUMMER -- while he was also
busy flaming SDM magazine for its buoyancy articles and one of
the Peter Hughes outfits that was running buoyancy control workshops.

These are the COLD water divers that the warm water corals wish
they could RUN. These are also the ones who said "if you can dive
in cold water, you can dive anywhere" and then proceeded to
DEVASTATE the warm water corals with their gloved paws, kicks,
and uncontrollable buoyancy, and their total lack of DIVING SKILLS,
especially in WARM water.

Anymore words of wisdom about diving, Dan?

-- Bob.

Reef Fish wrote:
> Dan Bracuk wrote:
> >
> > Let's be realistic about this. If you can dive in cold water, you can
> > dive in warm water.
>
> Heehee ... I am seeing history repeat itself!!
>
> That was what Dave Waller (PADI instructor) said in 1989, soon joined
> another PADI instructors (Nick Simicich, who even had a rec.scuba FAQ)
> in engaging this Feeesh into my very first rec.scuba flamewar!
>
> These two cold water wimps don't have ANY concept of proper weighting
> and buoyancy control that are ESSENTIAL in warm water diving.
>
> Dave was teaching his students to DUMP ALL AIR from their BC before
> surfacing, and then kick like hell to ascend -- instead of ascend
> slowly in NEUTRAL buoyancy without any kicking or unnecessary
> motion. So, we had a LONG flamewar about buoyancy control, proper
> weighting, etc. Nick Simicich was caught saying that HE (having
> done a little armchair physics calculation) that HE needed 45 lbs
> of lead to dive in COZUMEL, in the SUMMER -- while he was also
> busy flaming SDM magazine for its buoyancy articles and one of
> the Peter Hughes outfits that was running buoyancy control workshops.

Dave and Nick erased all their dirty footprints from google. The
flamewar must have lasted three years.

Here's a piece of vintage Dave Waller, from 1991:

http://tinyurl.com/8sd2n

Using breath control to adjust for small depth changes is by now a
well-known buoyancy control technique by WARM as well as COLD water
divers!

Listen to Dave:

"During a typical dive profile a diver will change depth by
as much a 10 feet, and modification of the amount of air in their BC
will be required to maintain neutral buoyancy. The same cannot be
achieved through breath control alone."

This was an INSTRUCTOR. he couldn't control a change of depth by
10 feet by breath control! He must have a hell of lot air in his
BC for being OVER_WEIGHTED -- which is typical of all cold water
wimps!

Nick nuked most of his own posts (such as diving with 45 lbs of
weight in Cozumel) that would make him a laughing stock for
decades to come. By 1994, even HE has come around to admitting
that COLD water divers (such as his former self), needed "help":

NS> I'm slightly torn on this because I've certainly seen enough
NS> bad buoyancy in my life,

< like his own! LOL >

NS> and I agree that many divers who have never dove in warm
NS> water could use a bit of help weighting out.


-- Bob.

> These are the COLD water divers that the warm water corals wish
> they could RUN. These are also the ones who said "if you can dive
> in cold water, you can dive anywhere" and then proceeded to
> DEVASTATE the warm water corals with their gloved paws, kicks,
> and uncontrollable buoyancy, and their total lack of DIVING SKILLS,
> especially in WARM water.
>
> Anymore words of wisdom about diving, Dan?
>
> -- Bob.

"Dick" <devil505@adelphia.net> wrote:

> I am an experienced diver (over 20 years but just recently got certified)
> who has never dove anywhere but New England.

New England? I've heard some pretty good things about shore diving in
or around the Cape Ann area. Any suggestions?


>... I'm one of those "Mike Nelson/Sea Hunt" guys who has some
> pretty old (but always serviced) equipment. I am using an old Sherwood
> regulator (with no safe 2nd stage) & wonder if the cruise ship excursion
> dives will even allow me to use this for their dives?

The default equipment expectation these days is (1) regulator with
octopus and pressure gage, (2) a timing device or dive computer, (3)
Buoyancy Control Device (BC) & (4) Mask/Fins/Snorkle, and (5) weights
and thermal protection as required.

You know what you have, so you can run down through this checklist to
see what's missing besides your "safe 2nd stage"...aka octopus.


For the octopus, adding this to your existing Sherwood regulator system
isn't that expensive, but if by finally picking up a C-Card you're
thinking about diving more (or more dive travel), it may be time to
upgrade your ancient Sherwood...its worth thinking about, at least.

BTW, its safe to generalize that a chartered dive down south in a
generic warmwater destination provides more than just the boat ride:
the "2 tank" dive trip will include two AL80's (yoke, not DIN) plus the
operation will usually have weights for you as well, and often a loaner
weightbelt too.

(YMMV, but I always bring along my own weightbelt, so as
to have a good metal buckle instead of a well-worn plastic
one as found on most freebies.)

Bottom line here is that you don't need to take along your own tanks or
weights.


Similarly, something else worth thinking about is that if you're only
going to be getting a couple of dives in on this particular cruise, then
there's also a decision to be made of if you personally think its worth
schlepping all of your personal gear along if you're only going to use
it but a few times: you may decide to choose to rent your regulator &
BC rather than to drag your own along. Its been a long time since I've
rented, but I'd SWAG it as probably a $50/day expense.



> (I already plan on bringing my own mask, snorkel & fins)

As a coldwater diver, your fins are probably open-heel and thus also
require you be wearing your boots, so don't forget to bring them along.



> Any other advise/experiences diving
> on cruise ship excursions would be appreciated. (My local dive shop
> recommended that I stick with these excursions as the boat won't sale
> without me if the dive boat returns late!)

Probably a reasonably good idea for the first cruise/dive, to get a hang
of how they do everything.


> While most of the excursions boast a 2 tank dive, my fear is that they
> will chase us out of the water after 20 minutes per tank!

Do generally expect that your dive will be "guided" ("herded"), so you
won't necessarily have as much dive freedom as you're used to. OTOH,
you can expect water visibility that's roughly 10x what you've been used
to too...you can spread out

The dive duration is fairly likely to end up being based upon the cruise
ship's schedule as well as the lowest common denominator skills of the
group, which for cruise ship based customers probably isn't generally
considered to be that great...you'll have your air hoovers as well as
"bottom-crashers"...hopefully, you're neither of these...which will also
be a consideration in dive site selection by the dive shop. In other
words, while the warmwater coral reef experience will be something new &
different for you, its fairly unlikely that they'll take you to the best
spots, due to an unfortunately deserved concern for reef damage from an
unknown group of divers.

BTW, are you bringing along your own dive buddy, or are you expecting to
get a "pickup buddy" at the destination?


Hope this helps,



-hh

H Huntzinger wrote:
> "Dick" <devil505@adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> > I am an experienced diver (over 20 years but just recently got certified)
> > who has never dove anywhere but New England.
>
> New England? I've heard some pretty good things about shore diving in
> or around the Cape Ann area. Any suggestions?

Hugh, I'm sure Dick will have some good advice on diving Cape Ann, MA,
but here are some links.

I dive there often, so if you want more specifics about individual
sites, feel free to email me at: dcalderbank AT cheshire DOT net

Good shop:

http://www.capeanndivers.com/

And their page describing specific dive sites:

http://www.capeanndivers.com/findadivesite.htm

HTH.

Dave C

"Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> pounded away at his
keyboard resulting in:
:Anymore words of wisdom about diving, Dan?

I did my first hundred dives in cold water and my last 400 or so in
warm.

If you can dive in cold water, you can dive in warm. It is just so
much easier.

Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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Dan Bracuk wrote:
> "Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> pounded away at his
> keyboard resulting in:
> :Anymore words of wisdom about diving, Dan?
>
> I did my first hundred dives in cold water and my last 400 or so in
> warm.
>
> If you can dive in cold water, you can dive in warm. It is just so
> much easier.

It's easier, alright. Not MUCH easier, if you DO IT RIGHT (not DIR).

If you learn your cold water diving from the Bozos like Dave Waller
and Nick Simicich, as I documented in my preceding posts in reply to
you, then you would have been an incompetent diver, in Warm OR Cold
water.

I did my ICE diver cert in 1990. Can't get much colder than that.
Because I was WARM water trained and was already an experienced
WARM water diver, I had no trouble at all diving in drysuits,
except the neck seals of the rental suit choked me (because it
was 4" smaller than my neck seal should be. So, I did my
ice dives in my 1/4" wetsuit.

BUOYANCY control is EVERYTHING in diving -- except it's a skill
seldom acquired by the Cold-Water trained divers.

The FIRST thing the ice diving instructor did in the pool session
(on drysuit training) was to give me 30 lbs of lead after a quick
look at me. I did a quick look at him, and handed back 15 of
the 30 lbs. The 15 lbs was STILL too much lead, diving in that
Viking drysuit.

I had personally RESCUED some cold water trained divers in Cozumel
(when they were sinking FAST) at 100 fsw and the DM was too far
away tending to other clueless cold water divers. That one was
only 20 lbs overweighted (in lead). The record I've seen was a
New Joisey diver, who brought his own VEST (because no BELT could
carry so much weight) and dived with 75 lbs of weight -- in his
1/4" wetsuit, in Cozumel.

When you're 10 lbs over-weighted, you are 15 lbs too heavy on
decent because of the 5+ lbs of AIR in the full tank!

So, you would have to pump air in the BC to compensate for the
15 lbs of overweight. Do a little Boyles Law stuff and you'll
see why so many cold water diver shoot to the surface when they
forget to lease air (or not release enough air) from their BC
on ascent.

In short, an inexperienced, cold water trained diver is much
more dangerous (to THEMSELVES as well to his diving environment)
than an inexperienced warm water diver -- because the latter
is seldom as OVERWEIGHTED (in lead) as the former.

Short Pop Quiz:

How many Cold Water diver you know calibrate their "proper weight"
(in lead) <diving in COLD WATER> to within 2 lbs or 1 kg? How
many of them even KNOW what their proper amount of lead SHOULD be?

-- Bob.

"Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> pounded away at his
keyboard resulting in:
:BUOYANCY control is EVERYTHING in diving -- except it's a skill
:seldom acquired by the Cold-Water trained divers.

Buoyancy control is so much easier in warm water because of the
thinner wetsuits.

Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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Thanks for your reply hh......The farthest north I've dived is around
Marblehead (a bit north of Boston) but I live in Plymouth so most of my
diving has been on the south shore. There is a nice spot to dive on
Marblehead Neck & many nice spots south of Boston.. Make sure you have/rent
a full wetsuit with boots,gloves & hood! The waters around here never have
great visibility but it is usually ok if you don't dive right after a storm.
Most divers around here go after lobster (State license required) which is
always fun! Probably the best thing to do for specific dive-site
recommendations is to contact a few local dive stores. In Plymouth contact
The Diver's Market at 508-746-3483.

Dick

"H Huntzinger" <{NOSPAM-rm_to_reply}rec-scuba2005@huntzinger.com> wrote in
message
news:{NOSPAM-rm_to_reply}rec-scuba2005-5A22C8.08333720082005@news.giganews.com...
> "Dick" <devil505@adelphia.net> wrote:
>
>> I am an experienced diver (over 20 years but just recently got certified)
>> who has never dove anywhere but New England.
>
> New England? I've heard some pretty good things about shore diving in
> or around the Cape Ann area. Any suggestions?
>
>
>>... I'm one of those "Mike Nelson/Sea Hunt" guys who has some
>> pretty old (but always serviced) equipment. I am using an old Sherwood
>> regulator (with no safe 2nd stage) & wonder if the cruise ship excursion
>> dives will even allow me to use this for their dives?
>
> The default equipment expectation these days is (1) regulator with
> octopus and pressure gage, (2) a timing device or dive computer, (3)
> Buoyancy Control Device (BC) & (4) Mask/Fins/Snorkle, and (5) weights
> and thermal protection as required.
>
> You know what you have, so you can run down through this checklist to
> see what's missing besides your "safe 2nd stage"...aka octopus.
>
>
> For the octopus, adding this to your existing Sherwood regulator system
> isn't that expensive, but if by finally picking up a C-Card you're
> thinking about diving more (or more dive travel), it may be time to
> upgrade your ancient Sherwood...its worth thinking about, at least.
>
> BTW, its safe to generalize that a chartered dive down south in a
> generic warmwater destination provides more than just the boat ride:
> the "2 tank" dive trip will include two AL80's (yoke, not DIN) plus the
> operation will usually have weights for you as well, and often a loaner
> weightbelt too.
>
> (YMMV, but I always bring along my own weightbelt, so as
> to have a good metal buckle instead of a well-worn plastic
> one as found on most freebies.)
>
> Bottom line here is that you don't need to take along your own tanks or
> weights.
>
>
> Similarly, something else worth thinking about is that if you're only
> going to be getting a couple of dives in on this particular cruise, then
> there's also a decision to be made of if you personally think its worth
> schlepping all of your personal gear along if you're only going to use
> it but a few times: you may decide to choose to rent your regulator &
> BC rather than to drag your own along. Its been a long time since I've
> rented, but I'd SWAG it as probably a $50/day expense.
>
>
>
>> (I already plan on bringing my own mask, snorkel & fins)
>
> As a coldwater diver, your fins are probably open-heel and thus also
> require you be wearing your boots, so don't forget to bring them along.
>
>
>
>> Any other advise/experiences diving
>> on cruise ship excursions would be appreciated. (My local dive shop
>> recommended that I stick with these excursions as the boat won't sale
>> without me if the dive boat returns late!)
>
> Probably a reasonably good idea for the first cruise/dive, to get a hang
> of how they do everything.
>
>
>> While most of the excursions boast a 2 tank dive, my fear is that they
>> will chase us out of the water after 20 minutes per tank!
>
> Do generally expect that your dive will be "guided" ("herded"), so you
> won't necessarily have as much dive freedom as you're used to. OTOH,
> you can expect water visibility that's roughly 10x what you've been used
> to too...you can spread out
>
> The dive duration is fairly likely to end up being based upon the cruise
> ship's schedule as well as the lowest common denominator skills of the
> group, which for cruise ship based customers probably isn't generally
> considered to be that great...you'll have your air hoovers as well as
> "bottom-crashers"...hopefully, you're neither of these...which will also
> be a consideration in dive site selection by the dive shop. In other
> words, while the warmwater coral reef experience will be something new &
> different for you, its fairly unlikely that they'll take you to the best
> spots, due to an unfortunately deserved concern for reef damage from an
> unknown group of divers.
>
> BTW, are you bringing along your own dive buddy, or are you expecting to
> get a "pickup buddy" at the destination?
>
>
> Hope this helps,
>
>
>
> -hh