Just got back from Carribean Cruise

[EuphoriaII]

Originally Posted by aerodog

In January, Cozumel diving with Aldora. New ball game, they use 100 cu ft steel tanks. Again we were not given enough weights and it was a struggle to stay down. At the end of our first dive, we had to hold on to the DM during the safety stop after my wife made an uncontrolled assent to the surface, not a good thing in CZM.

Two weeks from today, will be again diving with Aldora to do things right. This time, we are going to get the weighting sorted out at the beginning of our trip, not the end.

I dove with Aldoa once and wont do it again because of the steel 100 tanks. I don't need the extra air or want to make the weighting adjustments. But my main beef with them is that they switched out the yoke valve on my reg to fit their tanks without asking me. I don't like anyone messing with my regs

[Sounder]

Originally Posted by EuphoriaII

I dove with Aldoa once and wont do it again because of the steel 100 tanks. I don't need the extra air or want to make the weighting adjustments. But my main beef with them is that they switched out the yoke valve on my reg to fit their tanks without asking me. I don't like anyone messing with my regs

I agree nobody should have been messing with your regulators, but I would definitely like the steel 100s. A lot of divers don't need that extra gas for the dives they do, but their buddys might.

[cutter77]

"The moral of my msg is that underweighting has given us more grief than overweighting."

Yep, just can't cut corners on doing a proper weight check first thing...makes the rest of the dive trip so much more enjoyable.

[CFDAlden]

Originally Posted by EuphoriaII

i have heard that on the cruseship dives, when the first person is low on air, all come up. With the local dive ops, I've been allowed to stay under longer provided my buddy and I have good air conservation.
In Grand Cayman I tend to use Neptune Divers and in Cozumel I use Papa Hogs (and once used Aldora because someone else lined up the dive).

We did the ship booked excursion in March of this year, in St. Martin. What they did was to monitor air, then shuffled partners according to consumption rates. The first pair went up at 500, with a DM escort to the up line. DM then returned to the group. 10 minutes later, my partner hit 500, (started with my wife, then finished with the husband of the couple we cruisd with.) and I, and finally, my wife and our friend. Worked well.

The only bad part I could see was being partnerd with someone you don't know, just lucky that out friends have near identical SAC's as ours.

[ChrisA]

I don't blame instructors or training agencies. THeir job is to get OW student only the minimum needed so they don't kill themselves. The proof that this works is that very few do kill them selves.

The real reason you see un-skilled divers at resorts is that some divers don't dive except once a year or every two years at a resort. It is very hard to be good at anything that you do so infrequently. You can't blame a person for living in Kanas and having no means to get the ocean every weekend.

This is why all the resort locations put a DM in the water with divers. They know their customers likely only dive when they are there and need supervision.

The FAA makes pilots performa certain minimum number of take offs and landing within a given period. If they don't they are required to fly with an instructor until the instructor signs them off as competent. The scuba industry could require something like 3 dives within the last 6 weeks but a rule like that would be very unpopular. But without a rule like this we will just have to put up with divers showing up at a resort, not having dove in years and not knowing how to work a compass or turn on their air.

No change to the OW class will solve the problem of loosing skils or never gaining them due to infrequent diving

[bassplayer]

That bad diver was almost me.

Had an opportunity to go on a carribean cruise for the first time. I saw all the diving that was available in Grand Caymen and Cozumel. Having only dove in the Cold Great Lakes it was very tempting. But having not dove for the last 15 years, my brain told my heart to let this one go.
When I got home, got re-certified, advanced course, master course.

Next time I will be ready!

[fire diver]

Congrats! Although the very fact that you think this way already puts you WAY above the typical "vacation" diver.

Welcome to the ST forums!