Belize Trip Report 05-09
Belize Trip Report 5/2-5/9/09 I just returned from Ambrigis Caye, Belize. It was my first dive trip to the island, and we had a good time. It was a SingleDivers.com trip http://www.singledivers.com/surfaceinterval/index.php?showtopic=16972 . We stayed at the Tides on the north end of San Pedro. Diving was with the on site dive op, Patojos. http://www.ambergriscaye.com/tides/dive.html. The cost of the trip was actually $80 less than the price quoted on the website and included lunch as well. Addi...
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Padi Wreck Diving Specialty
Padi Wreck Diving Specialty March 19-23rd Boca Chica, Dominican Republic Caribbean Divers Last weekend I flew down to Boca Chica, DR to do my wreck diving specialty with Caribbean Divers in Boca Chica. I did 5 dives over 3 days. The class was 4 of them, the other was a reef dive. For the class, we dove the Cutuan, which was the Mohican out of Port Huron prior to moving to the Domican Republic. It is a tug boat that was sunk in about a 5-10 minute boat ride from the Dive shop in about 70 feet of ...
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SW Florida Thanksgiving Dive
I was visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, so I scheduled a Dive with Jeff at Scuba Marco, on Marco Island, FL. Jeff called me the day before to confirm the dive. His boat is a six pack. We had five divers on the boat. We dove two wrecks. The first was Bagen’s Barge. It is a small barge (8’x10’) sitting in about 35 feet of water. The water was colder than any of us expected (65 degrees) and with my full 3mm+ vest was chilly during the dives. My buddy, Bob, had even less neoprene on. Visbility o...
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Halloween in Cozumel
SingleDivers trip - Halloween in Cozumel. This trip for me started on Thursday October 30th. THe first step was that when I arrived at the Denver airport my flight was cancelled. So they booked me on a direct flight to Cancun. The good new was no layover. The bad news was doing the transfer. I made it down to Playa Del Carmen only to find out that the ferry was now on a 2 hour schedule rather than the normal off season 1 trip an hour. So my hopes of making it to the hotel prior to the dive shop ...
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Roatan Labor Day 2008
I just got back from Roatan, staying at Anthony’s Key. www.anthonyskey.com I was at Roatan previously on a cruise ship and the diving was through Anthony’s Key. They have a large fleet of custom 42’ and 48’ boats. All dives are single tank dives, in that we came back to the resort in between dives. So I was able to tour the facilities between the dives and was very impressed. This is how I envsioned a tropical paradise. Accomodations were either on the hill adjacent to the dining room (52 steps ...
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My 100th Dive
My 100th Dive trip 7/25-7/28 2008 Back in North Carolina, I booked my 96th Dive. SingleDivers.com was having the re-do of the Cozumel/Cenotes/Holbox trip, I was able to find some inexpensive airfare, so I came down for the weekend to do the Cozumel portion. We stayed at CasaDel Mar. I arrived on Friday, checked in at the dive shop (DelMar Aquatics) and did a shore dive that afternoon with two of the women on the trip. The dive was surprisingly good. First we went and blew bubbles at the glass bo...
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Going Tech
Well, It looks like my next big dive trip will be Chuuk & Palau in January of 2011. The boat we will be using is the Odyssey. http://www.trukodyssey.com/ The supports Tec diving on the wrecks and recommends that their divers have a rating of extended range diver. So, with 30 months before the trip, How do I get there? First the equipment changes.. My first move is to a BP/Wing from my jacket style BC. My thought is to start in a single tank configuration, then move to doubles next spring. I will...
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NC Wrecks trip 7/3-7/7/08
July 4th NC WreCK TripSingleDivers.com I just returned from the NC Wrecks trip. This trip was through SingleDivers.com. We stayed at the Fisherman’s Inn in Morehead City, North Carolina. We dove with Diver Down. The trip was 4 nights, with 3 days of diving. We flew into Raleigh Durham and rented a van for the drive up to Morehead. Part of the highlights of this journey was to stop at wilbers for Carolina BBQ. The next day we began the diving. DIving in Carolina is different than the other diving...
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DEMP
DEMP Class6/26/08 Time for a little alphabet soup. My local dive shop offers an option as part of their rescue program. They call it the ultimate rescue diver. It consists of three courses, EFR (Emergency First Responder or CPR), the PADI Rescue Class, and then the DAN DEMP class. Having completed the first two, I did the DEMP class this week. DEMP, or Diving Emergency Management Provider as tought by my shop is actually a collection of five classes bundled together. O2 provider, Advanced O2 pro...
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Cozy June 2008
Dive Trip Report Cozumel - June 13-16th Flew down on a trip booked through apple vacations. Sun Country Charter out of Dallas-Ft. Worth. My dive buddy, BB & I were on a flight at 10:00 am that got us into Cozumel about 12:30. Headed straight over to Hotel Cozumel. Got checked in, Then went over to the Dive Paradise Dive shop, checked in there and rented a couple of tanks for a checkout dive. Cost is $6 for tank & weights. So we were wet by about 2:00pm. From the pier, you can swim out and they h...
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Rescue Me!
I completed my rescue diver training this past weekend.The first step was finishing the pre-reqs. This involved taking Emergency First Responder. Its the American Heart Association class, and teaches, primary care, CPR, Oxygen use, and secondary assesment.Then we started the pool portion of the Rescue Diver Class. We had classroom sessions that involved five knowledge reviews covering different ermegency situations that occur while diving. Then in the pool we covered different rescues, and how t...
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Bonaire May 2008
Dive Trip Bonaire 2008 May 10-17th www.SingleDivers.Com Accommodations We stayed at the Divi Flamingo. Nice hotel just south of town. It’s easily within walking distance of local restaurants and shopping. We had an Oceanside room with balcony that provided awesome sunsets. Staff was great. Two negatives: intermittent hot water. Never knew when you took a shower whether hot water would be available or not. Second was an air conditioning leak left the floor of our room wet the last couple of days ...
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Cozumel March 2008
This trip was booked through Apple Vacations. Accommodations were at Hotel Cozumel. Dive Operator - Dive Paradise Dive Paradise has at least three dive operations that we would stop at. One was up just south of town, Another was at our hotel Cozumel and another further south just north of the International Pier. We were on their slow boats. Renegado Day 1, Calypso Day 2 and Tonga Day 3. The quality of the boats increased each day with Tonga being the nicest and fastest of the 3. Day 1 we had 7 d...
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Australia - Great Barrier Reef - December 3rd-11th
Australia - Great Barrier Reef - December 3rd-11th, 2007 SingleDivers.Com trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We all met up in Cairns the night before. They bussed us over to the Explorer Ventures office where we dropped our extra bags before heading out for a low level flight up to Cooktown. Each person`s gear was weighed to make sure that the overall group averaged 44 lbs. After we met this requirement we took the 45 minute flight split into two planes. One a six seater, the other holding 18. It g...
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Underwater Photography Class
Last Saturday I took a class in underwater Photgraphy. It was taught by the owners of Island Photographers of Cozumel. www.photocozumel.com Holly and Armando are amazing. They really know there stuff. We spent the first two hours learning about all of the settings of our camera and what the optimal settings for shooting pix underwater. Until now, basically what I would do is take my camera underwater and shoot as many shots as I could. If I was lucky 1 or 2 would be decent. After that we then we...
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Equipment Specialty
Ok, I had the class last night. There were 3 students. We spent about 3-4 hours in total. He started with a shop overview. After that, he pulled out some lights and had us lubricate the o-rings. Then we took apart our BCDs. Cleaned the bladders. Reviewed the parts in the dump valves and took apart the inflator. Showed us places where the salt builds up from salt water diving. Next it was onto our Regulators. Took them apart to show us both the first stage and second stage and had us all read our...
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Drysuit and Deep Specialties
This weekend I completed two more specialties. Dry Suit and Deep. I did this down at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM. This was my 2nd time coming down to this town that bills itself as the dive mecca of the southwest. Some thoughts.. 1) Dry Suit didn`t seem to be totally dry. between perspiration, and the slightest issue with any seal, and some type of pin hole in the boots of my rental boots assured this. Wearing socks really didn`t seem to be wise given that my feet were fairly wet after every...
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Dodging Hurricane Dean
Well, I took my first trip with SingleDivers.com this past week. And due to Dean, it turned into a 1 day dive trip. The night before I left, we could see that a named storm had formed in the Atlantic headed towards the caribbean. Flew in on Thursday. We did a shore dive off of Casa Del Mar was a tune up dive and was actually much better than I expected. There are a few of the catamarans that drop off their snorkelers, and we saw plenty of marine life. Casa Del Mar is just north of the Internatio...
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Colorado Dive Day 8/4/07
I actually signed up through Flat Irons on Friday and was provided my tank then. I dove twice, the first was the poker run. The compass directions seemed to be backwards, but we found all five cards. My pair of nines wasn`t good enough to win a price, but the water was warm and visibility was poor. There was 6-9 LDS with booths along with at least as many manufacturers as well as a couple of the trip companies (I know I saw Funjet). And of course ScubaBoard. In the afternoon I did a dive over at...
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Lake Tahoe 7/20/07
I had a trip to Lake Tahoe planned so I booked a couple of dives with Sierra Dive Center of Reno. They set me up with a Dive Master named Amy Hagen. We went to a site called Sand Harbor. It is a nice beach entry. Great visibility, the light reflects off the bottom sand which allows you to see quite well. The first dive was a wall dive, but by the time we hit teh third thermalcline, the temp had dropped to a cool 56 degrees. In my 7mm with vest and hood, it was chilly so we came back up and hugge...
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