billt4sf
Contributor
- Messages
- 2,561
- Reaction score
- 1,151
- # of dives
- 500 - 999
I am considering joining a dive "safari" to these three places in May 2016 and I'd like to find out the degree of difficulty of the diving and using the bancas in the Philippines.
1) First, it was mentioned that there are physical challenges getting on and off the banca. Although we are in good physical shape for our age (we exercise regularly), we're late 50's / early 60's and we're pretty bad on upper body strength. We did some dives off of a rigid inflatable a few years ago and I hated getting on and off it. I'm 6'6", 250 lbs (that's almost 2m, 109kg). Can someone describe how you get on the bancas?
2) The thresher shark dives at Malaspascua -- how deep are they? We're AOW certified, but we usually stay less than 60 ft (20m) or so. We're not averse to going down to about 100 ft, but we always use nitrox so we'd like to stay within that range.
3) What about currents? Frankly, we're pretty bad with currents.
That may not be much information but I'm hoping that some of the comments here will help us assess whether we should sign up for the trip.
Thanks,
Bill & Emily
1) First, it was mentioned that there are physical challenges getting on and off the banca. Although we are in good physical shape for our age (we exercise regularly), we're late 50's / early 60's and we're pretty bad on upper body strength. We did some dives off of a rigid inflatable a few years ago and I hated getting on and off it. I'm 6'6", 250 lbs (that's almost 2m, 109kg). Can someone describe how you get on the bancas?
2) The thresher shark dives at Malaspascua -- how deep are they? We're AOW certified, but we usually stay less than 60 ft (20m) or so. We're not averse to going down to about 100 ft, but we always use nitrox so we'd like to stay within that range.
3) What about currents? Frankly, we're pretty bad with currents.
That may not be much information but I'm hoping that some of the comments here will help us assess whether we should sign up for the trip.
Thanks,
Bill & Emily