Infinity Bay Resort

[RTBDiver]

You can dive Roatan using EAN32 (air) 5x a day- if you dive it shallow (where the critters are) and if you dive it gently. EAN gas is a tool that used to be known as "geezer gas" or "devil gas". If there is no need for it on certain specific dive profiles and you can get past the internalized marketing hype,.?

Funny thing is I use AIR on every dive off Roatan, No need for anything else in the shallows and when I do deep dives, that silly nitrox is a problem with O2 toxicity. So good old air is great for me for shallow and deep dives, Its amazing how many say they feel better and more alert using nitrox, because that is what they paid for , but in all controlle studies there has been nothing to substantiate the claims

 

[laurenceh]

i call it guzzler gas, knocks 8-10 minutes off my dive times. i'm very conscience of feeling the need to breathe deeper and more often on nitrox so i never use it. once in the galapagos i was the only one on the boat that requested not to use nitrox but at the end of the first day i was suspicious because my dives were oddly short, i checked my tank and sure enough they'd filled me with nitrox "by mistake" (i think it was just easier for them).

 

[Doc]

once in the galapagos.... they'd filled me with nitrox "by mistake" (i think it was just easier for them).

In the Galapagos, that can kill'ya pretty easy. Lot of quick downcurrents.

Not the case in Roatan. There are some very deep profiles available on the North/West dives, the two placed shipwrecks (bottoming out at at 115fsw?) are plenty deep, but even they are within the max depth for EAN36.

On the other side of the Island (South), the best diving there is in the shallows, not much deeper than 65', usually even shallower. The Prince Albert lies in 35>65fsw and the Mr.Bud rests in 67fsw. Lots of growth due to the light. This is a zone where it is easy to stay on air for 5x a day, at least for me.

I am not sure of the real usefulness of any "larger" tank, as most dive ops curtail dives at a set time~ some are ridiculously short, others are more flexible depending upon the SI required for the next dive, or if the DM needs to get the boat home for the next group. For most experienced divers using a large tank, they would likely be able to long-outlast the diver recall time.

 

[drrich2]

Laurenceh:

I'm very intrigued by your experience. From what I've been taught, in addition to nitrox being tasteless and odorless (so we can't tell what we're breathing, eliminating placebo effect if you don't know what's in your tank & think it's air), these facts are at issue:

1.) Human respiratory drive is mainly driven by the need to expel CO2 from our blood stream by dumping it into the lungs & exhaling.

2.) O2 need is a minor aspect driving human respiration, and even if one were abnormally sensitive to low levels (though exhaled breath has around 17% or so O2, if memory serves, so we use fairly little O2 in the air we breathe), one's hemoglobin should saturate roughly the same whether on air or EAN, and there's nothing about EAN that should trigger more rapid air usage.

I wish we knew how you can discern the difference. I'd think it was psychological (no offense; I imagine we can all be susceptible to that), but your Galapagos experience suggests otherwise, at least anecdotally.

Richard.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

I use Nitrox simply to reduce the nitrogen upload for a given dive. I usually dive my computer on air mode when using Nitrox, just to give my aging carcass a break. Remember, it's not so much the number of dives you make, but the time you spend under pressure. I'm approaching my 40th year of inert gas uptake, & ten of those years saw mega-uptake exposures in saturation & bell-bounce diving. Thus far I haven't been bent ( my, I'm tempting the deco. gods with that statement! ), but I'm not much given to pushing my luck anymore.

Regards,
DSD

 

[ConchyJoe]

Too bad this thread took a left turn. My .02:

We rented this condo in West Bay, West Bay Beach Vacation Rental - VRBO 285440 - 2 BR Roatan Condo in Honduras, Jewel of West Bay ~ Costume Jewelry Price and will eat in mostly. There is a dive shop next door called Anemone Divers. We can go out on their boats on a schedule, or simply grab a tank and shore dive, which is my preference and more cost effective. We will be there the second week of April.

Hope that helps, and most importantly have fun!

 

[RTBDiver]

Too bad this thread took a left turn. My .02:

!

Oh get real, Left turn?? Who is your reply even for? This thread is now something like three years old, it was dead for almost all that time and was resurrected by someone asking the OP about their trip three years earlier as if anything on Roatan three years ago matters today..
Posts like these, three years too late, often occure when busines owners scoure the message boards looking to find posts they can reply to and post about their place.

 

[Bryan Cunningham]

lol, DiveNoob is probably an instructor by now.

 

[Doc]

Too bad this thread took a left turn. My .02:

Roatan is a right turn.

2 centavos Honduran = 1/10th of a US penny. So there's that.

We rented this condo in West

That would be a 270 degree turn.

The Bay Islands Forum is representative of the Bay Islands themselves.

It's always evolving, people see it differently than others, we'll talk about anything, there is almost always some huckster (who will come and go) selling something, and somebody advising you that they're going to die from x, y, z.

A large number of very sincere posters remind me of the old fable of 7 Blind Men trying to describe an elephant after first being introduced to such a creature. They all know what they have felt... and are ready to share their limited experience, but very very few of them have "seen" it all.

You have to take the many posts and posters here as a whole.

In general, left turns are the norm in any Bay Islands thread.... Pretty much-so like life on the Bay Islands.

 

[caribean-ted]

Roatan is a right turn.

2 centavos Honduran = 1/10th of a US penny. So there's that.



That would be a 270 degree turn.

The Bay Islands Forum is representative of the Bay Islands themselves.

It's always evolving, people see it differently than others, we'll talk about anything, there is almost always some huckster (who will come and go) selling something, and somebody advising you that they're going to die from x, y, z.

A large number of very sincere posters remind me of the old fable of 7 Blind Men trying to describe an elephant after first being introduced to such a creature. They all know what they have felt... and are ready to share their limited experience, but very very few of them have "seen" it all.

You have to take the many posts and posters here as a whole.

In general, left turns are the norm in any Bay Islands thread.... Pretty much-so like life on the Bay Islands.

i take it they prefer american dollars to canadian in roataan
also is it possible to use a bank card there at the infinity resort for cash withdrawls or the concerge for cash exchange from canadian dollars?
dont want to bring too much cash prefer to take what i need while there