My 16 year old son and myself went on a 2 tank dive in Jupiter this past Friday 7/3/09. This was our first dive since open water certification in March. We did two of our open water certification dives in Curacao and the other two in St. Thomas.
We dove with Jupiter Dive Center. We hired a private dive master to go along with us and rented equipment (except for masks) from the dive center.
Somehow another individual ended up going along with us. The DM asked if it would be OK and I said it would. I did, however, feel that this was a bit odd as I was the one hiring the private DM. As it turned out the other individual was experienced and stayed a good distance away. I guess the negative feeling was more the principle of it.
Since this was our first dive since certification, I felt that having a private DM along would be a good idea for safety.
The diversity of the wildlife was better than I had expected. We had not experienced drift diving before and we both found this enjoyable as well. The water at the deeper levels was quite cold. I'm glad we had full body wet suits.
Now for the really stupid part of the experience (my fault entirely). Most people there dove with Nitrox. People on air were to be down for no more than 25 minutes and people with nitrox were to be down for no more than 45 minutes. Our private DM had a nitrox tank. I didn't have a recreational dive planner with us and I didn't have a fancy computer. I told the DM this ahead of time. Now, just going from the feel of things, it seemed that we were down longer than 25 minutes on each of the two dives. The surface interval also didn't feel like 1 hour and 15 minutes like it should have been. I didn't pay close enough attention to the details like I should have. I placed my safety and that of my son's in the hands of someone else.
We both did fine and didn't suffer any symptoms of decompression illness. After looking at the recreational dive planner. I was stunned to see just how close we were to potential disaster. We also didn't have any supplemental dive insurance. It looks like going with something like DAN would be well worth it.
I was a bit stunned at the conclusion of the dive when the private DM just up and left without as much as a thank you for employing his services or even a simple goodbye. This also heightened my nervousness about my stupidity. I hope that he truly had our best interest, which is our safety, in mind.
I did learn a lot in general about diving as my learning curve is very steep. The inflatable sausage devices appear very handy. My son had a tough time holding at 15 feet for the 3 minute safety stop. The DM handed him the line which he put at 15 feet and had him hang on. He did really well with that. The DM also had a quacker type of device that makes a different sound on top and under the water which can alert others from far away. This also appears to be a good safety device.
The most important thing that I came away from this dive with is the fact that I need to be much more prepared than I was. I will definitely invest in a dive computer. It also looks like the nitrox training would be well worth it as an added safety measure as well. I will definitely dive Jupiter in the future. I'm not so certain that I will go with Jupiter Dive Center again. I will likely have my own equipment in the near future and go with a different charter service.
I'm sure that you more experienced divers might have a lot to say about my experience. Feel free to share your thoughts.
-Mark
We dove with Jupiter Dive Center. We hired a private dive master to go along with us and rented equipment (except for masks) from the dive center.
Somehow another individual ended up going along with us. The DM asked if it would be OK and I said it would. I did, however, feel that this was a bit odd as I was the one hiring the private DM. As it turned out the other individual was experienced and stayed a good distance away. I guess the negative feeling was more the principle of it.
Since this was our first dive since certification, I felt that having a private DM along would be a good idea for safety.
The diversity of the wildlife was better than I had expected. We had not experienced drift diving before and we both found this enjoyable as well. The water at the deeper levels was quite cold. I'm glad we had full body wet suits.
Now for the really stupid part of the experience (my fault entirely). Most people there dove with Nitrox. People on air were to be down for no more than 25 minutes and people with nitrox were to be down for no more than 45 minutes. Our private DM had a nitrox tank. I didn't have a recreational dive planner with us and I didn't have a fancy computer. I told the DM this ahead of time. Now, just going from the feel of things, it seemed that we were down longer than 25 minutes on each of the two dives. The surface interval also didn't feel like 1 hour and 15 minutes like it should have been. I didn't pay close enough attention to the details like I should have. I placed my safety and that of my son's in the hands of someone else.
We both did fine and didn't suffer any symptoms of decompression illness. After looking at the recreational dive planner. I was stunned to see just how close we were to potential disaster. We also didn't have any supplemental dive insurance. It looks like going with something like DAN would be well worth it.
I was a bit stunned at the conclusion of the dive when the private DM just up and left without as much as a thank you for employing his services or even a simple goodbye. This also heightened my nervousness about my stupidity. I hope that he truly had our best interest, which is our safety, in mind.
I did learn a lot in general about diving as my learning curve is very steep. The inflatable sausage devices appear very handy. My son had a tough time holding at 15 feet for the 3 minute safety stop. The DM handed him the line which he put at 15 feet and had him hang on. He did really well with that. The DM also had a quacker type of device that makes a different sound on top and under the water which can alert others from far away. This also appears to be a good safety device.
The most important thing that I came away from this dive with is the fact that I need to be much more prepared than I was. I will definitely invest in a dive computer. It also looks like the nitrox training would be well worth it as an added safety measure as well. I will definitely dive Jupiter in the future. I'm not so certain that I will go with Jupiter Dive Center again. I will likely have my own equipment in the near future and go with a different charter service.
I'm sure that you more experienced divers might have a lot to say about my experience. Feel free to share your thoughts.
-Mark