Montego Bay Jamaica recommendations?

[Slmason.72]

Just got back from Secrets - Wild Orchid in MoBay. Did 5 days of two tank dives with their on-site dive operation, Captain's Watersports. Had an awesome time. Did dives on Spanish Anchor, Airport wall, Widowmaker's reef, The Point, Chatham reef and several other shallow reef locations. The abundance of marine life, both flora and fauna was an incredible, welcome change from the Boscobell Bay area. The first dive of every trip was a deep dive anywhere from 75 to 115 feet lasting 30-45 minutes, usually a drift dive on a wall, followed by a shallower, relaxing reef dive of 50-65 minutes. The on site dive master at Secrets, Shakat, was a lot of fun and once he had an idea of my abilities, took me on a more challenging and interesting dives. On our 4th dive out, an 8 ft eagle ray dropped in to play with us for almost 20 minutes. He circled, dove on us, and basically played until we had to surface due to low air. Would definitely recommend Secrets and Captain's Watersports. On another note, on my fourth day, I dove with a couple of French guys who claimed to be diving instructors. While at over 100 feet, my no-deco time dropped to one minute, so I signaled the DM and we started to ascend. I was the only diver using a computer. (Shakat, who has been diving for almost 50 years seems to have the dive tables memorized as this was the only time we came this close to a limit) We ascended a bit to a different part of the wall, then after a while topped the wall and finished the dive around 40 feet. After the dive, both Frenchmen indicated their disgust and disdain for our "American" (thought these were international) dive tables. He stated the French use a system of deep decompression stops in their recreational tables that allow for much greater bottom time. As my BS detector was in full alarm mode, I didn't pursue the conversation. The vocal one of the two didn't dive with us the following day. I'm still new to diving, but can't believe that deep decompression is a part of any recreational diving activity, nor that those two were anything more that full of sh!t. :headscratch:

 

[Ryan Conley]

Recreational diving is no decompression diving. Period.

Most if not all dive tables are based on the original US Navy dive tables. Silly frenchies. Win a war why don't you?

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I am heading out to Mo-bay in two weeks and I was looking for some dive shops. I started with dressil, but they stated they had a 8-1 DM to student ratio.

Does anyone have any info on [FONT=arial, sans-serif]Riu aka ScubaCaribe? Do you need to stay there to dive with them? My hotel has captains watersports. [/FONT]

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Are you sure they meant deco stops or were they used to diving multi level profiles? In translation it could have sounded like deep.deco stops. If they are three star or above I believe they would be trained for this. I actually use deep stops on the deep dive in my aow class that actually turn the dive into a multilevel allowing for total run time of up to 55 minutes on a dive with a max depth of 100 feet. And we don't use computers to do it other than as timing devices and depth gauges.

And tables used in the US are not "international". Many agencies around the world use their own tables.

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[Ryan Conley]

If there is a planned non-emergency deco stop it isnt recreational diving. Even when diving a multi-level profile, they are not built there for true decompression. You are still within limits of the no-decompression diving.

I dove down to 115 on a wreck up in NY and then back up to 60, then to 30 to stretch it out to 45-55 minutes also. But it isnt a decompression stop.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

All diving is decompression diving. Unless getting paid for it, technical diving is also recreational diving. The reason for multilevel dives is to extend bottom times while allowing for additional off gassing (in other words - decompressing). I consider the deco dives I do to be technical dives for recreation. Or recreational dives with a technical component. Don't dismiss others ideas and training or compare them to others without looking at those other methods. Just because you were told that recreational dives are only dives within the ndl's doesn't make it so.


And using deep stops is another way of extending bottom times. I do it on all deep dives. And yes they are decompression stops even if they are not called for.


"I dove down to 115 on a wreck up in NY and then back up to 60, then to 30 to stretch it out to 45-55 minutes also. But it isnt a decompression stop."

FYI, those are decompression stops you did. Not mandatory ones but still deco stops that allowed you to off gas more efficiently, extend your bottom time, and make the dive actually safer and less strenuous after a deep dive.
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[Ryan Conley]

Decompression diving is not in the scope of recreational diving. If you call multi-level diving decompression diving, then good for you. Semantics. Sky blue is a shade of blue, but not blue directly.

To most other people decompression diving is when you exceed the limits of no-decompression. Where you NEED to make that stop for safety reasons, not because you are doing a multi-level dive, not to extend a deeper dive.

 

[paula paz]

I am heading out to Mo-bay in two weeks and I was looking for some dive shops. I started with dressil, but they stated they had a 8-1 DM to student ratio.

Does anyone have any info on Riu aka ScubaCaribe? Do you need to stay there to dive with them? My hotel has captains watersports.

Yes, you need to be a host of RIU in order to Dive with Scuba Caribe, unless you could eventualy arrange something with the base/team lider. (??!!)
will you stay at Mo-bay directly or travel to Negril?