Hey guys. We leave for our first dive vacation in less than a month. I planned the flights to and from. My gf planned the hotel stays, inter island travel, and rain forest hike. Now i'm planning meals, topside adventures, dive opts and basic intra day activities.
Below is an email I typed out to the dive opt that we are thinking of using for the last half of our trip.
I offer posting it here in hopes that you'll review it and either offer advice yourself or lending guidance towards it's legitimacy. Here in chicago people are live mostly to themselves. I thought i'd reach out a bit and offer our experience and questions ahead of time thinking that maybe it would be beneficial and rewarding. What do you guys think? Stupid or worthwhile? Informative or lame? Anything that I should've included? Should I send this email to other opts and weigh the feedback (their level of openess and communication) when making a decision?
I'll let you guys decide. Thanks for your time.
Hi,
We are coming to your island on April 16th and would like to establish communication w/ a dive opt before our departure.
My girlfriend, Heather, took me snorkeling a year ago off the florida keys and I fell in love w/ the experience. We came home and signed up for scuba certification.
Our only ow experience is 3 certification dives (the 3rd being an amazing shark dive) in the bahamas last august, but or fun ended there as we had to return to the miserable chicago tundra and the agonizing torture of mind altering inter and intra office politics.
We are incredibly excited about our 9 day vacation to the tropics. like everyone we want to re-live the meditative like experience of buoyancy surrounded by the surreal tropical reefs of Roatan., but w/ age comes wisdom as we already have signed up for a refresher course at a local shop.
I thought it would make sense describing our comfort level and our awareness of our inexperience and desire for safety so the dive opt that we choose will have a better feel for what may and may not be our safe diving parameters.
Heather is a strong swimmer who swam competitively as a child. Not as strong as heather, I spent my summers at the local pool and in the lakes up in Wisconsin and feel comfortable in the open water. We both felt comfortable w/ the equipment during padi pool instruction and similarly comfortable in the ow. ( Our ow experiences were amazing. The experience of obtaining neutral buoyancy w/ controlled breathing was breathtaking) Yet were mindful that we needed a professional close by incase something went wrong. We both take a cautious approach towards this recreation and are very careful to stay together, move slowly and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
We want to be strictly respectful to the reefs, the fish, and other more experienced divers, understanding that although we try to know what we are doing, sometimes we won't because this is new to us. We understand basic etiquette towards the reef and others, but would be open to guidance when needed.
We feel we can be trusted to follow instructions for our safety and others. We feel we are quick learners and hope we can be new to this recreation while learning and learn from you and others.
Our trip starts our w/ a 2 night stay at Sandy Beach. We will get reacquainted w/ scuba here and do about 6 dives. Then we head to Utila for 3 nights. Again we'll be diving, hopefully w/ a few whale sharks. Our return will be to Foster's on west bay for four nights. At this point we'll have about 10 dives under our belts. We'd like to do 4 dives a day for the next 3 days, this includes possibly a shark dive.
We've decided against another dive in close proximity to fosters b/c of cost. We've read online from other visitors that your costs are more inline w/ Native Sons. We have read many many positive reviews about visitors' experiences and are trying to follow their guidance.
Could you please help us out w/ the following questions?
1. Your rates for 10 dive package
2. rates for rental equipment per dive
3. Your guidance on nitrox. Do you supply nitrox tanks? Is it worth diving nitrox in roatan? I've read that compared to other dive destinations the benefits of diving nitrox in roatan are minimal. Should we consider nitrox certification and do you certify for nitrox?
4. We only have fins and masks. We would like to slowly invest in equipment over the next coming years. For this trip would you recommend any specific equipment? We've read all opts are a bit different and are unsure if a computer would be beneficial. Are we expected to follow a dm and stay w/ the group throughout all of our dives, or will we have freedom to explore a bit on our own if our comfort and safety permit? are our bottom times restricted to the dm or our air and our computer?
5. Neither of us have a wet suit. We are both comfortable in 70'ish F water w/o one. Should be plan on getting one prior to departing? we've read about the possibility of sea lice.
6. Is there anything that we should realize or consider as new divers that we probably haven't already that would help you, our dive opt and us in making this a safe and life long memory?
Thanks for your time. i hope I haven't bored you. We want to learn, laugh, dive, have fun, and be safe and sometimes the best way to do so when you are new at anything is to let the people who are going to help you and make sure you are safe get to know you a little before you don the bc and take the plunge.
Sincerely,
Andrew Carava
Below is an email I typed out to the dive opt that we are thinking of using for the last half of our trip.
I offer posting it here in hopes that you'll review it and either offer advice yourself or lending guidance towards it's legitimacy. Here in chicago people are live mostly to themselves. I thought i'd reach out a bit and offer our experience and questions ahead of time thinking that maybe it would be beneficial and rewarding. What do you guys think? Stupid or worthwhile? Informative or lame? Anything that I should've included? Should I send this email to other opts and weigh the feedback (their level of openess and communication) when making a decision?
I'll let you guys decide. Thanks for your time.
Hi,
We are coming to your island on April 16th and would like to establish communication w/ a dive opt before our departure.
My girlfriend, Heather, took me snorkeling a year ago off the florida keys and I fell in love w/ the experience. We came home and signed up for scuba certification.
Our only ow experience is 3 certification dives (the 3rd being an amazing shark dive) in the bahamas last august, but or fun ended there as we had to return to the miserable chicago tundra and the agonizing torture of mind altering inter and intra office politics.
We are incredibly excited about our 9 day vacation to the tropics. like everyone we want to re-live the meditative like experience of buoyancy surrounded by the surreal tropical reefs of Roatan., but w/ age comes wisdom as we already have signed up for a refresher course at a local shop.
I thought it would make sense describing our comfort level and our awareness of our inexperience and desire for safety so the dive opt that we choose will have a better feel for what may and may not be our safe diving parameters.
Heather is a strong swimmer who swam competitively as a child. Not as strong as heather, I spent my summers at the local pool and in the lakes up in Wisconsin and feel comfortable in the open water. We both felt comfortable w/ the equipment during padi pool instruction and similarly comfortable in the ow. ( Our ow experiences were amazing. The experience of obtaining neutral buoyancy w/ controlled breathing was breathtaking) Yet were mindful that we needed a professional close by incase something went wrong. We both take a cautious approach towards this recreation and are very careful to stay together, move slowly and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
We want to be strictly respectful to the reefs, the fish, and other more experienced divers, understanding that although we try to know what we are doing, sometimes we won't because this is new to us. We understand basic etiquette towards the reef and others, but would be open to guidance when needed.
We feel we can be trusted to follow instructions for our safety and others. We feel we are quick learners and hope we can be new to this recreation while learning and learn from you and others.
Our trip starts our w/ a 2 night stay at Sandy Beach. We will get reacquainted w/ scuba here and do about 6 dives. Then we head to Utila for 3 nights. Again we'll be diving, hopefully w/ a few whale sharks. Our return will be to Foster's on west bay for four nights. At this point we'll have about 10 dives under our belts. We'd like to do 4 dives a day for the next 3 days, this includes possibly a shark dive.
We've decided against another dive in close proximity to fosters b/c of cost. We've read online from other visitors that your costs are more inline w/ Native Sons. We have read many many positive reviews about visitors' experiences and are trying to follow their guidance.
Could you please help us out w/ the following questions?
1. Your rates for 10 dive package
2. rates for rental equipment per dive
3. Your guidance on nitrox. Do you supply nitrox tanks? Is it worth diving nitrox in roatan? I've read that compared to other dive destinations the benefits of diving nitrox in roatan are minimal. Should we consider nitrox certification and do you certify for nitrox?
4. We only have fins and masks. We would like to slowly invest in equipment over the next coming years. For this trip would you recommend any specific equipment? We've read all opts are a bit different and are unsure if a computer would be beneficial. Are we expected to follow a dm and stay w/ the group throughout all of our dives, or will we have freedom to explore a bit on our own if our comfort and safety permit? are our bottom times restricted to the dm or our air and our computer?
5. Neither of us have a wet suit. We are both comfortable in 70'ish F water w/o one. Should be plan on getting one prior to departing? we've read about the possibility of sea lice.
6. Is there anything that we should realize or consider as new divers that we probably haven't already that would help you, our dive opt and us in making this a safe and life long memory?
Thanks for your time. i hope I haven't bored you. We want to learn, laugh, dive, have fun, and be safe and sometimes the best way to do so when you are new at anything is to let the people who are going to help you and make sure you are safe get to know you a little before you don the bc and take the plunge.
Sincerely,
Andrew Carava