Nitrox needed on Brothers/Daeldalus/Elphinstone liveaboard? & few related questions

[ArthurGerla]

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[DazedAndConfuzed]

i believe the red sea limit is 40m if not tech qualified. have heard stories of major shark action at 47m on elphinstone north plateau. i personally just came back from doing daedalus and st johns itinerary and saw a manta at daedalus and a hammerhead at about 30 metres. if you want to see big things we were instructed to go down to about 25m-30m swim away from the reef but so you could just about it see it and stay there as long as possible. i have never been so disorientated on a dive. but very enjoyable and rewarding. i have been told it's uncommon for hammerheads in september, as it is too hot for them and the best time to see them is may-july, and then november. not sure about the manta time table, but also saw a manta at st johns! i'm not sure how you are going to pack 4 dives in on daedalus, and the other marine parks per day as said before, there is no night diving at these sights. we woke at 5:30am for our first dive at 6:30ish and still only did 3, this is because daedalus is very remote and our crossing took 10-12 hours to get to st johns. (not sure the time to brothers or elphinstone) to sum up.

daedalus = awesome, stay deep (30m) as long as possible out in the blue
elphinstone = north plateau at around 40m
brothers = can't remember the brief i'm afraid.

Looks like nobody cares about how deep one goes. The only person getting good shots from hammerheads swimby was by someone who descended down to 170ft accidently while diving EANx 32%. Not sure how 'accidently' it was given the diver and buddy were both that deep.

I stayed near the wall much of the time since a few divers stayed out in the blue the whole dive and we expected them to be the lookout.

We missed 1 dive in daedalus since the boat ride from little brother took so long. It seems more due to the slowness of the boat itself. No way was it crusing at the supposedly 10-12 knots max speed.

Didn't need nitrox, with wall dives, I could ascend to whatever level I wanted to stay within the NDL range. Strangely, since I was wearing 2 computers (one conservative Mares, the other liberal Aeris), on one dive, the Aeris said I reached NDL and had to do a deco stop (which went away because I went shallower for much of the rest of the dive), and on another dive, the Mares told me to do a deco stop at 10ft (which I had to do, no matter what). And on an early dive, wife said her Aeris had a funny full bar on the nitrogen load, which I dismissed as her imagination, but turned out she reached her NDL. It was on a dive that neither of my computer said I reached NDL. Don't think she was diving any deeper than me since she usually hovers above me while I wander off or fall behind taking pix.

Didn't really need DSMB, but used it a few times anyway. Better off than bobbing around in the waves and waiting for the zodiac to come. Plus, can always look into the blue for the chance of seeing something. The liveaboard did provide Nautilus LIifeline for anyone that wanted to use it. After a few dives, thought the dives were pretty easy and there is no real need for it.