MV Tala for non-tech divers

[ppatin]

I've read a lot of great things about the MV Tala in the Red Sea but I was wondering how good of a choice it is for divers who aren't doing doubles, trimix or deco diving. I like the idea of a boat that caters to a more "serious" crowd (I've cringed too many times watching other divers with awful buoyancy kicking reefs, damaging coral, etc etc) but at the same time I know I'm not in the same league as the tech crowd. The Tala's website seems to imply that they cater to everyone but I was wondering how good their dives are for people who are diving on single tanks of air or nitrox.

 

[Peter Guy]

The Tala is a perfect boat for ANY diver -- serious or not. I've been on it twice -- once with a bunch of "non-serious" divers and once with REALLY serious divers (the majority were there to do a GUE Tech 1 class so it was quite serious).

The first trip had people do "monkey diving" with one person on the scooter towing 2 or three others at a time. How much less serious could one be?

The second trip (with the GUE Tech classes groups) was much more "serious" as shown by the following picture of me and the owner of the Tala (in the red suit):

 

[ppatin]

Thank you for the feedback. I'm glad to hear they're a good boat for recreational divers as well since I've heard nothing but good things otherwise about how the operation is run.

 

[TSandM]

The first trip we did on the Tala, we had two divers who had never in their lives done a dive that wasn't guided. Out of our group of ten, there were only four of us who did any technical diving, and we didn't do a whole lot. On the second trip, we had two tech classes going on, but the rest of us primarily did shallow reef dives, despite the fact that we had several GUE instructors in the mix. The boat can support whatever kind of diving you want to do -- and entice you into some diving (scooters!) you might not have contemplated!

 

[ppatin]

Thanks for the information. I remembered reading some glowing posts about the MV Tala by someone with an octopus cupcake avatar, guess that was you!