Diving French Polynesia? Bring a Depth Gauge or Dive Computer!

[Superrieu]

A friend of mine and I are currently diving French Polyniesia: starting in Tikehau, right now in Rangiroa, followed by Fakarava and the oddest thing we noticed is, that in FP nearly all dive companies put their clients under water without giving them depth gauges.

We've bought a 10-dive-gold-pass from Top Dive and told them several times that we would need to rent all the equipment. They told us no problem at all because as the market leader Top Dive always rents very good equipment. We could never ever imagine that they would send customers without their own depth gauge at the BCD down.

So we had to learn it the hard way, because in Tikehau they even for the very first check dive just put us in the boat - they guessed our wet suit sizes by our body measurement before - and we had to try all the equipment jumping over the waves to the first dive place.

After that we switched dive companies and learned that they too don't rent depth gauges or dive computers normally. Since we insisted the managed to find an old depth gauge and dive computer and except from that the second dive with Raie Manta Club was excellent!

In Rangiroa we dove with Top Dive, because we had to use the prepaid dives. The staff was friendly but they too had problems with providing depth gauges or dive computers.

So, two pieces of advice for diving FP: bring your own depth gauge or dive computer and dive with the smaller companies - try to avoid Top Dive if you can. Top Dive is always much more expensive than the smaller companies and offers less service, because in the end staff doesn't care as much as owners. Top Dive has to charge much more, because the pay 20% commission to the top hotels where they have their operations in. But if you don't stay in those hotels, this 20% commission is wasted in your case.

 

[mmmbelows]

Thanks for the info. We always bring our own dive computers so never ran into this.

I could have sworn though that 6 Passengers insisted upon you having your own dive computer or renting one of there own.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

So, two pieces of advice for diving FP: bring your own depth gauge or dive computer

You should be bringing your own SPG AND dive computer everywhere you go to dive. I think they are more important investments than your first BCD.

 

[Scubagolf]

We have been to FP several times and this was never an issue because we schlep our own gear including SPGs and DCs. But what if one of our DCs malfunctions? In this day and age I expect all ops to be able to rent backups. I suppose we should bring our own backup DCs. 😬

 

[Wingy]

Not an issue if you take your own gear - the community in the Tuomotos is small, someone will find a spare if absolutely necessary. As another poster has astutely observed in another FP thread perhaps its because FP is not marketed in main stream media as a dive destination but a holiday destination and also it is not a beginners dive destination they possible work on the premise that divers will turn up with their own gear.

You made a wise choice changing to Club Raie

 

[wico6768]

Not an issue if you take your own gear - the community in the Tuomotos is small, someone will find a spare if absolutely necessary. As another poster has astutely observed in another FP thread perhaps its because FP is not marketed in main stream media as a dive destination but a holiday destination and also it is not a beginners dive destination they possible work on the premise that divers will turn up with their own gear.

You made a wise choice changing to Club Raie

the bold is absolutely true, however, we always bring our own gear.

Raie is an excellent choice, and I am not surprised you enjoyed diving with them.

 

[WetPup]

You should be bringing your own SPG AND dive computer everywhere you go to dive. I think they are more important investments than your first BCD.

Speaking from personal experience - I've had my dive bag go missing in transit (I never saw it again, and the insurance company was a nightmare) and been forced to rent everything on arrival. At the time my dive computer was a console mount and I couldn't take my regs as carry-on due to weight restrictions. There are situations that arise unexpectedly, and I would hope that any decent dive operator could deal with that.

 

[Kharon]

Speaking from personal experience - I've had my dive bag go missing in transit (I never saw it again, and the insurance company was a nightmare) and been forced to rent everything on arrival. At the time my dive computer was a console mount and I couldn't take my regs as carry-on due to weight restrictions. There are situations that arise unexpectedly, and I would hope that any decent dive operator could deal with that.

I bring all my equipment carry on with the exception of my BC, dive knives, and pony. There's nothing much in my carry on except dive equipment and I've always been able to come in under weight restrictions. To Bonaire it's 22 pounds or 10 kilos. That's the most restrictive I've run into.

 

[WetPup]

I bring all my equipment carry on with the exception of my BC, dive knives, and pony. There's nothing much in my carry on except dive equipment and I've always been able to come in under weight restrictions. To Bonaire it's 22 pounds or 10 kilos. That's the most restrictive I've run into.

ROFL.

Standard here is 7kg, but on small planes I regularly run into 4kg max (and they do check and enforce it, and even force you​ to get on the scales from time to time). US'ians are somewhat spoiled in this regard.

 

[Superrieu]

My point was that I consider it very unsafe to put customers without depth gauge under water. Of course, pros like you dive with their own equipment and consider even a spare DC, but a depth gauge is very important for pros and beginners! I guess beginners don't care too much, because they don't know the possible dangers and pros travel always with their own DC. So, it's then just us who complain about this lack of depth meters.

If I had known about this, I would definitely have bought an old depth meter on eBay - that's for sure!

I wonder why the new BCD models here have only a pressure gouge and not - like in the olden days - a pressure gauge and a manual depth gauge. Any information on this? Couldn't be a cost factor at all for the BCD and even while diving with a DC one would have an alternative source for the depth.