Heading to Belize May 5 - 13, 2012

[peterbj7]

No, I asked them and they don't do that. Perhaps the $1 is more a way of keeping an eye on the dive shop? The dive center you're with has to pay the chamber.

 

[Downing]

Wow, from the individual diver's perspective the consequences of the dive op not paying is ridiculously severe for such a trivial amount of money. I realize those $1s a day add up, but we're at the mercy of the integrity of the dive ops on this one.

I've dived twice with Turneffe Island Lodge and once with Splash in Placencia for a total of around 40 days. Each time I was told about the $1/day recompression chamber in SP. I was under the impression it was more of a donation than some sort of requirement, but I was happy to do it so didn't pay a lot of attention other than signing a piece of paper where it said "sign here to give them $1/day."

It never occurred to me that either outfit wouldn't forward the $$, and I'm sure they did.

How do the recompression people know how much is due?

And what if you're just diving with friends? Hank and I are going to hook up in June and dive the Elbow off his boat. Surely, the $1 applies only to commercial enterprises. Or should I mail Hank a dollar before I get there? I'm sure he could use it, lol.

 

[AWMIII]

No problem! If your youngest daughter is getting married then you're not a youngster yourself . All the more reason for being conservative. Remember, tables and computers only give average information for average people. I don't think I've ever yet met an "average" person. As you get older it's all the more important to follow basic safety rules, and the most significant of those is to keep well hydrated. The evening before diving I'd steer clear of alcohol, or at any rate only consume a small amount. I never drink (alcohol) in the 12 hours before I dive, but then I know alcohol affects me more than most as I had hepatitis A many years ago, and it's a life sentence.

I can't find now whether you said you were nitrox certified. I just rather assumed you were from your mention of nitrox. Assuming you are, I'd tell Ched to get in three tanks of EAN32 for you, even though your DM probably won't be using it. If you're not nitrox certified I'd rectify that asap, and I wouldn't do four dives a day until then.

When I had my dive center all my staff were required to use nitrox on all dives except deep ones - one of the "hidden" costs that make some centers charge more than others. They were all also covered by DAN insurance, something that is not often the case here. I trust you have dive insurance as well as trip insurance? If you don't, please go to the DAN Americas website NOW and buy it. It costs the same as between two and three dives for a year's cover. I forget what the DAN Americas cover categories are (mine is with DAN Europe which is completely different) but from what I remember get the second from the top cover, the one that also covers against non-dive accidents while you're away.

Whoever you dive with in Belize, make sure they contribute to the recompression chamber (US$1 per dive). They may or may not pass that charge onto you (I absorbed it, which was another reason I had to charge higher prices). Regardless of whether you pay the $1, if the chamber doesn't receive agreed contributions from that center you will not be covered by them. The $1 makes a tremendous diference. There are four financial states to arrive at the chamber in. If you have no insurance and the $1 hasn't been paid, you will be required to pay the chamber the full amount at the time of treatment or at any rate before you will be allowed to leave. This can be a massive amount of money, especially when you remember that after chamber treatment your airline may refuse to carry you for a week or more.

The second possible state is that yiou have insurance but the $1 hasn't been paid. In this case you will be billed and will have to pay before you leave, and then you will reclaim from your insurance company.

The third state is that the $1 hs been paid but you're not insured. The chamber charges will be capped to a far more reasonable level, but you will still be required to pay before you leave.

The fourth and greatly most desirable state is that you do have appropriate insurance and the $1 has also been paid. All you have to do is sign appropriate documents - you won't be asked for a cent.

Don't forget that in the event of chamber treatment being required there will be many other costs. You won't be able to leave, certainly during your treatment and quite possibly for up to a week after. Your family won't want to leave without you, so even if the airlines reschedule you for free you'll have added hotel & living costs, to say nothing of people not getting back to jobs & family.

All this is not intended to frighten you, but to impress upon you the absolute foolhardiness of diving without good dive insurance. If I'm here when you come I can relate some stories to you over a beer!

You describe your new computer as being "air integrated". I imagine that these days it will be nitrox capable, so that "air" is misleading? You need to learn in depth how to use it, focussing on two areas - how to set the breathing gas for each dive (and if you don't, what it defaults to), and what information it displays underwater. On the dives you need to pay the most attention to the no-decompression time remaining, which will generally drop during the dive. As you're still a basic diver do not be tempted to go into deco, as you don't yet understand what issues that raises. Once your "no-deco time remaining" drops into single digits, go a bit shallower until it stops dropping. If it continues to drop you need to go even shallower. Keep an eye on your DM and try to stay in visual touch with him, but look after your own interests first.

If despite your efforts the computer goes "into deco", you need to go way shallower, up to maybe 30ft or even less, until the "deco" clears and the no-deco time starts to rise again. Your DM should be aware of what is happenng and the group should by then be in shallower water. Once you are in deco the computer will probably show the "time to surface" rather than the number of minutes of deco - check with the manual.

If you have gone into deco on a dive and it wasn't the fourth, I'd give serious consideration to calling it a day. If you decide to dive again you MUST use nitrox and stay well away from the no-deco limit. At the end of every dive, and especially one you went into deco on, you need to spand at least 8 minutes at your "safety stop". The longer the better, but treat that as the minimum. Do not be hassled into surfacing earlier. After a deco or near deco dive, take off your scuba in the water and climb into the boat without it. It is the very worst time to exert yourself. Don't drink any alcohol for several hours. When you shower, have a tepid one - don't stand under hot water until at least 2 hours after your dive ended.

I hope those few tips help.

Peter-
Thank you for being do honest about the deco issue in AC. I get lots of snide remarks from friends who hear that we occasionally get into deco diving in AC. I thought I was the only one and was diving too agressively. It is a reality of the layout of the reef. Deco is not a problem if you know about it, have enough gas, and do your time. I wish it was a regular part of dive briefings in AC. Ity might be a good idea for a frank discussion of deco on tht BH trips. ADM did a great job, however, they never mentioned the D word on the BH trip that I did. They do make sure there is gas at the safety stop for the first dive. I would need to DL my computer o see how the second and thris dives went as far as tissue saturation, but I think they wree okay. It just seems that that trip could be a recipe for a hit.

I'll be in AC 3/31-4/9. Counting down the days. It has been 6 months since my last AC trip.

 

[peterbj7]

A couple of other issues on the points you raise. Remember that good hydration for hours before and after a strenuous dive (from the point of view of deco) is paramount in reducing your vulnerability to DCS. Trips which offer unlimited rum punch and beer on the ride back aren't really doing you much of a service.

I have done the standard recreational dive in the BH, staying with the group the whole dive, and on one occasion so far as I could observe I was the only person on the dive with a computer, not excepting the guides. I actually had two as is normal for me, and both were into deco before the group left the lowest part of the dive. The more liberal one retained its deco all the way up to the "safety stop" (which is actually mandatory in that dive) and only came out of deco after all other divers had left me and were back on the boat. The more conservative computer still showed 8 minutes of deco at that point, and I elected to bend it and surface rather than keep everybody waiting for so long. I knew from experience that the other computer which by now was clear was a reliable indicator for me and my type of diving. The beeping coming from the bent computer earned me some sarcastic comments on the boat. As I said, all other divers had surfaced while the more liberal of my two computers was still holding me down. I guess the first of those surfaced at 7 or 8 minutes before I did. You can draw your own conclusions. I should add that this incident was some years ago, not recently.

The other point that I try to drum into divers is the importance of a slow ascent. What matters is the rate of pressure change, and this is at its highest near the surface. So many people do their "safety stop" (I don't like that term, because it masks the reality) and as soon as the 3 minutes are up they pop straight to the surface. First of all the 3 minutes is the minimum recommended and more is always better (assuming no external factors such as cold or lack of air). And I take a full minute ascending from 15ft to the surface. Often I'll stay a few feet down if I know our pick-up boat isn't there yet, keeping (mind) within the group of visible people. Many people say they can't ascend so slowly and in control, to which my response is "learn proper buoyancy control", which of course includes proper breathing, proper weighting, and reading the sea state correctly.

Another point is that "deco" isn't a clear black line, with safety on one side and the unknown on the other. It's actually a continuum, and different agencies, tables and algorithms reckon the point at which a direct ascent to the surface is no longer possible (the definition of "deco") rather differently. And it isn't a constant for all people - some people are inherently at far greater risk than others because of physiological factors largely and immediately beyond their control, and their behaviour before, during and after the dive has an enormous effect as well. Until you have enough dives of all sorts with a particular dive computer to understand what it is telling you and how it relates to you at that time, it behoves you to be conservative in your diving. This does not mean staying shallow and having short dives; it means that whatever deco state you have reached under water, you behave correctly during your ascent. That mainly mean you ascend slowly, which of course requires (amongst other things) that you have enough breathing gas to last. The time to ascertain that is before you ever enter the water, with another skill that sadly isn't taught in most recreational dive classes - estimating gas comsumption. This is a fundamental skill you must acquire before your diving can safely progress.

What I'm really saying is that all recreational dive classes really teach you is how to get wet and (usually) survive in simple conditions. It's not the fault of the agencies - it's forced on them by our "instant gratification" culture. I strongly recommend any diver who feels comfortable within the limits he's set himself to take an "intro tech" course. Different agencies describe these in different ways - in GUE it would be Fundamentals (not sure which part, probably the first), and IANTD it would (have been) Advanced Nitrox. Clearly TDI, the largest agency of the lot, has an equivalent which many years ago I took, but I'm not sure now what it's called. Just getting the manual for one of these courses and reading it should open your minds to lots of aspects of diving you've never considered.

 

[AWMIII]

Peter-

The DM that I usually dive with in AC insists on slow ascents. Usually hangs for at least 5 minutes at the "safety stop" and does not serve rum or beer. He always has plenty of water and i have never surfaced with less than 500psi. I am usually the hoover. I am only good for 45-50 minutes at 70ft with an 80.

The one time that I did the BH dive (with the big shop), my buddy/wife could not equalize fast enough so we bailed out at 75ft. We made the surface swim back to the boat with a young girl who claimed that her regulator was filling with water. I later learned that she had freeked out at 120ft and a DM took her back to the surface to swim back with us. Later on the boat I asked the DM if he had checked her reg and he said that it was fine, that she was just narced out of her mind and thought she was getting water. She did the second and third dive okay until she had a run away inflater(rental bc). The DM disconnected it for her and she finished the dive. I looked at some of the computers(not many on board) after the first dive and saw as much as 145ft. my wife and I dove the last two dives and did fine. I came up on the second with about 50psi remaining. I realize I should have bailed, but my buddy had plenty of air and we were doing a long swim at about 15ft below the surface after going over the top of the wall, so I decided to push the air and keep my wife close. The DM kept telling em I was OK when i would show him my air guage. To his credit, I was. They never checked anyone's c cards. They did ask you to sign that you were certified. Most of the boat seemed to be OW with only a few dives. My wife and I were AOW. At least you get exposed to one "deep" dive with the AOW cert so you have an idea how narced you might get.

If I ran a BH trip, I would want to see a log of a deep dive for each diver or an instructor would need to stay with their buddy team. I would have dms down with lots of gas (double 80s?) rather than a single 80. I would have better rental equipment and require each diver to use a computer. That said very few people seem to get hurt doing that dive and a lot of people do it.

 

[peterbj7]

I once had a diver who wanted to dive the BH but who had never dived deep before and was a bit nervous about the prospect, so I took her for a series of dives on the Barrier Reef, getting progressively deeper and of course following the sloping bottom all the way. I ensured she didn't have anything other than an analogue depth gauge, and had already said these were notoriously inaccurate. So when I told her a particular dive had been to say 100ft she believed me. She was particularly concerned with the 130ft limit, to a paranoid extent. On the final one of this sequence of four dives (on consecutive days) I told her we would now go to 130ft, although in fact without her knowing we had reached that depth on the previous dive. We actually went to 150ft, and at that point (when she thought she had now reached the magical 130ft) she was duly nervous, but remained calm (because we were one-to-one) and enjoyed the dive once we had ascended to 100ft. Back on land I debriefed her, and for the first time showed her the memory of my computer which told her she had reached 130ft the day before and 150ft that day. After an instant's horror she realised that she had now been deeper than she ever intended going and had survived totally unscathed. A couple of days later we went to the BH together and she was completely relaxed the entire dive, as evidenced by her moderate air consumption.

"It's all in the mind".

 

[AWMIII]

I once had a diver who wanted to dive the BH but who had never dived deep before and was a bit nervous about the prospect, so I took her for a series of dives on the Barrier Reef, getting progressively deeper and of course following the sloping bottom all the way. I ensured she didn't have anything other than an analogue depth gauge, and had already said these were notoriously inaccurate. So when I told her a particular dive had been to say 100ft she believed me. She was particularly concerned with the 130ft limit, to a paranoid extent. On the final one of this sequence of four dives (on consecutive days) I told her we would now go to 130ft, although in fact without her knowing we had reached that depth on the previous dive. We actually went to 150ft, and at that point (when she thought she had now reached the magical 130ft) she was duly nervous, but remained calm (because we were one-to-one) and enjoyed the dive once we had ascended to 100ft. Back on land I debriefed her, and for the first time showed her the memory of my computer which told her she had reached 130ft the day before and 150ft that day. After an instant's horror she realised that she had now been deeper than she ever intended going and had survived totally unscathed. A couple of days later we went to the BH together and she was completely relaxed the entire dive, as evidenced by her moderate air consumption.

"It's all in the mind".

It is all in the mind, but also you were there incase she got narced and did something silly/dangerous. I had my wife take off after a school of fish at the end of a wreck dive in the Keys this year. She got angery when I turned her around. We had almost finished a dive to 90ft and were swimming at that depth back to the anchor when I looked and she was headed down and away from the wreck. Fortunately, the bottom was only 115. On the surface, I asked her what she was doing, and she replied that she wanted to see if she could catch the fish. I asked her why and she told me that she did not know. I told her she was narced, and she said no she wasn't. I asked her if she thought it was a good idea now that she was on the surface and she knew it was a bad idea. She WAS narced. The point of this story is that the BH dive is over a 450ft bottom. An experienced diver with poor bouyancy and/or narcosis, could easily sink down too deep. I would bet that many of the people doing the dive have never been narced. I like your method of progressive depths.

 

[garydemos]

I'm all packed (cause my wife made me do it early) and we're ready for our trip to Belize. We're leaving Saturday arriving at Belize Intl Airport and then taking Tropic air to Ambergris Caye. We're staying at Paradise Villas and diving with Reef Adventures on Sunday the 6th (3 of us). Then heading inland for the rest of the week and then to Hopkins on the beach where my youngest daughter will be married on Saturday the 11th. We're diving Friday before the wedding with the dive shop at Hamanasi. There will be 7 of us diving on Friday - i think we'll do the 2-tank reef dive.

Peterbj7 - if you are going to be around this Saturday (May 5) or Sunday I'd like to treat you and your wife/guest to dinner. I'd love the chance to meet you and hear about some of your diving experiences.

I'll post some pics when I get back...

Gary

 

[peterbj7]

Gary - I've PM's you. Sadly we won't be able to meet up as I'm currently in Europe. But I'm sure you'll all have a great time. I hope the wedding goes well, and take care of any parts of the ceremony in a language you don't understand! Read up on a wedding last year in the Maldives if you don't understand the reference.

 

[Downing]

Sadly we won't be able to meet up as I'm currently in Europe.

Hope you loaded up on your vaccinations. I'd hate to see you come down with The Plague, Black Death, Leprosy, etc.