Panama City Report - Aug 22/23, 2009

[BradEllis]

Mike,

Your tanks were not filled at Dive Locker, but at another of the shops in Panama City. Only six of the tanks we got filled were from Dive Locker and your tank was not in that group of six. I picked up your tanks as well as the rest of the tanks for the boat (i think it was 12 tanks) on Saturday afternoon pretty close to 5:30pm. I probably should have pressure checked them all prior to leaving, but honestly I assumed that the tanks were filled to capacity. It has been tough to get a 3500 psi fill in Panama City over the last couple of years. It sometimes takes two or even three attempts before you get a tank fill to that kind of pressure. I think that some of the shops there are a little unprepared, esp on Saturday afternoons and they end up having to fill tanks directly from their compressors, even with fills at the lower pressures. This is time consuming and I think that sometimes the fill operators are just simply in a hurry. It doesn't make it right, but it is just the way it is sometimes.

Tank fill issues aside, the weekend was certainly alot of fun. We had incredible conditions and we were on a top notch boat with a first class crew. Pat, Tommy, and Matt did an excellent job and will certainly get more of our business.

 

[mike_s]

Mike,

Your tanks were not filled at Dive Locker, but at another of the shops in Panama City. Only six of the tanks we got filled were from Dive Locker and your tank was not in that group of six. I picked up your tanks as well as the rest of the tanks for the boat (i think it was 12 tanks) on Saturday afternoon pretty close to 5:30pm. I probably should have pressure checked them all prior to leaving, but honestly I assumed that the tanks were filled to capacity. It has been tough to get a 3500 psi fill in Panama City over the last couple of years. It sometimes takes two or even three attempts before you get a tank fill to that kind of pressure. I think that some of the shops there are a little unprepared, esp on Saturday afternoons and they end up having to fill tanks directly from their compressors, even with fills at the lower pressures. This is time consuming and I think that sometimes the fill operators are just simply in a hurry. It doesn't make it right, but it is just the way it is sometimes.

Tank fill issues aside, the weekend was certainly alot of fun. We had incredible conditions and we were on a top notch boat with a first class crew. Pat, Tommy, and Matt did an excellent job and will certainly get more of our business.

ah.... I stand corrected. I didn't know that you split up tanks across more than one shop.


I can't figure out why the Panama City dive shops don't turn on their compressors and fill their banks up on Friday night and Saturday. If they'd do this, they wouldn't be filling directly from the compressors.

I mean it's not like the boats don't start coming back in at 1pm and everyone needs a fill for the next day.


Still was a great trip. We all had a great time. The boat and crew were great. I look forward to doing it again. Thanks for putting the trip together for us.

 

[BradEllis]

ah.... I stand corrected. I didn't know that you split up tanks across more than one shop.


I can't figure out why the Panama City dive shops don't turn on their compressors and fill their banks up on Friday night and Saturday. If they'd do this, they wouldn't be filling directly from the compressors.

I mean it's not like the boats don't start coming back in at 1pm and everyone needs a fill for the next day.

I probably didn't make it clear where all of the tanks were filled on Saturday. I split the tanks up because the first shop (the shop that filled your tanks) only had ONE filler adapter to fill DIN tanks. So, I took some of the tanks with DIN valves over to Dive Locker hoping for a quicker turnaround there. BTW, I had similar issues with tank fill pressures there, but since the fill station operator told me the all of the tanks were only at about 2500 psi, I recognized straight away that I had a few HP tanks in the mix and I was able to get him to top those up to about 3400.

I agree totally about keeping the banks full on Saturday afternoons. Its almost as if they are totally surprised that anyone would come in on Saturday afternoon to get tanks filled. If we were that busy with fills on a typical Saturday, the compressor would be running all day on Saturday, and if we still couldn't keep up with the demand, then we would buy more bank cylinders and make darn sure that they were filled before the weekend started.

 

[scubadog1969]

:cool3::cool3:WOW great pics of the Dolphin's jumping :bounce2:great underwater pics also:uwphotographer::uwphotographer:

 

[PatMyGreen]

I can't believe you were fast enough to get that dolphin pic!!! Thanks for the kind words, you guys were an absolute pleasure and I look forward to having you all down here again in the future. FYI Tommy is was back to work as of today and is fine.

 

[mike_s]

Pat...

I actually got about 10 shots of him. (about 3 shots per jump of him out of the water, plus several others of him splashing in/out that you can't really see him well. They just weren't in perfect focus as he was about 100 yards away and shooting from a moving boat flybridge. The above posted pics are just some of the better ones.) I've got some longer range lens that would have been great for shooting him with.

Glad to hear that "Boat Bumper" Tommy is doing well.

We had a a great trip.


Here's a pic of Pat and some of the folks who went with their "party hats" from the night before

Also a pic of Phillip's nice Amberjack she shot

 

[denisegg]

Mike that is awesome that you all had such a great time! I have yet to make it offshore out of the Panama City area for a dive. I love St Andrews though. I am considered going down during the SUDs event in September to do some boat diving.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/tr...nefiting-suds-panama-city-sept-18th-20th.html

 

[pamawi]

When I said I had no problems with airfills at Dive Locker (on a different thread), I thought 3000 was a normal fill and considered 3200 a really good fill and 2900 a short fill on an aluminum 80. Sounds like ya'll expect 3400 - 3500, which I didn't even know was an option. :^)

 

[PatMyGreen]

Unreal that you could pull of that photography Mike!

As to the tanks, they have HP steel tanks which are rated to 3400psi working pressure. So thats not even a good fill for them. Personally, as a PCB resident diver without my own compressor, I use Low Pressure steel tanks and I know I can always get a fill from the local shops since they would have to be pretty busy to not pull off a 2400psi fill! The fact that Diver's Den (they have a website finally) lets me fill my own really helps too.

Denise, if you are coming down for SUDS you may want to reserve your seat soon, the turn out is looking good and both my boat and Better Bottom Time are starting to fill up.

Pam, got your email and PM. Have room still for you guys both days but Sunday am is half full at present.