Pony in Roatan?

[Graeme Tolton]

I will be travelling to roatan this february for 2 weeks. The first week, I will be at FIBR. This week I plan on taking advantage of the 3 dives/day or more. The following week, I will be staying at AKR. The second week, I will likely do about 10 dives. Most of the diving that I do is here, in Canada, long, deep and cold dives. For these dives, I use steel tanks with a 30cf pony. Do many people diving in roatan dive with a pony? For many of my dives, I will be diving with my father - AOW, approx 30 dives. However, many of the dives, i suspect will be with instabuddy as my dad probably won't be diving as much as I will. I am not intending to use a pony as part of my gas management. It is for if ***** happens.

Also, is there going to be an issue getting my pony filled if I do decide to bring it at the dive shop at FIBR?
Here in Canada, most people going on deep dives carry a pony, so that is what I have gotten used to.

Does anyone have any specific experience on this?

 

[Doc]

They are very rarely seen but having it filled should be no problem. Remember- the TSA and airline regs say the bottle must be open. That means nothing whatsoever blocking the neck, no kleenex, no clear tape. The dive-op will assist you in reassembling it with a wrench.

On the FIBR South shore, your profiles will likely be very shallow. The microscopic cool stuff... along with the wrecks... is above 65fsw, altho you can be over 3000' of water in a few fin kicks.

On the AKR North side, the dives can easily run to depths of 115' if you care to. The wrecks are parked deeper there because of the potential for storm surges.

CajunDiva here on SB just completed a similar trip, sans pony. Look for her trip report.

 

[castaways01]

Hi. While I understand pony in cold water, I don't think you are going to need it here. I'm not an expert on this, but I don't think you will suck up enough air in these warmer waters to need an additional tank. Guess you know they use aluminum here and if you are doing boat dives, the boat isn't going to stay there long enough for you to use one of their tanks and a pony. We own mostly steel (Genesis) and stay down a long-long time in these warm waters. Even when we use alum here (we have 3 or 4 of these), its a long dive. A cold water diver with alum. should get more than an hour. They don't keep you down that long at FI. If you really really need a pony when you are here, email me off list and I'll bring one out to you at FI or loan you steel. But, I can almost guarantee you won't need it!

 

[BDSC]

I've dove Roatan 4 different trips and have never seen anyone use a pony. As a matter of fact, I've only seen one person ever use a pony in the caribbean and after his first trip out, he didn't use his the rest of the week. I think it's overkill for this type of diving.

 

[robint]

I have to agree with the others.... you can take it, but you won't use it most likely. Dive ops run on schedules and so dive times are kept to that. Most of them have an hour bottom time per dive, that way everyone gets an adequate surface interval before the next dive. Also, it means that the air hogs that are already back on the boat aren't miserable just sitting.

The only acception to this is the Dropoff dives at CCV (or other dive ops if they do them) where you are dropped in the water in front of the resort and you dive your own profile and then return to the shore on your own OR shore diving at a resort. Those dives I can see you might want a pony, especially if diving alone. (These types of dives are one of the reasons we love CCV so much - diving freedom! CCV doesn't have scuba police either so you are welcome to dive solo anytime)

robin

 

[d_lafleur]

FWIW, I saw people diving doubles last week. It just seemed odd, as most of the double divers were in the water after and out of the water before my buddy and I. We were diving no deco proviles on AL 80s.

 

[halocline]

It was probably a tech training class. I've seen a few sets of doubles at CTD.

 

[d_lafleur]

Possibly, however the two "Double Divers" were amongst a group of "Single divers". It appeared to be a cruise ship group.

I didnt let it bother me very long, I will say that some of the "Single divers" were having bouyancy issues to put it mildly.

 

[RTBDiver]

Could have been one of many possibilities. On the past i could often bee seen diving doubles in North Florida with a group of divers with singles that always seemed to have troubles, of course they were often diving with blacked out masks and getting tangled in line as this was all part of an intro to cave course, Maybe this was some intro to tech thing?
Either way, I am sure you can get the pony filled but i gotta agree with the rest, you will probably have little use for it. I will sometimes carry one but that is when diving off my steps solo with no one else around

 

[tedj101]

We had a guy diving doubles with us at AKR last week. (He is a friend and was with our group). He is an air hog and needs doubles just to get through a dive with the rest of us on AL 80s.

FWIW, I use a pony in North Atlantic diving, but I didn't miss it at all on Roatan. It's a different type of diving. Moreover, you would be the only one with a pony and the profiles would definitely be designed around a single 80 so it would mostly just add water resistance.

YMMV,
<TED>

FWIW, I saw people diving doubles last week. It just seemed odd, as most of the double divers were in the water after and out of the water before my buddy and I. We were diving no deco proviles on AL 80s.