Not strictly a tech diving related requirement but posting here:
I will be doing one week of shore diving in Maldives late next month in November before I jump on a Liveaboard. Recreational limits but with a BP/W long hose configuration (All brand new own gear from the regs to my undies).
I’ve been diving only jacket style BCDs so far hence I am looking for an island based dive shop that dives with BP/W and some dive staff with some tech experience to lead my dives. The idea is to dial in my gear configuration and trim with some practice dives over a few days of diving before I hit the LOB. I am not sure how my brand new regs will breathe either and need some check dives for the two 1st and three 2nd stages.
I’ve got everything setup and configured as per the commonly recommended DIR best practices as far as regs, long hose, necklace, D-Clips, bolt snaps and knots etc go, but mental prep and living room checks are one thing and actual muscle memory and performance when in the water another. So I will still need to practice and fine tune how I stow and deploy the reef hook and DSMB on the new gear configuration based on practical experience and corrections advised from another person. More so considering that Maldives has some strong currents.
Can somebody recommended me a dive shop, person and location where I could do this?
Thanks
The concept of a "dive shop" is not usual at Maldives. Perhaps you can find one in the capital island, Male', where indeed diving is not particularly appealing (it is quite horrible, frankly).
There are more than 2000 islands, most of them are not inhabited. The inhabited ones are of two types:
- luxury touristic resorts, where you book lodging for a few days, usually in full pension, and where you find professional diving centres, affiliated with PADI or other organizations.
- islands where native Maldivians live, which usually have quite poor touristic support (some of them are fully closed to tourists), you can perhaps get lodging in a quite primitive guest house. On these islands, you mostly do snorkelling, as there are no professional diving centres. If you own your tank, perhaps you can find some island where some local can give you an air fill.
If I can afford it, I would go in a resort. It can be quite pleasant and relaxing, with excellent food and any sort of amusement. I spent several months of my life working in these resorts, and it was really nice. Possibly when you fly back home, you will find that the time spent at the resort was better than the time spent on the LOB.
In a resort most diving, apart the initial check dive, is done from Dhoni, the typical Maldivian boat. This is a quite good platform, and you will find it much easier than shore diving.
At Maldives usually no or minimal diving suit is used. And a single small tank is employed, as the depth is limited to 30m max (often much less), and no deco. This means that the variation is buoyancy is minimal, and during the dive most people do not employ their BCD at all.
In reality, the BCD is mandatory for only one reason: if, at the end of the dive, you do not find the boat waiting for you, you have to stay afloat for some long time before you are rescued. So you do not really need a BCD; a simple "safety jacket" to be filled only in such an emergency. is all that is required.
That's the reason for which at Maldives the usage of a very small bladder is recommended: better to minimize the drag in case of currents, and to be as much streamlined as possible, than to use a bulky jacket of a large wing. For the same reasons you should wear only a highly hydrodynamic protective suit, or stay naked. And use long freediving fins. In a few places like in Maldives, "less is more".
