SCUBA, SCUBA-DO, where are you?
 

This is not actually a planned event, so please excuse me if I've lured you in here. But that's partly the idea.

I've had a few discussions with other FlyerTalkers recently and I've come to realize that there are quite a bit of us who SCUBA. Naturally, I put the quintessential FlyerTalk gathering together with a hobby I really enjoy and I come up with "SCUBA-DO".

I'd like to see if there's any interest in such an event. I figure with all the frequent flyer miles some of us seem to rack up, sometimes we just can't find a good enough excuse to blow them. Pehaps this could be one.

If you are a SCUBA diver (or will be) and think this would be a good idea, please post here. Post ideas about how to get something like this going, where to hold the event, etc. I searched the forums here and did not find a previous DO involving SCUBA, but I did notice a lot of FlyerTalkers dive. Why not give this a try?

If this takes off at all, I'll probably need some help organizing such a thing as my organizing skills are basically non-existent. I'm what they call an "idea man". :)

Thanks!

I'm always up for some diving. Cozumel would be a fine venue.

Agreed. Been diving for awhile and have not been to Cozumel.

My wife and I are both certified, but a couple of caveats:

1. It's been many years since I've been diving, and I'd probably want a refresher (or a certified dive master along), before I'd go out in the ocean.

2. My wife HATES cold-water diving (she considers the Channel Islands off California cold water).

SCUBA, SCUBA-DO, where are you? ^ ^

now, that made me chuckle :D :D

anyway, would love to dive some day... but, right now, can only deal with Marathon running (with the requisite training time) and casino gambling. ;)

Anybody for Sharm?

went two years ago and both my wife and I had HORRIBLE head colds, no way we could dive. :( :mad: :(

I'd be up for Sharm but my guess is that most FT'ers would not, especially in light of the recent bombings up the coast from Sharm.

I'm glad to see that there's some interest. :)

As far as a refresher course, I certainly understand a desire for one, especially since it's been about 1.5 years since I've last "been wet". Usually I just do it at the dive location with the divemaster on-staff before I begin my journeys. I've found that most vacation destinations do not find this to be an unusual request.

I guess I was initally thinking something a little closer to home, like the Caribbean (includes east coast of Mexico, Caymans, Virgin Is....), Mexican Riviera, or Central America (Belize, Honduras, etc.). But if there's enough interest, I've always wanted to dive the Red Sea, so that would be of personal interest to me. Frankly, I'll go almost anywhere. Micronesia has always had a lure, Fiji, back to the Great Barrier Reef, Hawai'i's less-dived regions, et al.

Most FlyerTalk DOs seem to be only a day/night, or a weekend. This would likely have to last at least several days, if nothing else than for decompression concerns. Is it even realistic to think that any significant number of people could find a chunk of time where they would all be free to go? Personally, I can't do much until August. Any suggestions about possible timeframes or length of the DO?

If you know any other FT divers, put some feelers out if you could to gain more interest. Thanks! :)

Closer to home and not requiring many days would be the Flower Garden Banks and some oil rig diving in the Gulf of Mexico. Most charters depart from Freeport TX (South of Houston). http://www.flowergarden.nos.noaa.gov/

Of course there is always the Keys for reef and wreck diving.

Innnnteresting! A scuba-do!
 

Aldora Divers in Cozumel uses smaller and fast six-pack boats - each one has an instructor as opposed to a divemaster... they try to match by skill level but will do buddy groups... can do with refresher... use 80 cu ft Al to 120 cu ft steelies, so it can be a longer dive... EAN - Nitrox no problem... they have their own villa (Villa Aldora, of course!) and transport to the best dive sites (two tank dive, first one south, next one where the slowpokes go first, surface interval at a beach venue with restrooms, restaurant, bar (ahem! soft drinks, etc.)

Sharm is nice, but very, very crowded. If you haven't seen twenty boats maneuvering to drop and recover sticks of 12 - 20 divers on a drift dive, you haven't seen anything. I am sure diver sushi is made frequently there (I spent a week on aliveaboard, one week land-based boat diving.) OTOH, Hilton has several properties (and I am sure there are others) at reasonable prices and points award use. (Getting to CAI on FF miles no problem - on to SSH, local air only. Those with a yen to do so can even do a day trip to AQJ and on to Petra via land.)

Fiji is a bit distant, but great diving... and FJ will take your AA, QF and BA miles, if not others.

I'll keep an eye on this thread - maybe we'll DO it! But in a few days, I am on my way to Indonesia - 10 days land based diving from Wakatobi, 7 days on Pelagian, to celebrate my 50th anniversary of scuba diving ^ . Indonesia will be my 29th country to dive in, and I love that area of the world (Fiji, Vanautu, Papua New Guinea, Australia - but South Oz, not so much the GBR.)

Best wreck diving: Chuuk is good, but the S S President Coolidge in Vanuatu is first class! Best drift dives: Fiji and soft corals! Best shark dives: Uhm, maybe Tiputa Pass in Rangiroa, French Polynesia, or maybe Darwin and Wolf Ids. in the Galápagos, or maybe the family of Grey Whalers at Nigali Pass off Gau Island in Fiji (or anywhere there are lots of Silvertips.) Best night dive: Off Malekula Is, in Vanuatu, with six (unbaited) Chambered Nautilus on a moonless night at 55 feet. Best manta dive: If you know how, and I do, you can call them in in Yap.

Back June 9 or thereabouts. Keep on diving!

Come join us on St. Maarten for July 4!

Is this an official DO? If so, perhaps we could try it as a "pre-DO" to see how it works. If it's a success, we could try another.

I am.

How about Pulau , Yap , Chuk? Can't beat the diving there.....well there is the Maldives too.

Nothing official. Just our anniversary trip.

Oh. Well then, perhaps the FlyerTalkers should leave you be. :)

I'm interested... on my way next week to Playa del Carmen for some Cenote diving, as well as reef/drift diving in Playa and Cozumel. It would be fun to get a group together!

Cozumel is excellent wall diving, in fact I got my open water there years ago. Curacao which is just starting to become a tourist destination (it's the biggest of the ABC, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao islands) is also good diving. I'd definetely be up for looking into something like this - long weekend type trip. Fly in on a Thursday afternoon, maybe do an afternoon/night trip on Friday, dive Saturday and Sunday morning, fly out Monday afternoon type thing maybe?

I have done Snuba in Kauai...but THIS would get me to get Scuba (PADI?) certified!!

PADI open water is what you want. Do the classroom and pool stuff at home, checkride in the ocean looking at something interesting.

Beaubo , as bdesmond stated do the classroom stuff locally and then get your tucchus to some exotic locale to get certified. I believe you need 10 dives to become Openwater 1. I took my lessons and was certified on the great barrier reef in OZ .Thailand, Bali etc. are all good places too. If you want some more info, you know how I can be reached :) .

Unless it's changed recently, PADI OW and NAUI Basic are both four (4) dives. Five (5) more will get you AOW (Advanced Open Water). I did both certifications in one week (13 years ago). AOW is definitely worth it - some great diving (like Saba) requires it.

I have no idea what it is now, I don't even remember what it was when I did it three or four years ago. Night diving though which I think is one fo the things you can do with an AOW card is an incredible experience in some places - to me that alone makes it worth it.

AFAIK, AOW is not "required" per se for things like night dives. Certain dive operators, though, will restrict your dive profile if you're not AOW. Not necessarily because of your skill/experience, but because of the potential liability.

FWIW, you don't need to get your open water certification at an exotic locale. I did mine in an old rock quarry that was turned into a lake here in MN. ;)

I never said need.......he could always go to Westhawk lake in Ontario and freeze his arse off.......then of course there is always the warm waters of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans :D !

When I took my licence all those years ago I am sure I was forced to get 10 dives in........too bad it was on the Great Barrrier Reef and not in MN. or ONT. ;)

I usually have had the dive places tell me I can't do this and that with only Open water 1. Then I show them my dive logs and they just let me dive when I want. BTW, I respect the currents and depth and am not one of those deeper and deeper maniac divers. For me it's just a relaxing quiet time.... ^

So when do you all want to meet in the South Pacific?

I just caught a show this afternoon on the Maldives. *drooling

But really, anywhere wet is fine with me. :)

Another person with an interest, though I just did Hawaii for 3 weeks straddling the beginning of last month, and just got back from a long weekend MR (FLY3) followed by a week at Hilton Head Island, so my boss will probably expect my butt to actually stay in the office for a little while. ;)

For this spoiled rotten FTer......

* gotta be far away and exotic- S Pacific,Maldives; not Hawaii or Australia
* mid-July to end of July ideal window

I accept donations toward travel expenses in the form of paypal, FF miles, hotel points, dive gear, or really just about anything else tangible. ;)

How about something a little exotic, yet perhaps easier to redeem points/miles for and a little closer to home? I'm thinking Turks & Caicos...? I hear they've got some really decent diving.

the most pristine reefs we've seen ^ ^

T&C is beautiful. Avoid PROVO divers though. We had a really bad experience with them when I took my son there a couple years ago to introduce him to diving.

So what are people thinking? I think there has been adequate interest shown in this thread to potentially move forward. Can we pull this off? I think it would be the first such DO in FT history, which would be pretty cool. :)

Something like T&C (or elsewhere) would be good, also, because it could be done in an extended weekend (Thur. to Tues. or something like that). Maybe we could start getting a headcount going with times people definitely can/cannot go and a top 2/3 destination choices, keeping in mind that we'd want the location accessable to most people.

T&C could work; mid July

Respectfully disagree.

New divers should get certified at home (unless you have no choice).

Why waste a wonderful dive in an exotic locale practicing flooding and clearing your mask or fretting about your gas consumption when you can get the basics under your belt in local surroudings?

If people are serious and most are from the continental U.S., why not dive in Key Largo and South Florida? @:-) Largo offers the Spiegel Grove -- which I can personally recommend as a very cool dive; much be even more so now that she has been uprighted by Hurricane Dennis -- the Duane, and the Bibb, among others. The Tenneco Towers and Ft. Lauderdale are a reasonable drive away. R&R and nightlife aplenty in South Beach.

Getting to South Florida is very affordable thanks to the Southwest and Spirit Effect. Plenty of good Priceline hotels. No international taxes. And an easy extended weekend, even accounting for no fly time.

I was thinking more mid to end of August . Alas the Americas are a bit too far for me for a "long weekend" of diving.

VERY VERY simple answer, around here in Chicago, many checkout dives are done in a horrid, cold, silty quarry which SUCKS.

So perhaps the correct answer to whether one should have their checkout dives is to find out where the checkout dives would be done locally.

As I had my choice between the Keys and this crappy quarry, I’m having my checkout dives in the Keys.

--

That fits my personal schedule much better, but if people really wanted it to happen sooner, I could probably squeeze out a long weekend sometime earlier. Where will you be coming from?

Re: checkout dives, I agree, you just do it wherever the local shops do it. For us, it was indeed an old quarry, which was not the best place in the world with cold temps and 6-8 foot visability, but it builds character. ;) And it also keeps your mind focused on the tasks at hand because you really want to get out of there. :D

Doing your checkouts in a cold quarry in southern Illinois isn't very fun - I don't think adding the stress of dealing with cold water is a good way to do your checkout stuff. When I did mine the instructor just took us on a couple of shore dives outside of the dive shop in Cozumel. We just jumped off his dock and went perhaps 30' to the bottom and did our thing. Not much to look at but a lot more comfortable temperature wise.

To all of you who did your cert. dives in tropical/vacation places, did they have you do all the safety stuff, like the tired diver tow, out of air scenarios, diving with no mask, etc.? I'm just curious if they gave you the full certification process or just an abbreviated one.