Actual experiences asking boat operators to provide larger or multiple cylinders

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I'm diving with them next week, and have shipped my HP120s ahead to the place where I'm staying. Rainbow Reef said they would fill them and bring them to the boat for me.

Oh, wonderful thought.
Do tell, how do you ship ("just" 2 tanks or more) and what is the cost of doing so?
Do you plan on air or nitrox (if the latter, do they fill them with nitrox)?

Yep, except for one boat they are using big boats and are well frequented and follow a very scheduled regimen (that can be a good thing, especially when trying to split up and get back together with a mixed interest group). When diving a bunch within a stay their price gets very reasonable and if so wanted with dive guide included.
 
I use 5 operators in Boynton Beach, West Palm, and Jupiter, FL. All are able to supply HP steel 100s if requested
I agree,,,I guess I'm kinda scratching my head.....

All the charter operators in Jupiter will supply steel tanks(LP & HP) any day of the week and even pony's from 19 up to 40's. JDC has both back mounted doubles or even side mount doubles too. All of them will pump any combination of nitrox or O2 that you can dream of and both helium / argon / Sorb with advance reservations.

@2airishuman ,,,Jupiter shops NEVER short fill a tank, it gives them a bad reputation. Diver's here are considered experienced, smart,and don't need a baby sitter. You dive your own plan (but if you pull 20 mins of deco keeping the rest waiting topside, the other passengers will trash talk you mercilessly ). One charter won't even allow an al80 for the 1st dive. But I understand where you are coming from. I had a key's operator refuse to give me a full fill on my LP tanks because it would be "too much air" and they wanted to limit my dive time.
 
I'm diving with them next week, and have shipped my HP120s ahead to the place where I'm staying. Rainbow Reef said they would fill them and bring them to the boat for me.

Wow. What did the shipping cost? That's a lot of effort for the quality of diving there. I have to assume you are mainly interested in the wrecks, such as the Spiegel Grove, as opposed to the reefs, which are quite shallow and not super-impressive. I think if I were an "air hog" I would be content to just do slightly shorter dives before resorting to shipping my own steel tanks to my destination. It's hard to do that with the deeper wrecks, though. Last time, my buddy and I spent all of about 10 minutes on the wreck before turning. That is the reason I will no longer do dives like the Spiegel Grove on the available tanks. You are more determined than I am.
 
I've bought and sold a number of cylinders on eBay and SB and at some point I got a 25 pack of 8x8x30" cardboard boxes. I have an account with UPS -- they'll give one to anyone -- that gives me a modest discount from retail rates. I drain the cylinders to 25 PSI and put a DIN port plug in place to make the valve a little more rigid. I put a folded-up towel over the valve and tape the box shut. In this particular case I jammed a pair of wetboots in so the tank wouldn't rattle around in the box. I'm shipping the two cylinders and another box with my fins, snorkel, trim weights, and dive flag.

When shipping multiple cylinders, sometimes it ends up being a little cheaper to tape the boxes together and set them up as a single shipment.

Sometimes I ship with the valve removed to prevent damage to it and to save a dollar or two since the box can be cut down a few inches. Didn't do that this time.

It works out to about $50 a cylinder, each way. Worth it? Who knows. I want to spend some quality time on the Spiegel Grove and there's no way I can do that with an AL100 of air or an AL80 of nitrox. Rainbow Reef has reasonable rates overall. They're very close to where I'm staying. I'm diving with my kids most of the time (but not on the wrecks). Had I set up all the dives with, say, Conch Republic, there would be a lot more driving and the overall charges would be higher because they do charge extra for HP100s and because of other differences in their rate structure. I'll ask Rainbow Reef for Nitrox for the wreck dives. I'll report back on how the whole thing went.

I dove the Vandenberg last year and it was something of a disappointment. There was a raging current which contributed to using more gas, and I had a AL100 at 3000 PSI for each dive (it was a double dip). Got 14 minutes on deck the first time, a little more the second. The operator asked us to ascend when we got to 1100 PSI, which I think was prudent. On the Spiegel Grove I'm hoping to have enough gas to dive my computer for a single dive and get 45 or 50 minutes on EAN32.

On the shallow reef dives, correct, it doesn't really matter much because I can get almost an hour out of an AL80 and the extra 5 minutes don't matter much.
 
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I'm very fortunate to have a low RMV, avg 0.36 cf/min over the last 1100 dives. My air consumption and NDL fight it out for all my deeper recreational dives with an AL80. I would very rarely want or need a larger cylinder for the vast majority of my dives. They used to always ask me at JDC if I wanted a larger cylinder for the Deep Ledge drift on the Friday 3 tanker. They quit asking.
 
It works out to about $50 a cylinder, each way. Worth it? Who knows.

That's a lot less than I would have thought.
 
Depends on distance, whether the destination is residential or not, and so on. There's a rate calculator on ups.com. Figure on taking 10-20% off, they'll give that much back to pretty much anyone if you set up an account. Use 8x8x30 and 45 pounds for HP120s with a valve.
 
Had I set up all the dives with, say, Conch Republic, there would be a lot more driving and the overall charges would be higher because they do charge extra for HP100s and because of other differences in their rate structure.

True we are a little further away from Spiegel but we don’t charge more or ever have for HP100’s. And as far as I know our rate stucture is the same. We will also match any advertised rates.

Capt Gary
 
I'm very fortunate to have a low RMV, avg 0.36 cf/min over the last 1100 dives. My air consumption and NDL fight it out for all my deeper recreational dives with an AL80. I would very rarely want or need a larger cylinder for the vast majority of my dives. They used to always ask me at JDC if I wanted a larger cylinder for the Deep Ledge drift on the Friday 3 tanker. They quit asking.
now i know why you like to dive solo!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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