East End dive ops

[Drew Sailbum]

The basic points of difference between Ocean Frontiers and Tortuga Divers include:

• OF uses Al80 tanks. TD uses Al72 tanks.
• OF pumps their own nitrox. TD does not, but has nitrox available.
• OF will slightly favor sites on the southern shore of East End. TD favors the northern shore. This is a very minor difference which really only applies on those few days which the wind does not dictate.
• OF wil store your gear and set it up. TD has some storage space but does not load and set up your gear.
• OF operates exclusively in East End with an option to dive Stingray City. TD can easily book guests with other Red Sail location on the west side and divers may split a dive package between locations.

Both operations run boats which are suitably sized and equipped for operating in the comparatively rougher waters of East End.

 

[billinwilliamston]

It has often been noted that during the past year, Red Sail Sports has taken over Tortuga Divers. Truth is, Tortuga Divers and RSS have always been under the "same umbrella". TD, RSS and Sunset Divers in fact are under the same umbrella.

Are you sure about that? Seems to me that Tortuga fell under the RSS umbrella about 4 or 5 years ago (maybe longer since time seems to compress more and more as the years go by).

 

[Drew Sailbum]

More or less. Some of the partners in TD were also partners in Red Sail. Post-9/11 Red Sail formally took over but kept the name.

 

[timetraveler]

We're back from Grand Cayman. We dove with Ocean Frontiers. Thanks to all the helpful information here, we made a good choice. OF was the right dive op for us We even got a chance to donate our dive profiles to DAN. One of the OF employees was collecting them and had computers for us to use for that purpose. (We can't donate the profiles from our own computers because they don't have the required interface.)

 

[sladerer]

timetraveler -

what computer type? there is almost always a way to get the data into the DAN format - are you participating in the 2009 PDE? I dive an Aeris Elite T3. After downloading my dive data in ACI, I import it into Diving Log 4.0 and then can share with DAN.

 

[divesergeant]

timetraveler,
Glad you liked OF. They're superb, as you found out!

sladerer,
How is the Aeris Elite T3 working out for you? We dive the Aeris Atmos ai and like it, but the idea of going hoseless is tempting. Our hesitation arises from the reports of losing signal during dives.

DS

 

[sladerer]

I'm very happy with the AE T3 and love diving hoseless. I bought this several months after I started diving 2+ years ago with the idea that I would eventually dive Nitrox and maybe even get to multi-gas diving (not quite there yet). I find it easy to operate and read underwater, and with a little study, easy to navigate through all the settings. My wife dives the Atmos AI and they are similar. One thing you'll notice on the T3 is any SI <10mins shows on your graph, which the Atmos "compresses" out. My understanding is the algorithms are the same for NDL.

In fairness, I'm on my second as the first one had a couple of glitches. First, it dove "at altitude" - going through plan mode my NDL times matched >2000 ft. Sad to say it took about a dozen dives before I noticed this. Second, when it occasionally lost signal (inevitable particularly with all my picture taking) the download would show it had dropped my depth off the chart. Aeris had me send it back and they replaced it, no fuss. This one has neither problem, and I have to give kudos to Aeris for their handling of this (just make sure to keep your receipt).

 

[divesergeant]

sladerer,

Thanks! I've been eying the T3 and am, of course, also wanting a backplate/wing. I'm about to order the latter from a local Deep Sea Supply dealer, but maybe I can squeeze a few more bucks out of the bank account to go hoseless with the T3!

Happy diving!
DS
It sounds like the T3 would be an easy transition from the Atmos Ai

 

[jchapman3]

I'm a little late to the thread, and glad to hear you had a great time. I also stay at Morritts every Sept/Oct. I have been diving with both OF and Tortuga, and have to report that I prefer diving with OF.

The Tortuga folks are nice enough, but they are appear (as has been reported previously) oriented more towards resort divers rather than "divers"; if that makes sense. The last time I was there I got the "feeling" they were put out that my dive package would not be including the rental of gear since I had my own (hense contributing to my "resort divers" feeling). Maybe the nice young lady behind the counter and I were both having an off day. I was also told by the same person that there were no suitable shore dives anywhere around the island and that I really should book boat trips...I now know this to be VERY untrue.

The OF folks are simply AWSOME; and they have a shop in the building just to the north of Morritts where you can talk to folks, although you have to cruize back towards town for to catch the dive boats.

I usually wait and book my trips when I get to the island, that lets me assemble a series of dive sites that takes advantage of the scheduled trips, and then filling in the gaps with shore dives that I can control on my time table. I haven't had a problem with trips filling up, but then I also go on the fringes of hurricane season when there aren't so dang many people...

We did an AWSOME night dive with the OF folks last year...got my 100th dive on that one. It was a well organized trip, and got to see 3 hawksbill turtles feeding together at the top of the reef to boot; and as advertised, they will store and rinse your gear for you.

So... if you're new to diving or haven't spent a lot of time in blue water and want a more conservative dive profile, I'd recommend booking right there at Morritts. If you're familiar with Blue water, have more than a couple of dives under you're belt and want to go DIVING... book with OF; (but make sure you leave some time to some shore dives...Sunset is amazing [watch out for the submarine], and Cobalt Coast is under-rated and under-crowded).

 

[timetraveler]

(but make sure you leave some time to some shore dives...Sunset is amazing [watch out for the submarine], and Cobalt Coast is under-rated and under-crowded).

Can you fill us in with some details about the shore diving sites you recommend? Any others?