Do you have any dive travel regrets?

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@NYCNaiad While I do bring my gopro (in movie mode) it rarely gets wet. Usually if boat diving I will bring it out for the 3rd (last) dive, and then its a 50/50 if it even gets turned on. I'm aware of the task loading issue and since we dive without a divemaster that's the reason it stays off. I'm a bit of a photography buff and have avoided even looking at housings for my camera as doing anything more than pointing a gopro in the general direction seems way to complicated at this point. What I do plan on using it for is having us filmed so we can see exactly how goofy we really look, and what we need to work on. The way i see myself in my head is SOOOO different from what the film shows:snorkel: (be still my sculling hands). Good learning tool....

Ah, that is a good idea! Although I shudder to think what I looked like early on in my dive career. btw I stopped my sculling hands by linking my fingers. The arm holding thing other divers do just didn't work well for me.
 
On our 1st and only trip to Cozumel we chose based on price a "slow boat" to the dive site. Well 30 min out they realized they had forgotten the dive master so we had to go back, 3 hours later when made it to the dive site. We could watch people walking going faster than us. Lost a diver on the dive (he got split from the group and surfaced on another boat). They just laughed and said it happens all the time (WTF?). Well a 2 tank dive started at 9a and we made it home at 5p. Did not do anymore diving that trip. My regret was we didn't do anymore diving, I let a bad experience ruin more diving.
 
Glad the thread can help a little bit. btw you'll see oft repeated on this board that most of us don't recommend using a camera when you're a newbie at all. It just adds too much to the task loading. I didn't take a camera down till I had well over 100 dives. If you work on all your other skills by the time you do take a camera with you, you'll be at less risk & also take better pictures.
I've only used a GoPro and as a training aid. For the people I'm filming and for me as a task loading tool. It's really damn effective as a task loading tool.

I regret not taking another trip on the Spree, and just not traveling to dive as much as I could.
 
My buddy and I say that there is always one jerk on every liveaboard. If you haven't figured out who it is by the second day, it must be you.
 
My only regret is not traveling more.

However, the BEST traveling I have done has been on ScubaBoard trips. @cardzard and @ROXANNE make sure that we have no regrets. We travel in a large group which affords a certain amount of safety, our hosts make sure that friends stay together, but otherwise put us with divers of similar skills & goals and they won't let the dive op cattle boat us. It's a big enough group that we can keep people who don't like each other (very rare) apart from each other and yet it seems that most of us have the same attitude towards diving safety.
 
@Stoo, so what would you have done differently to avoid booking a liveaboard with a bunch of people you don't want to dive with? Only book a liveaboard as a member of a known group who book the whole vessel?

We aren't really "group" trip folks. Not because we are anti-social but because Mrs. Stoo is in the edumacating business and no sane person would travel at school break time if they can help it. Plus, for us, a part of the enjoyment of travelling is meeting other weirdos like ourselves. Divers are divers no matter where you go and it's always fun meeting new ones. Well, usually it's fun...

We have been on many Liveaboards and while there have been some where we never really "bonded" with the other guests, we certainly got along and enjoyed the week. In most cases we have formed pretty strong friendships with others we have met and in a couple of cases anyway, we ended up travelling with them again.

We regularly travel to a tiny resort in Belize that only holds 8 guests. It's a bit like a Liveaboard, only it doesn't rock... In March we are going back with two guys we met there two years ago, a girl we met in Roatan that same year, and a guy from BC that came along on a trip I organized last year. Including the friend who runs the LDS (and who I certified years ago) we know everyone but mostly they are people I met on previous trips.
 
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I don't know how I forgot this one...

Just last summer Mrs Stoo and I took a road trip to Percé, Quebec to dive. To make a long story short, some careless operation of the dive shop RHIB resulted in a fellow passenger being launched into the air. When he came down, he landed on 98 pound Mrs Stoo, leaving her tibia and fibula in six pieces. That kinda ended the diving portion of that trip. It was replaced with a surgery to insert a rod and screws into her leg and a flight home with a nurse, courtesy of DAN (which was awesome) while I drove home, made for an awesome trip. We even got to stay longer while she recovered from the surgery at our own expense. The long term effects are still being felt... I basically lost my job since I had to stay home for over three months to look after her while she was confined to bed. Our loss of income over that time was not insignificant. Mrs. Stoo required a second surgery months later and still has physio three times a week and is in constant discomfort.

Up until that point, it had been awesome though! :)
 
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Not just applicable to diving but for all trips: "Never go back to what was an really exceptional enjoyable location".
A few times I've been on trips where everything was perfect, the group, the weather, the accommodation, the vis, the dives, so much so that we booked another trip. It never works out the same and unfortunately the bad memory just clouds the fantastic one.
 
"Never go back to what was an really exceptional enjoyable location".

Ya, but if it ain't broke...

We are returning to Huracan Diving for our 5th consecutive year. Change of ownership, changes in staff... it actually gets better every year. We may even go twice this year...
 
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I regret not trying the sea turtle soup while I was in the Caymans but it was a hundred degrees and the last thing I wanted was soup.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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