Aldora Divers - Villa Aldora?

[lowwall]

I was there in February. I loved the shore dive, especially at night. As has been mentioned, they leave a few HP80 tanks out in the rinse area for you to take as you want. No one is monitoring you.

I don't know how you can get bored. I'm not confident enough of my ability to navigate with a current to head out to where it's deeper, but going up and down the shoreline is easy. There are a couple of distinctive underwater landmarks that let you know when you are at the Villa.

 

[lowwall]

I was just diving with them two weeks ago, and unlimited shore diving would have had limited appeal for me. I did 6 days of 2-tank dives, averaging 81 minutes per dive. The longest dive was 95 minutes. By the time I was back each day, I was more than happy to spend the rest of the day relaxing with my non-diving wife.

Even if you skip them on days you get the 2-tank dives, that still leaves the arrival day. It's also nice to have the flexibility to do at least a little diving if you don't want to do the 2-tank trip for some reason. For example, on a couple of days of my last trip the weather was iffy and the Harbor Master only decided at the last minute that boats could go out, so they could not pick us up at the Villa. The first day I slogged down to the Marina but it was all a bit disorganized and I was not happy with the group I was diving with (one guy sucked through his air, so even with an HP117 we "only" got 60 minute dives). I would have had to do the same thing the next day, so I just skipped it, slept in and did a morning and night shore dive instead. I also snuck one in on a day they cancelled the boat dives due to weather which maybe isn't allowed, but since I didn't ask nobody could tell me not to

But the biggest draw for me is the night dives. There's even more to look at than during the day dives because of the juvenile life like little lobsters and eels cruising around in addition to the usual pretty fishies. The Aldora shore dive is so easy because it's right there, you can do it any night and take as little or as much time as you want. Contrast this to the night boat dive which leaves from the Aldora pier in town, so you have to get down there and then the whole thing takes a couple of hours. Plus it isn't free and only runs one or two nights a week unless they have enough divers sign up on the other nights. Depth and reef structure don't really matter to me on night dives since you can only see what's in your light beam anyway.

 

[ggunn]

I was there in February. I loved the shore dive, especially at night. As has been mentioned, they leave a few HP80 tanks out in the rinse area for you to take as you want. No one is monitoring you.

I don't know how you can get bored. I'm not confident enough of my ability to navigate with a current to head out to where it's deeper, but going up and down the shoreline is easy. There are a couple of distinctive underwater landmarks that let you know when you are at the Villa.

Something I have done on a shore night dive is to tie a 5 or 6 foot pice of string onto a 2 lb weight, tie the other end to a light stick, and throw it out as far as I can from the takeout point. I use it to spot where I want to get out and retrieve it on the way back in.

 

[ggunn]

Depth and reef structure don't really matter to me on night dives since you can only see what's in your light beam anyway.

Depth in and of itself doesn’t ever really matter to me, but I enjoy boat night dives. The critters we see out on the reefs are different from what we see diving from shore and for the most part, larger. We dove Paradise at night last May, and right in the middle of it a seven foot nurse shark swam right through the middle of our group. We saw so many huge crabs and lobsters that the DM stopped pointing them out, and a group of seven or eight big horse-eye jacks swam with us the whole time we were down.

I like boat night diving in addition to, not instead of, night shore diving. If the moon is up I almost don’t need lights.

 

[divingjd]

Even though it’ a really shallow dive, I never really think about snorkeling. It’s so much work and a shallow dive is just such a chill, relaxing experience.

 

[jonhall]

Have done 2* shore dives in that area. Stayed at VA twice earlier this year. Didn't do any shore dives the first time because, as @boulderjohn mentioned, doing boat dives were quite enough. The second trip, my son and granddaughter were doing a discover scuba dive - after they left the pool to get in the ocean, I hurried and grabbed a tank and weights and went out to find them. Saw some nice little critters and in the distance a ray went by - it was just nice that I could grab a tank and go out to be with them. When I go back next time, I intend to do a night shore dive - they will also provide flashlights.

Also, it seems it would serve to help you establish ahead of time how much weight you need on a boat dive.

I like your thinking, but at the Villa, the tanks they leave out for shore dives are smaller than what the boats go out with - steel 117cf.

My profile pic is the ladder to get in and out. Nice washup rinse tank and gear drying area.

Not to mention the pool behind the wall in the background!

Does anyone know if they allow solo shore dives,

To repeat what others have said, yes. It is a nice feature of VA. Just a suggestion - going up and down the coast is one thing but if you plan to go away from shore, some type of surface marker might be a smart thing.

You'll like VA - another nice thing on boat dives is if they have divers not staying at VA, you will get picked up after them and also get dropped off before them (so your not stopping at other piers - just to the dive sites and back to VA.) The Villa manager is also fantastic - very helpful.

* A couple of years ago, I did a shore dive from Coral Princess (just down the road) to test some new gear out - had a guide for that one - strong current going north and I stayed behind the guide who was towing a very new diver, maybe it was a discover scuba dive - anyway I did my own thing until we reached a pier wall at another resort and then was driven back.