Best Scuba Company for Blue Hole Diving - Staying @ X'tan Ha Resort

[Yobubba]

[FONT=Verdana, 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Gee I've missed being away from scubaboard, I've forgotten the rules , can we slander and muckrake?
Or should I just wink and say Auga Dives changed it's name to Auga Scuba.[/FONT]

 

[chillyinCanada]

Is it muckraking to discuss fact?

 

[brnt999]

I've scheduled a trip to Belize in mid-March and it will be my first time there. Planning to stay at X'tan Ha Resort in San Pedro, and hoping to dive the Blue Hole. I'm a beginner diver (previous dives in Cozumel and Cancun) and looking for a great company to use for this scuba trip. Appreciate any suggestions!

I just returned from a month long dive trip to Cozumel, San Pedro, and Roatan. The hilite of my trip was the 3 tank dive I did with Amigos Del Mar to the Blue Hole. Contrary to what many say, I really enjoyed the dive in the Blue Hole. I found the Amigos crew to be very saftey conscious. There was a detailed breifing before the dive, there were 2 groups of 6 diving and each group had 2 dive masters watching the divers, and they had extra oxygen tanks hanging at the saftey stop. The visibility was great, the underwater archetecture very interesting, and there were 6 reef sharks cruising around us. That in itself was breath taking as I had never dove with sharks. And as others have said the second dive was the best dive I have ever done. Great visibility, lots of sea life, and again there were reef sharks cruising around. We also saw a manta ray feeding on the surface.

That being said, I dove with a guy in Roatan who told me last year he dove the Blue Hole after completing his first 9 dives and he told me a few times ( it made an impression on him)that he found himself alone at 125 feet in the Blue Hole. Apparently a diver in his group developed a problem and everyone went up and left him there. He didn't have a dive computer and he had no way of judging his ascent rate or his saftey stop interval.

 

[chillyinCanada]

So glad you enjoyed the day trip Brnt. As for your acquaintance, I know 9 dives isn't much but my suspicion is that he wasn't paying much attention and dare I say, not too bright either? He's only a short period of time from his course, and already can't remember not to go up any faster than his bubbles and as for how long to hold his safety stop? Well, he must have found his fellow divers for that. As you recall the safety stop is quite long.

OK OK I get it, he was freaked out. Poor guy. Wonder who he was diving with?

 

[AWMIII]

I loved the Blue Hole. I have dove it twice. Here is my somewhat poor video of my dive last September diving from Sundancer 2.

Great Blue Hole - YouTube

 

[Downing]

He didn't have a dive computer...

Nothing good can come from a sentence that starts this way, especially when it involves diving the Blue Hole.

Sheesh.

No brains, no headaches.

Ditto AWMIII, done it three times, looking forward to doing it again. The BH is just the beginning of a fantastic day.

Unless of course you find yourself all alone at 125 ft with no dive computer...

 

[KeithG]

Nothing good can come from a sentence that starts this way, especially when it involves diving the Blue Hole.

Sheesh.

No brains, no headaches.

Ditto AWMIII, done it three times, looking forward to doing it again. The BH is just the beginning of a fantastic day.

Unless of course you find yourself all alone at 125 ft with no dive computer...

Hang on? What happen to "plan your dive, dive your plan"? Tables & Timer?

No need for a dive "computer", but you do need a timing device as a minimum.

If he was left alone without a computer or a timer, then that is a personal fail that happened well before the start of the dive.

P.S. I think everyone will see a common theme of "the dives after the blue hole made the day". So just do them, skip the hole...

 

[Downing]

I think I am pretty safe in assuming that a brand new diver going on a guided dive didn't plan his own dive and wasn't using dive tables and/or a timer. If I was wrong, then so be it but I doubt it.

I'm not sure they even teach tables anymore in PADI OW. I had to learn them but then got a computer and never looked back. I do keep them around though in the unlikely event that both my primary and backup computers should fail on the same trip.

 

[Yobubba]

Amigos Del Mar is undoubtedly the best and they act as a Blue Hole service to the islands dive shop that book you on the trip.
My advice is do a local dive first and make sure you can execute a good safety stop with buoyancy control.
Take the same regulator and BC you have practiced with.
You wouldn't believe the number of people that email me wanting to dive the Blue Hole as the first dive of their vacation with a rental regulator in their mouth they have never tested. The first dive of the Blue Hole trip is 130 deep. Some common sense should apply.

 

[mbs]

....You wouldn't believe the number of people that email me wanting to dive the Blue Hole as the first dive of their vacation....

How bout first dive in a decade or so! Had a gentleman on the dive in december that claimed it had been a long time! They kept him safe, but scared the crap out of me. Fun trip, glad no incidents other than a few folks feeding the fish