BigDaddyGlad
Contributor
First post here on this great community... I got certified OWD in June and recently back from a cruise to ABC islands where I dove in Aruba and Bonaire and got bit bad by the fever. I'm already planning a trip with my buddy to Cozumel at the end of February. We're staying at the Iberostar.
Since we're staying at the Iberostar, I figure we might as well use the on-site shop, Dressel. Communication has been pretty good so far, I'm now at the point where I need to figure out how much diving is too much.
The ops I dove with in Aruba and Bonaire ran their 2-tank dives a bit differently than Dressel does. It looks like Dressel sends out 2 boats in the am, and 2 boats in the pm, and you do your two tanks at the assigned location for that session. So, you could theoretically do 4 dives per day, or 20 dives over a 7-day stay (leaving 24 hours flight clearance on the back end). That seems like a lot, to me, physically. I'm a soft 50-year-old office worker who's embarking on something entirely new here!
I was thinking it would be 1 morning dive, a break for lunch, and then an afternoon dive. I could get in a good 10 dives, maybe throw in a night dive there to see what that's all about, for 11 total. That seems like a good number, but then I feel like I'm missing out on opportunity to get more wet time. Any thoughts on how you might build your schedule over 7 days?
I also have a bit of apprehension over the fact that most of the sites Dressel goes to seem to go deeper than the 18m for which I'm certified. There was another thread here about a DM taking someone deeper even when they said they didn't want to go there. Any thoughts on that?
Since we're staying at the Iberostar, I figure we might as well use the on-site shop, Dressel. Communication has been pretty good so far, I'm now at the point where I need to figure out how much diving is too much.
The ops I dove with in Aruba and Bonaire ran their 2-tank dives a bit differently than Dressel does. It looks like Dressel sends out 2 boats in the am, and 2 boats in the pm, and you do your two tanks at the assigned location for that session. So, you could theoretically do 4 dives per day, or 20 dives over a 7-day stay (leaving 24 hours flight clearance on the back end). That seems like a lot, to me, physically. I'm a soft 50-year-old office worker who's embarking on something entirely new here!
I was thinking it would be 1 morning dive, a break for lunch, and then an afternoon dive. I could get in a good 10 dives, maybe throw in a night dive there to see what that's all about, for 11 total. That seems like a good number, but then I feel like I'm missing out on opportunity to get more wet time. Any thoughts on how you might build your schedule over 7 days?
I also have a bit of apprehension over the fact that most of the sites Dressel goes to seem to go deeper than the 18m for which I'm certified. There was another thread here about a DM taking someone deeper even when they said they didn't want to go there. Any thoughts on that?