Help! Big Ooops on Roatan

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I will go with the rental for this week, I guess. I would rather do that than miss a day or two of diving chasing around for a STA. I believe I have enough diing skill to survive in a ScubaPro Glide BCD. I still haven't heard from Aggressor about my options for the week to come.
I went to the Philippines a few years ago with no dive gear. Used a jacket bc. No worries. And long blade fins :)
 
I will go with the rental for this week, I guess. I would rather do that than miss a day or two of diving chasing around for a STA. I believe I have enough diing skill to survive in a ScubaPro Glide BCD. I still haven't heard from Aggressor about my options for the week to come.
You can do it!
 
Roatan is a warm-water-pretty-fish style of diving.

Finding anything much past a BCD & ALU90 is merely a contrived “need” only “required” by a training oriented environment. Tech does occur on Roatan, but it’s more a pre-planned training week- like Tim from NAUI (So Padre American Divers) used to do once-a-year trips. They came, they dove, they saw nothing.

There really isn’t much to see or do on Roatan with technical capabilities. It’s all shallow, 1 hour dives. You can do 5x a day at CCV on air and not die. It’s that shallow.

I am reminded of the stereotypical Brit divers I always saw in Tobago years back. They would drag internationally boxes of dive gear that included wreck reels and “spanner wrenches”, They simply would not tailor their “kit” to the expected task at hand.

If you dress like that, the bulk of Roatan‘s divers (West End) will look at you funny. At CCV, no-one will glance, on the live-aboards? Hell, they’ve seen Kirby-Morgans show up, it is a live-aboard, nothing is unexpected. Gear-up like the apocryphal Japanese Astronaut if you will.

Vinegar Wine, however? Speak to Stacy the Manager. A bartender is just a bartender, and you’re in Honduras. We might expect a high standard of service, esp at CoCo View, but you’re dealing with a bartender, again- in Honduras. Just speak to Stacy.

This is an opportunity to return to scuba diving in your bathing suit. Try it, kind’a retro, a bit freeing, really. Cast-off your leaden shoes.
 
I still haven't heard from Aggressor about my options for the week to come.
I hope it works out, but I'm guessing the odds aren't in your favor on this one. The crew are pretty much stuck on the boat through the week like passengers, and the odds of having a STA in line with your kit laying around seem low.

I get that many of us like to dive our own kit. I pay the baggage fees for a checked bag both ways so I can dive mine, too (and probably would even if I had convenient 'off the rack' proportions). You pay to acquire and maintain your gear, and you want to use it.
 
Duct tape is basically like a stuck af cam band. Just use the same tank all week, or buy a few rolls of it.
I’ve done worse.

This won’t work at CCV because of multi tank boat dives, but on a liveaboard, with tanks being filled “on station”, yeah, a permanent tank mount is fine.

I have indeed used “duct tape” and also huge cable ties. Most recently, on the AquaCat, i used 550 paracord and lashed it into place. On is on.

If you want to dive deeper come to West End.
Therein lies the truth/un-truth about Roatan.

You can dive just as deep on the South side, as a matter of a fact, even easier.

From a CCV Shore Dive, you could hit 3000fsw bottom. From West End or North side, you’ll need a boat ride to any technical depth. Plain simple fact.

So, why does this unfounded thought pervade? The intense lushness of the shallow South side’s vertical Sun washed walls creates a verdant nursery. Life is Sunlight, Sunlight is life. Incredible shallow cool stuff, no need to go beyond 80’, best at 45’.

You do not find this reef shape nor Sunlight on the North or West- it just is not similarly densely populated. The attraction then? Let’s go deep.

Example:
South side wrecks (where CCV is and the Roatan Aggressor will take you) are all in 45 to 65 feet bottoms. North side wrecks are in 90-120’ depth.

Many divers are still seeking log book depth records long before they adopt the critter-gitter lifestyle of macro hunting. Often they get distracted by Lion Fish hunting and accidentally fall into developing the required skills for micro/macro.

So, yes, deeper diving is more the profile on the West/North, it’s “what they know to do”. Not a negative, just a reason.

The single greatest problem with a two week CCV & Aggressor split stay? The Aggressor will keep you, for 3 days minimum, on the exact same dive sites accessed by CCV. You can see the Aggressor sitting moored off of CCV visible in their “Front Yard” camera.

Like, right now…there she lies at mooring in 3/4 mile West of CCV:
5ADEF7B3-1430-49F4-AE6E-81C8327FBFE6.jpeg


So, yeah, if going deep is what you want to do, go to one of the West End tech leaning shops, look for Wil Welbourne. Or, just go dive Florida or Flower Gardens.
 
I'd just give them a call. They'll should still close to the island today.
He could swim over to them :) Look just to the right of the CCV gazebo- they’re still parked just offshore in the November drizzle….
45970BFF-9FE1-4DD9-B1CA-C410C4438A74.jpeg
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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