Mona Island - How's the diving?

[newfldiver]

I can't wait to meet everyone. I've talked to alot of people about the diving, and they say it's great. We are going to spend 2 days after the trip in PR and hopefully hit the ziplines too.

See you there.

 

[Kolast]

My wife and I are signed up for Dec 6th Pilot sailing as well. This will be our first Nekton cruise. Look forward to meeting you all.

Quick question - should we pay extra for Nitrox based on the dive profiles or is it overkill? I am a heavy breather and don't stay under long. (I paid $195 per person but I am thinking about cancelling). Thanks in advance for the info.

Cheers,
Nick

 

[djanni]

My wife and I are signed up for Dec 6th Pilot sailing as well. This will be our first Nekton cruise. Look forward to meeting you all.

Quick question - should we pay extra for Nitrox based on the dive profiles or is it overkill? I am a heavy breather and don't stay under long. (I paid $195 per person but I am thinking about cancelling). Thanks in advance for the info.

Cheers,
Nick

Wow! So many are booking the Dec 6th trip. If we go it'll probably be in January.

Nitrox... We go with Nitrox because of multiple dives per day. Maybe that's not entirely true because we use Nitrox everytime we can regardless.

After a day of diving we feel better when we've used Nitrox!!! It's worth the extra bucks to us.

 

[Ron G.]

Sorry, Don....

All the cool kids are going on Dec. 6.

Ron

 

[robint]

My wife and I are signed up for Dec 6th Pilot sailing as well. This will be our first Nekton cruise. Look forward to meeting you all.

Quick question - should we pay extra for Nitrox based on the dive profiles or is it overkill? I am a heavy breather and don't stay under long. (I paid $195 per person but I am thinking about cancelling). Thanks in advance for the info.

Cheers,
Nick

Personally, I would stick with the nitrox. Doing 4-5 dives per day ends up with alot of nitrogen building up in your body. Nitrox is safer. We also (both me and husband) think it makes you feel less tired after a day of diving. The difference isn't as noticeable the first day or two but by the end of the week it makes a huge difference! As far as your being a "heavy breather", you will most likely see some improvement on the trip, especially since you won't be dragging gear back and forth to a boat daily!

 

[newfldiver]

I have used regular air on both of the other two dive trips with Nekton with no issues. Robint has a good point though, that after a few days you may notice a difference. This trip will have more currents and potential chop making it harder to get back to the boat. It may be worth it on this trip.

 

[Kolast]

Thank you for the advice. Looks like I will be sticking with Nitrox. Couple of more basic questions that I might as well confine to this thread:

1) We have one dive computer for the two of us - we always dive together and I will do more dives than my wife (she doesn't want to do night dives at all but I hope that will change). Is this a potential issue?

2) Do we need to go out and buy and extra mask or extra anything or are there things on boat that can be lent out on an "emergency"? It sure would be a bummer if you mask (or fin strap) breaks at the beginning of the trip.

Cheers!

 

[Darnold9999]

I don't think they will let you dive with a shared computer, otherwise they have a pretty complete "save a dive" kit on board.

However, I would carry an extra mask. Selection is pretty minimal. Also anything that your really really must have that is in any way unique and could potentially fail should be duplicated. I really only consider my mask to fall in this category.

 

[robint]

1. You each need a dive computer! Two people cannot dive from one dive computer. If you don't want to buy one, I think they have some to rent onboard.

2. Take along a spare mask for each of you (I have seen people drop and break or step on and break them every trip). They have some fin straps and mask straps but not all makes and models. I would take a set of those, also. We always take a pretty nice "save-a-dive" kit with us on every trip and we always end up giving someone something from it! Spare mouthpieces and fin and mask straps are the big thing - they always seem to break when you are out in the middle of the ocean far from a dive shop!

 

[ladycute1]

Oh Boy!!! More cool kids for the Dec. 6 Sailing!!! I can't wait to meet all of you... I'm traveling alone so I'm hoping that some of you will be kind enough to buddy up with me.

This will be my 5th trip on the Nekton Pilot.

Here's my $0.02 regarding your questions:

1) Nitrox -- For me, absolutely worth it. Diving 4 -5 dives a day, I found when using air, by the last day my dives were being cut short due to limited no deco time. I know that the Rorqual had had some troubles with their Nitrox system. I believe that that has been resolved, and was never a problem on the Pilot. My last trip I consistently got 32%. Additionally, you MAY find that your consumption rate improves slightly with Nitrox.

2) Computer - I would really recommend that for safety sake you go to your local dive shop and rent a second computer for the week. While you may intend for your wife to dive the same or more conservative profile than you do, is this important safety factor really where you want to save money?

3) Spare equipment - In my experience you should not expect a wide range of rental gear on board. You should bring what you need, on the other hand you don't single handedly need to bring an entire repair shop. You'll have a friendly group of divers to share in the support. What you consider important to have duplicates of, really varies with your experience. It makes perfect sense to me that an extra dive mask would be a good thing, however, I wouldn't really think to bring one... in over 725 dives I've never broken a mask - also, I'm pretty flexible... I can wear most any mask and 'make it work' -- other people are very sensitive to mask issues and if the mask isn't exactly right then their dive is ruined. So if there is something that would just 'end' the diving for you -- bring an extra or a way to repair, etc. My save a dive kit is pretty thorough as is my first aid kit -- if there's an over the counter med (and maybe one or two others) I'm likely to have it... I'm always willing to share and my experience is that so are other divers. If a diver announces a problem of one sort or another, in my experience, several people are going to have a solution for it. Does that mean that you don't need to plan for yourself? No, of course not, but given a boat of 20 (or more) guests plus crew, there's a good chance that needs will be covered. On one Nekton trip, a diver arrived in Belize, but his luggage didn't. In fact, his luggage didn't catch up with him until Wednesday or Thursday -- but he didn't miss a dive. The crew pulled together a bunch of gear, other divers helped to round it out and offered clothes and other necessities. (I'm babbling now, but hopefully you can gather something useful from it.)

OK, it's time to go to work.... but..... ooooooh, I can't wait!!!

Liz