Nekton Belize

[Damselfish]

If you are planning the Nekton you will have enjoyable diving but you may want to ask if they have booked kids on your cruise. We had the experience (September 06) of a Nekton cruise greatly diminished by 3 unruly young teens. This made it difficult to enjoy any adult time and the divemaster in the water was essentially unavailable to any other guests as he had the full time job of guiding the most uncontrolled teen who then touched as much sea life as possible without reprimand. The staff was great but NEVER again will I get stuck on a liveaboard under these circumstances. If the diving wasn't so good I would have headed for shore by day 2. Despite pointed criticism Nekton did not feel the need to offer any inducement to me to rejoin them in the future. Next liveaboard will definitely be with another company.

Sucks that that happened and maybe they could have handled it better. But even if you check, unless you book the last slots on a boat, someone with kids could always book later. And you could easily avoid a boat with a couple nice teens and wind up with an adult jerk (probably much more common than bad kids, or any kids, on liveaboards.)

In my experience the staff on liveaboards will try to avoid confrontation or offending guests. (True of many/most boats or dive ops actually, but on a liveboard you're all kind of stuck with each other for the duration.) Probably afraid if they said something about the kids the parents would be pissed. (There were parents, right?) Of course by not doing something about problem cases they're bugging everyone else instead, but they don't seem to think of it that way. Did you say anything while you were on the boat, especially to the captain? My sense is even if they are aware of a problem they need that extra little push to do something. If you say something, they now have to choose between helping a known unhappy customer, and one who might become unhappy but is a problem anyway so less sympathy.

 

[bperrybap]

I don't think you'll regret the Nitrox. Keep in mind that you
will have LP steel 95's. On our Cayman Rorqual trip last month
the tanks were always filled to 2600+ PSI.
This gives you well over 100 CuFt vs around 78 CuFt or so with
a standard AL-80. My wife and I were doing 5 dives a day
that were each hour plus in length.
Not sure we could have done that on air.

--- bill

 

[fda483]

I don't think you'll regret the Nitrox. Keep in mind that you
will have LP steel 95's. On our Cayman Rorqual trip last month
the tanks were always filled to 2600+ PSI.
This gives you well over 100 CuFt vs around 78 CuFt or so with
a standard AL-80. My wife and I were doing 5 dives a day
that were each hour plus in length.
Not sure we could have done that on air.

--- bill

Thanks Bill I was hoping that was the case. Whats the weight adjustment for these tanks, I think I used them once in the Keys and seem to remember having to drop some weights. Need to dust off the old dive log.

 

[DiveMaven]

My husband and I each dropped 6 pounds off our belts using the Steel 95's.

 

[bperrybap]

I'd say you could drop 6lbs maybe a bit more depending on how
much air you leave in your tank. On these LP tanks around
325 PSI = 1lb of air. So you will probably still have a few lbs
of air still in your tank when you surface.

I use about 6-8 lbs with an AL-80 and my Bare 3/2 suit.
After a few dives on these tanks, I was diving with no extra weight.

The nice thing is that they have a safety stop bar under the boat
so if do you happen take off slightly too much or come in too light
on a dive, you could hold the bar during you safety stop.

--- bill

 

[deepstops]

I don't think you'll regret the Nitrox. Keep in mind that you
will have LP steel 95's. On our Cayman Rorqual trip last month
the tanks were always filled to 2600+ PSI.
This gives you well over 100 CuFt vs around 78 CuFt or so with
a standard AL-80. My wife and I were doing 5 dives a day
that were each hour plus in length.
Not sure we could have done that on air.

--- bill

Not to pick nits but a LP 95 is 95 cf at pressure of 2640 (2400 + 10% overfill).

 

[bperrybap]

Not to pick nits but a LP 95 is 95 cf at pressure of 2640 (2400 + 10% overfill).

I agree with that.

My original calculations were from numbers based on
talking with the with the crew and they said that the tanks were
Faber Steel 95s with a working pressure of 2450 PSI.
(My mistake for not verifying these)

Today, I looked up the tanks that Faber makes and it doesn't
match any of their tanks. I'm assuming that tanks were the
915 CuInch vs the 1037 CuInch. 915 CuInch does give
you 95 CuFt at 2640 PSI.

But the tanks were often overfilled to 2800, 2900, etc.
At those pressures you do indeed end up with over 100 Cuft.
However, assuming the air was hot due to a fresh fill
The temperature would drop from a say 110F to 85F.
This cooling would cause a PSI drop from your 2900 PSI fill
to around 2775 PSI. So even with cooling you will be right at
about 100 Cuft.

Regardless of all the PSI, size of tanks, and temperature,
math mumbo jumbo, its still a good sized tank of air that
is fun to dive that gives you a lot more bottom time than
a typical Aluminum 80.

--- bill

 

[reeldive]

Wife uses 10lbs with our AL80's @ 3100psi with skins in home waters . On our Caymans trip with the steel 95's - 0 lbs. they were filling the 95 to 2800psi most of the time. We watched our profile and did a lot on top of the reef with only a few excursions to 100+ on the walls. most of our dives aproached 1 hr, still got back to the hang bar with plenty of air to play around under the boat for a while. I was useing 2lbs and skins, maybe a litlte heavy. I usually use 12lbs with my AL 80's listen to thier dive master on day one and get your wieght right, please. Helps you stay off the reef!! The crew and DM,s will be more than glad to help any one obtain perfect bouyance. Just ask- no shame bra!

 

[reeldive]

Oh yeah thats me in the avatar, doing a mask on forhead during a safty stop.