New Texas Diver with questions about experience

[txclifton]

Hi All,

First off..thanks for all the great info you guys post on this board. I've been lurking for a month or so now. I now have a question of my own that hopefully you can help me with.

A good friend of mine is diving the Flower Gardens this weekend. (Aug 6,7,8,9). I want to go next time, but all I read is if you don't have gulf experience then you should not dive the Flower Gardens All of my experience, to date, is at CSSP. I plan on branching out when I get more practice but I'm trying to figure out how/where to get good experience so that I'm comfortable and qualified to dive there. I figure that if I spend the next year getting wet as much as possible that I can do the Flower gardens next August.

Any recommendations or comments are welcomed and appreciated.

Regards,

TXCLIFTON

 

[TwoBitTxn]

Experience in the lakes is nice. That gets you comfortable in the water.

Try to make a trip to Cozumel, Florida (Panama City) or something along those lines. There are a couple (you will need to search for them) of boats that do rig trips from Texas. That season is rapidly comming to a close so Florida or Gulf Shores Al. may be better bets.

Also consider meeting the TSD at CSSP some time.

TwoBit

 

[TwoBitTxn]

BTW,

Welcome to the boards, and Scuba Diving.

TwoBit

 

[Dee]

First...welcome to the Swamp and kudos to you for realizing there's more to gulf diving than getting a boat to take you there.

It's sort of a catch 22, isn't it? You need open ocean experience but you can't get it without doing it! I agree with TwoBit. When time and money keep us from Cozumel, we go to Panama City, Fl. From Houston, it's only a 10hr drive plus you can detour to Morrison and Vortex springs on the way home to rinse that nasty salt water from your gear!

There are several good dive ops and reasonable hotels in the area. I can also hook you up with someone who goes there regularly and can help with details.

 

[sealskin98]

Hi Cliff...welcome to the board.

Hope to see you at CSSP sometime. It's a lot of fun with the gang. You should try one of Des' old fashioned slow cooked hot dogs. They are great!

Sorry Des, couldn't resist.

 

[ScubaTexan]

Man, ole Des is never going to live that one down, is he? LOL :biggrin2:

 

[txclifton]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm going to Cozumel and Belize in October so hopefully I can get some good experience there plus have some good fun.

I'll look into Panama City. From the first google searches it looks pretty good. I was originally looking at Key Largo as a place to get some good dives in as well.

I'll have to look you guys up the next time I go out to CSSP. I was there last Saturday and had a good time even though the viz was lower than it had been in the past month. I saw a pretty good sized turtle on west end.

I'm not sure but I have a feeling that I wouldn't want one of Des' hotdogs...or is there something else to it!?

Hope to see you guys around..

txclifton

 

[TwoBitTxn]

You should try one of Des' old fashioned slow cooked hot dogs. They are great!

Ok, I'm not sure I know this story, want to elaborate?

TwoBit

 

[ScubaTexan]

Well....
Let's just say they probably would not have passed one of your restaurant inspections, Tom. They weren't bad -- it's just that they weren't quite cooked long enough. Of course, that didn't stop Robert's dogs from racing over and almost attacking me for one of them...

:rofl:

 

[Firefyter]

You should try one of Des' old fashioned slow cooked hot dogs.

The key word here is slooooooooow If ya plan on eatin today, you might wanna bring your own food....lol