Oriskany Info

[Day]

Dana, that just is not fair. Promoting Daves boat over mine. I am jealoues. Hope ya'll have fun next week and be sure to make Dave wear the spedo he keeps talking about. By the way, is Jeremy the Dm for this trip or is dave the only guy on the boat?

See you next week,
Jeff

LOL!!!

Hey Jeff!

There is no shortage of self promotion on this site! At least I'm a second party! haha!

Hells no! No men (other than the Capt) on the boat. :no I need to make sure that's clear! I hope your sweet little wife can join us!

Capt. Dave says he wants a photo for his website. You can tie the Daisy D up next to us on Sunday and be the photographer.

And as for the Speedo...he is cooking fish one night for the girls in it too.

 

[Diveral]

Nagel,

How many divers are you bringing and how experienced? Any other activities you want to do while you are on the Gulf Coast? As you can see there are a lot of dive ops that service the Mighty O and most of them are good folks. A lot of the things that may influence your choices are how many divers you are bringing, how pampered or guided do you want to be, what kind of experience do your divers have, how many days are you staying, what activities besides diving do you want to do? The answers will steer you to different dive ops.

I wanted to stay on the beach and have some shoreside activities. We stayed in Gulf Shores/Orange Beach. We brought six experienced divers and didn't need or want much in the way of guides/pampering. We went with Gary who has a fast six pack out of Orange Beach http://www.gulfdiver.net/ . We loved it. Gary rented us a bunch of steel 95's and we did our best to make sure he had to put a full fill back in them every day. He also had food and drinks available on our SI. I also highly recommend him. But as Mat says there are several great ops in the area.

AL

 

[JCDdiver]

I've dove the Oriskany twice now. Both times I booked a trip through MBT dive shop on the H20Below. Capt. Doug is first rate, and they cook the best hot dogs you'll ever eat on the gulf for the return trip to Pensacola.

 

[scuba_aqua_girl]

Last week I just dove through MBT and used Captain Doug on the H2O Below to the Mighty "O" and it was the best week of diving I have ever experienced! I know when I go back down that is who I am going to use all the time!

 

[Rick Murchison]

For a big boat my favorite is the Wet Dream out of Scuba Shack in downtown P'cola. Very laid back but safe, reasonably fast, willing to leave early to get out there early...
The hand cranked ice cream served on the way home is pretty special too.
Rick

 

[nagel]

Thanks everybody for your information. This gives us a great start for our research. I'm thinking we will take some time looking into the information you have provided. When our trip gets a little closer, we will repost with some more questions. By the way, it looks like as few as 3 divers, maybe 4, and maybe even 6. Experience - We all have been diving for about 1-2 years, so not a lot of experience. This will definately be one of our deeper dives. We typically dive lakes and quarry's in the midwest and get to Mexico about once a year.

S. Nagel

 

[Diveral]

Do you have AOW or a Deep diver certification? To dive the Oriskany without a guide (DM) you have to have AOW or Deep Diver and have 2 logged dives to 80' or deeper within the past 12 months. To dive the Oriskany you need a minimum of 20 logged dives.

I believe you need a minimum of 5 paid divers to make an Oriskany run but I may be wrong on that, you may need six. So it looks like you will need to charter a six pack for your group or go with one of the larger boats on a scheduled Oriskany day and join in on their trip. If you come up 1 or 2 divers short for a six pack you shouldn't have too much trouble filling a slot unless its an Auburn, Alabama, or Florida football saturday.

If all of you don't have AOW or Deep Diver then you will have to dive with a guide. Eric (Oriskany Divemaster) can help you out but I believe all ops have DM's available to act as guides (you'll have to hire them). I also reccommend diving with higher capacity tanks. You will definitely experience the advantage on the O. If you don't have them, rent them. I know Gary has 95's and Al 100's available.

Our beaches are wonderful. If you can, get a place on a beach somewhere. I'm partial to condos and beach houses myself. If you want, I can send you some real estate rental links that will help you out. There are also some great seafood resturaunts around.

AL

 

[seadoggirl]

Dr. Dive is the "USS Oriskany Specialty Dive Instructor" you refer to on your profile a new designed PADI Specialty class? First I've heard of that one. COOL!

 

[nagel]

Thanks Diveral - Atleast 4 of us are AOW and we do have more than 20 logged dives. We should also be okay with the 80' in last 12 months.

Thanks for the detail information on the group numbers.

S. Nagel

 

[wjefferis]

The Y-Knot is a good boat and will get you out and back fast. It is a six packer so you won’t be on a cattle boat. Check them out at http://bluwateradventures.com/ they book out of dive pros, their web site is www.florida-********.com If you are looking for a much bigger boat the Scuba Shack has a big, but slow boat called the Wet Dream, they are very friendly but expect a full day out on the Oriskany (back by 4:30-5 ish) check them out at http://www.scubashackpensacola.com/sdm.asp?pg=wetdream
The next boat is called the H20 Below and it is a 36’ Newton, very nice boat and very professional divemasters. They book out of MBT divers; their web site is http://www.ussoriskanydiver.com/ or check out MBT's website at http://www.mbtdivers.com/
Another great boat is the cat-n-around run by Gary’s Gulf Divers it is another fast six pack boat that will get you out there fast before the crowds. He runs out of Orange beach which is a real quick drive from Pensacola, his website is www.gulfdiver.net
Another small six pack you can check out is Dr. Dive he has an Oriskany diver specialty class that you get a c-card for after the dives. His website is www.drdive.com
A newer addition to the local dive boats is southern offshore adventures. Their website is www.southernoffshoreadventures.com
If you are interested here is the NOAA site that you can get local water info http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mob/

Later