Rebreather Dive Vacation Packages Offered Year Round on Cayman Brac

[Superlyte27]

It’s not a silly post. The ops clearly told me, point blank, “NO CCR on the boat” less than 3 months ago. Then called us last week and said, “you can come, but only if you’d be willing to do hour long dives. I wonder if that had something to do with us booking a Grand Cayman trip this year.

 

[kensuf]

Umm, I could have hooked you up in the Brac. There might have been a bit of "get fills / sorb at place X, dive off boat Y" but we could have made it happen.

 

[caydiver]

Sorry Superlyte I didn’t mean your post was silly. I don’t like the whole cut and paste thing as unless someone has first hand experience and has discovered something that isn’t true in the advertising. I stick by the thought that if you are boat diving you are limited by the experience level of the weakest diver unless it is a private charter. Posting stuff from an advertising brochure only lends to muddying the water as they clearly cannot spell everything out. I am of the mind that everyone here is capable of using the internet and asking questions of the venue or at least someone who has had personal experience so can offer viable information. Even with a private charter you will not get unlimited diving so even my comments were wrong. You can get your bottom time but at some stage the crew goes off the clock and the boat goes to bed

 

[Superlyte27]

Well, let's compare this slightly to Key Largo...
Just about any boat in Key Largo that does a double dip on the Spiegel Grove will allow CCR divers to get into the water first, and get out of the water last (after the second dip). So the boat pulls up, ties off, does the briefing, and we splash. The OC divers surface in 45 minutes, do an hour of SI and back in the water for 45 minutes. We get out at about the 3 hour mark and no one is bothered.

If Cayman Brac would adopt that approach, I'd be on the next trip.

 

[kensuf]

It's not that cut and dried in the Cayman Islands. CITA has strict controls on diving throughout the islands and have firm regulations on technical diving. One of the regulations is that anyone doing technical dives off of a boat must be going with a CITA approved technical divemaster.

A google search will help you find the CITA Water sports operations guidelines (I did not upload this here on SB).

 

[scubadada]

@Superlyte27

In Brac, they don't sit on a site for 2 dives. Easy when you are doing a double on a wreck like they do out of Key Largo

 

[divezonescuba]

Here is a 2016 version of the cita document to make things easy.

 

[stuartv]

Cool that they want to attract CCR divers. Too bad that what they have posted will probably push more CCR divers away than it will attract.

If they didn't post anything, I would probably reach out and ask. Now that I read what they posted, I wouldn't bother to reach out, and I'm definitely not going there.

They don't have to park a boat for double dips. But, they could let the CCR divers splash first and stay in until the OC divers are out and almost done with their SI. So, for example, the CCR divers get a first dive that is 1.5 - 2 hours. Then move the boat and let CCR divers splash first again. (I'm guessing that the boat rides from site 1 to site 2 are not very long) Let them have a longer dive than what the OC divers will be able to do. Say, 1.5 hours. The OC divers will be back on the boat and have to wait a little bit, but not THAT long. Overall, the boat is only out for, what, 30 minutes longer than it would have been anyway? And the CCR divers got an extra 1 - 1.5 hours of bottom time compared to the OC divers.

 

[_Ralph]

There are some decent ways to incorporate tech diving on a recreational Caribbean style charter ... but it really depends on the staff, the tech divers, and the topology of the area ...

One shop I dive with, we will splash during the dive briefing, sometimes we need to swim aways to get to the site (depending on area and surface conditions .... briefing and then subsequently gearing up 14-20 rec divers in swells for 20-30min wouldn't be a good option), Others, we get dropped off on the way to the area where they do the briefing ..

This gives us a good 25-30min head start from the first recreational diver splashing .... Depending on the site and equipment we are bringing, we try to get on the boat before the divers get back, so we get a 90-110minute run time on the first dive (especially when bringing DPV, stages, etc ... easier to stow away without people in the way on deck)

Second dive is very similar, splash just before the briefing (grabbing equipment when most people are out on the fly bridge/bow sunning while on their SI)

We will generally get out of the water last on the second dive, getting in another 90-110min dive, as most of the rec divers are now tired, and not hanging out around the back of the boat while the crew strips down the gear and starts rinsing the equipment on the way back to the dock.


While not a good 3-4hr CCR dive, with OC/CCR tech divers it works out fairly well.


_R

 

[caydiver]

Stuartv. I totally agree with you. If someone is looking for specific info they will research and contact for themselves! Posting the ad only muddies the water.