Well I wasn't looking for a fight from anyone, least ways you
It's never a fight. It's hoped to be an intelligent, well reasoned discussion that draws out opinions and encourages logical thinking- specific to this unusual niche diving environment of the South side. In that it is so radically different than any other Caribbean offering that it is often not understood or perceived as such.
I'm sure that's less of an issue if you are doing shallower dives all week, but that's only half of what I'm there to see.
Therein lies the crux of the biscuit. When I go to this zone I am engaged in searching for the peculiar critters that are only found in shallow, Sunlit florid walls. I can find the additional 70'+ type of critters in a lot of other places in the Caribbean.
if your are there to do wall dives you aren't going to be able to do that from 40' and up.
Oh, no, not at all true. Every coral head in the below image initiates the vertical wall topping out in in 5 to 12 feet of water.
Below- there is 3/4 mile of
shore dive accessible (also done as boat dives)
very shallow wall diving, right in front of either FIBR or CCV. The other moored dives can also be done very shallow, but there are some exceptions... those do drop to 65fsw.
It is essentially a snorkeler's paradise.
<- I have spent many hours on SCUBA in this very shallow area- there are an amazing concentration of critters here. You would have to hold a gun to most diver's heads to get them to try it. Once they do, they're hooked.
These shallow coral heads are anywhere from 10 to 75 feet across. At the Ocean side,
they drop straight down & vertically to the 90' sand level. You can "wall dive" from 5 feet down to 90'. There is another wall that then begins deeper. Most of the unusual peculiar stuff lives at 35 feet and above.
Easily, 1/3 of my dives on Roatan have been done right here:
......
The aft of that ship bottoms out in 65fsw, the deck sits in 45, the superstructure in 22. The bow rests in 40fsw and the top is in 25'.
Many divers go out on night shore dives and spend the majority of their dive at 65feet along the wall. They come back with limited results compared to our 35' dives in the shallows and on top of the wreck. They do their 49 minute dives, we come in at 1:30 BT. Even a fat old man like me gets huge BT at that depth. Plus- you move very little, just sit and watch.
There are many people I know who spend 3 out of 5 Roatan dives right on this shallow hulk. It has more of the unusual Roatan South side niche environment critters that we seek.
I think any number of people absolutely believe that they have to go deep for excitement. Now, I understand that
JohnB has specific targets in mind that live deeper, but many of those can be found elsewhere in the Craibbean.
This is the shallow stuff (mostly) that can be found nowhere else...
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/3139 (or not in this frequency and concentration)
It's like a ski mountain in some ways, you can ski Black Diamonds or Green Dots, all for different reasons.
