Short beginner trips this spring? Looking for dive partners

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ls1dreams

Contributor
Messages
199
Reaction score
49
Location
DC
# of dives
50 - 99
Hi all,

I'm looking for someone to join for a short 3-4 day weekend sometime this spring or summer to keep up to date on my diving skills.

About me: In the DC area, and a beginner with an AOW (around 17 dives at the moment).

Looking for a fairly easy rec dive with good visibility, no strong currents, to get some more dives in. Would love to pair with someone experienced who can give me tips on trim.

Pretty flexible about the location, but was thinking about either a road trip to North Carolina, or something close such as Roatan/Utila, Cozumel (though heard currents can be tough here), maybe even Key Largo.
 
Hi all,

I'm looking for someone to join for a short 3-4 day weekend sometime this spring or summer to keep up to date on my diving skills.

About me: In the DC area, and a beginner with an AOW (around 17 dives at the moment).

Looking for a fairly easy rec dive with good visibility, no strong currents, to get some more dives in. Would love to pair with someone experienced who can give me tips on trim.

Pretty flexible about the location, but was thinking about either a road trip to North Carolina, or something close such as Roatan/Utila, Cozumel (though heard currents can be tough here), maybe even Key Largo.


Key Largo has some diving that you may be looking for. In case you can't find a dive buddy you can contact Ocean Divers and they can assign you a dive master/guide. I just came back from a short trip and did some diving with them. I noticed they had a DM in the water helping out. Hope this helps. Have fun and dive safe.
Ocean Divers - Key Largo Scuba Dive Center
 
Look at the group trips that Home - Blue Planet Scuba offers. I'm going by myself end of May to Utila for 2 weeks to get my AOW and log in some dives.
 
I dive frequently with Aquatic Safaris out of Wilmington, NC. For the dives 28 miles and in I have yet to have a bad current day and I have well over 120 dives with them. The stone tug, Dredge wreck, Hyde, Gill, and Markham are all 90 ft or less, some are more like 60-70 and suitable for AOW. At 23 and 28 miles you have the first of the good ledges 23 mile and Sues. Tops are 85 or so and bottoms at 100-105. So depth on the ledges is 80-95 unless you like to play in the sand. Lots of Marine life. There are some closer in sites like the lib ship in 50 ft of water which is not a bad warm up dive.

Now for viz. This is NC. It can be 5 ft it can be 90 ft. As a general rule as you go lib ship - stone - hyde/Markham - Gill - ledges the viz will improve. Hyde is usually in the 20-40 range.

They take solos and will buddy you up. If you want you can rent a DM for a pretty modest price. Maybe $40. Most of the regulars dive HP100s or larger and dive Nitrox. Shop will rent you anything from an AL80 up to an AL120. There is no DM in the water unless you request one.

As a side benefit there is a nice beach and WIlmington being a combination of a Port town, college town has a lot of good places to eat, or imbibe if that is your desire.

If you like sharks the sand tigers move in some time in late May to June.

Some photos of NC Diving out of Wilmington on my facebook page.

Hyde on Oct. 30, 2016 | Facebook

Stacey and Sue | Facebook
 
Hi all, I'm looking for someone to join for a short 3-4 day weekend sometime this spring or summer to keep up to date on my diving skills. About me: In the DC area, and a beginner with an AOW (around 17 dives at the moment). Looking for a fairly easy rec dive with good visibility, no strong currents, to get some more dives in. Would love to pair with someone experienced who can give me tips on trim. Pretty flexible about the location, but was thinking about either a road trip to North Carolina, or something close such as Roatan/Utila, Cozumel (though heard currents can be tough here), maybe even Key Largo.

I found the link below for a scuba club in the DC area, they seem to be active and their next meeting is April 4. Apparently there is also a big scuba expo in NJ this weekend and some of them are meeting there.

DC/VA/MD Scuba Meetup Group
 
I'm heading down to NC Thurs / Friday may 4/5 and reached out to Aquatic Safaris who has put dives on the calendar for those days. They are doing wrecks Thursday and a megladon tooth dive on Friday so it should be a fun couple of days. I'm signed up as a solo myself and sound like I have similar experience as you.
 
Sounds fun but I am diving the weekend before and have some family stuff that weekend. Raleigh Area Divers on facebook and Down Under Divers Club also on facebook have several hundred local divers who dive a lot. Might find a buddy there also. AS is good about buddying folks up. It is also pretty cheap to rent a DM since it will be one of the mates on board so you do not have to pay their boat fee, just give them the money. Think it is around $40 or so. I will do this sometimes on the fossil dives just so I can focus on looking for teeth and not have to keep track of somebody else. Have fun.
 
As an update I looked into NC pricing and it's kind of expensive if I have to rent everything - $130 for 2 dives + all rentals will be $200+.

Probably will look into some better sites at this point.

I realize that renting is a big part of the problem. I do plan to buy a mask and dive computer to start, but never intend to buy a BCD/tank/reg/etc.
 
The majority of my friends aren't divers & the ones who are, don't often want to travel as much or as far as I do so I travel solo most of the time. Sometimes, I'm able to find good dive buddies when I get to the destination. If I don't find someone good, I then hire a DM to dive just with me. (When I was newer to diving like you, I hired a one-on-one instructor to advance my certification killing two birds with one stone. Best way to learn AOW & some of the other certifications.)

Re: equipment: I don't have a tank nor will I likely ever have one, but if you're doing even one dive trip a year, then the cost of a BCD & reg is worth it if you do the math. You can also buy quality used equipment.
 

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