bipolarbear
Registered
I just finished a great 4 days of tech diving on Grand Cayman with InDepth Watersports.
I dived with the owner, Nat Robb, who is an extremely experienced CCR instructor (AP Inspiration) and a very personable guy also. His team that I met - Chris, Dan and Rumy, were also great. The shop caters for snorkelling, recreational diving and technical diving. They can fully support rebreather diving and also have sufficient helium and oxygen to support open circuit tech diving. Mixes were, with one minor exception, accurate and prepared overnight for each day's diving.
Day 1 was 2x air work-up dives, to 55 and 58m respectively (deep air was my choice, Nat was on a rebreather with appropriate mix), along with 50% and 80% for deco. I usually take 02 as my shallow deco but took 80% at Nat's suggestion and it was definitely the right call given the geography of the site. We were doing shore diving, which is a bit of a chore on open circuit as it involves a surface swim out to where the deep wall drops off to 8,000ft, starting at around 50m / 180ft depth. But the swim is worth it; the diving is quite spectacular and the water is warm and clear. After two great dives, we set a plan for a trimix dive to around 85m / 280ft the next day.
For the morning dive on day 2 I took AL80 doubles of 15/47, a travel gas of 20/37 (probably didn't need this much helium but there was a pre-made mix already sitting around), 50% and 80%. The dive ran to plan, with a total run time of 70 minutes. Highlight was dropping down through a natural arch at around 80m, which was quite a dramatic underwater feature. I'm not a massive fan of doing 3 bottle dives without a scooter, but the lack of current makes the site manageable. This was a really nice dive. For the afternoon I air-topped my doubles and did a relaxed ~55m dive along the top of the deep wall.
Day 3 was the big one. 100m / 330ft, which is a box I wanted to check off before I start my CCR course next week. And it turned out to be pretty spectacular. I took 12/65 in the doubles, 21/35 as travel gas, 50% and 80%.
After a tough surface swim, we dropped down to the top of the deep wall at around 60m, where Nat expertly navigated us to a natural tunnel / chute which cuts through the seabed and then emerges on the deep wall at around 75m. This was a bit tight with doubles and 3x AL80s, but manageable. After popping out on the side of the deep wall, we descended to 100m, hung around for a couple of minutes, and then began a quite leisurely ascent up the wall towards my first gas switch at 57m. I ran a bit below my reserves on back gas due to a slower than planned ascent (I had not appreciated just how hard it is to get moving with that much weight at depth), but had 100 bar left in the travel gas and wasn't too worried, and I padded the deco at the end, leading to an almost 2hr runtime, but it was a really memorable dive and one I would like to come back and do in a few years once I have my JJ and my Mod 3 (if that day comes).
For my fourth and final day I went out on one of the two boats that are run by InDepth Watersports. We did a nice 55m max depth dive along the wall, with a total runtime of about 80 minutes. Dive time could have been a lot shorter, but I chose to just air top my deco gas from the prior day's dive and only wanted to take one bottle, so it was air and 60%.
All said, I would heartily recommend InDepth Watersports, and the tech diving opportunities on Grand Cayman in general. I will be back with my rebreather next year.
I dived with the owner, Nat Robb, who is an extremely experienced CCR instructor (AP Inspiration) and a very personable guy also. His team that I met - Chris, Dan and Rumy, were also great. The shop caters for snorkelling, recreational diving and technical diving. They can fully support rebreather diving and also have sufficient helium and oxygen to support open circuit tech diving. Mixes were, with one minor exception, accurate and prepared overnight for each day's diving.
Day 1 was 2x air work-up dives, to 55 and 58m respectively (deep air was my choice, Nat was on a rebreather with appropriate mix), along with 50% and 80% for deco. I usually take 02 as my shallow deco but took 80% at Nat's suggestion and it was definitely the right call given the geography of the site. We were doing shore diving, which is a bit of a chore on open circuit as it involves a surface swim out to where the deep wall drops off to 8,000ft, starting at around 50m / 180ft depth. But the swim is worth it; the diving is quite spectacular and the water is warm and clear. After two great dives, we set a plan for a trimix dive to around 85m / 280ft the next day.
For the morning dive on day 2 I took AL80 doubles of 15/47, a travel gas of 20/37 (probably didn't need this much helium but there was a pre-made mix already sitting around), 50% and 80%. The dive ran to plan, with a total run time of 70 minutes. Highlight was dropping down through a natural arch at around 80m, which was quite a dramatic underwater feature. I'm not a massive fan of doing 3 bottle dives without a scooter, but the lack of current makes the site manageable. This was a really nice dive. For the afternoon I air-topped my doubles and did a relaxed ~55m dive along the top of the deep wall.
Day 3 was the big one. 100m / 330ft, which is a box I wanted to check off before I start my CCR course next week. And it turned out to be pretty spectacular. I took 12/65 in the doubles, 21/35 as travel gas, 50% and 80%.
After a tough surface swim, we dropped down to the top of the deep wall at around 60m, where Nat expertly navigated us to a natural tunnel / chute which cuts through the seabed and then emerges on the deep wall at around 75m. This was a bit tight with doubles and 3x AL80s, but manageable. After popping out on the side of the deep wall, we descended to 100m, hung around for a couple of minutes, and then began a quite leisurely ascent up the wall towards my first gas switch at 57m. I ran a bit below my reserves on back gas due to a slower than planned ascent (I had not appreciated just how hard it is to get moving with that much weight at depth), but had 100 bar left in the travel gas and wasn't too worried, and I padded the deco at the end, leading to an almost 2hr runtime, but it was a really memorable dive and one I would like to come back and do in a few years once I have my JJ and my Mod 3 (if that day comes).
For my fourth and final day I went out on one of the two boats that are run by InDepth Watersports. We did a nice 55m max depth dive along the wall, with a total runtime of about 80 minutes. Dive time could have been a lot shorter, but I chose to just air top my deco gas from the prior day's dive and only wanted to take one bottle, so it was air and 60%.
All said, I would heartily recommend InDepth Watersports, and the tech diving opportunities on Grand Cayman in general. I will be back with my rebreather next year.
