scubafanatic
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Hi Hemlon,
.....Dee's right, focus your trip in the late June through early Sept time frame...it's the best weather window.........trust me, I know from bitter experience, as I finally went for a 3 day trip Labor Day weekend.........and had a sensational time, did 11 dives, but my 6 previous attempts failed due to bad weather...the 7th time was the charm though!
...as far as experience.......some dive shops take new divers there, other's, like the one I went on the Sea Searcher II with on Labor Day, are opposed to taking new divers there. Let me put it this way, if a friend or relative of mine with 12 dives wanted to go with me, I'd refuse the request as too risky......heck, even I was nervous, and I'd just spent a week in July in Bonaire (23 dives) and a week on the JULIET (Bahamas) ( 15 dives ), so I'd had the benefit of 38 very blue water dives a month before my trip.
We were fortunate Labor Day, the conditions were picture perfect and awesome, under those ideal conditions a new diver would have done OK..but that's the exception, not the rule, at the Flower Gardens....you cannot bank on being that lucky.
Dives generally range from 60 to 90 ft. deep....expect to average 70--80 ft. deep.......although I did 3 dives to 130 ft. deep ( once at the Rig Dive , twice at Stetson Bank ) as those were the only places such depths were attainable (the boat imposed a 130 ft. limit).
Don't count on the boat crew to dive with you, they dive to attach mooring lines or check conditions before the guests dive, but they won't be in the water at the same time you are.....you will have to make your own arrangements if you need a DM.
If anything goes wrong, you are a LONG way from help, and while on Sea Searcher II I got to listen on the radio to a Fling/Spree emergency as one of their divers had an eye put out by an errant bungie cord........and during a surface interval we got to watch the Fling/Spree racing to a near by oil rig to drop off this diver so a Coast Guard helicopter could evacuate him to the mainland ( I forget exactly which of the 2 boats it happened on)......I was told the diver's eye didn't make it, he was blinded.admittedly not exactly a diving accident, but food for thought.
We did have a new diver on board, getting his AOW, and he got separated from his buddy (and this was in broad daylight, great vis conditions ) and the crew deployed the zodiac to recover him, and commented even under the modest 1--2 ft wave conditions they'd never have seen him had he not deployed his safety sausage.
If you 'lose' the boat, be prepared to do mid-water-column safety stops without benefit of a mooring line to grab.
I don't want to be negative, I plan to take 1 or 2 trips out there again in '05 myself, and I'm sure your wife would do fine under the ideal conditions I experienced......but if gets a bit ugly out there or you have a diver 'situation', it could easily escalate out of control.
Best of luck to you both...whatever your decision.
Karl
.....Dee's right, focus your trip in the late June through early Sept time frame...it's the best weather window.........trust me, I know from bitter experience, as I finally went for a 3 day trip Labor Day weekend.........and had a sensational time, did 11 dives, but my 6 previous attempts failed due to bad weather...the 7th time was the charm though!
...as far as experience.......some dive shops take new divers there, other's, like the one I went on the Sea Searcher II with on Labor Day, are opposed to taking new divers there. Let me put it this way, if a friend or relative of mine with 12 dives wanted to go with me, I'd refuse the request as too risky......heck, even I was nervous, and I'd just spent a week in July in Bonaire (23 dives) and a week on the JULIET (Bahamas) ( 15 dives ), so I'd had the benefit of 38 very blue water dives a month before my trip.
We were fortunate Labor Day, the conditions were picture perfect and awesome, under those ideal conditions a new diver would have done OK..but that's the exception, not the rule, at the Flower Gardens....you cannot bank on being that lucky.
Dives generally range from 60 to 90 ft. deep....expect to average 70--80 ft. deep.......although I did 3 dives to 130 ft. deep ( once at the Rig Dive , twice at Stetson Bank ) as those were the only places such depths were attainable (the boat imposed a 130 ft. limit).
Don't count on the boat crew to dive with you, they dive to attach mooring lines or check conditions before the guests dive, but they won't be in the water at the same time you are.....you will have to make your own arrangements if you need a DM.
If anything goes wrong, you are a LONG way from help, and while on Sea Searcher II I got to listen on the radio to a Fling/Spree emergency as one of their divers had an eye put out by an errant bungie cord........and during a surface interval we got to watch the Fling/Spree racing to a near by oil rig to drop off this diver so a Coast Guard helicopter could evacuate him to the mainland ( I forget exactly which of the 2 boats it happened on)......I was told the diver's eye didn't make it, he was blinded.admittedly not exactly a diving accident, but food for thought.
We did have a new diver on board, getting his AOW, and he got separated from his buddy (and this was in broad daylight, great vis conditions ) and the crew deployed the zodiac to recover him, and commented even under the modest 1--2 ft wave conditions they'd never have seen him had he not deployed his safety sausage.
If you 'lose' the boat, be prepared to do mid-water-column safety stops without benefit of a mooring line to grab.
I don't want to be negative, I plan to take 1 or 2 trips out there again in '05 myself, and I'm sure your wife would do fine under the ideal conditions I experienced......but if gets a bit ugly out there or you have a diver 'situation', it could easily escalate out of control.
Best of luck to you both...whatever your decision.
Karl
