Waking up on vacation--how early is too early for a first dive?

[Scuba_Noob]

To clarify, I don't mind waking up at any time if it's necessary to catch slack tide in a current area or if it will get me more dives (or better dives) that day.

 

[graham_s]

I get up at 0400 for work most days, so I can get up early (I just don't like it)
Most of the dives I do out here (Saudi) are 0615 pick up for getting into the water at 0700.

 

[tdtaylor]

Never found a 8-9:00 dive a problem, especially on a live-a-board, as long as I can get a little coffee in me. On the other hand, I have caught dive boats at 8:00am (be there at 7:30 to load) after a 2 hour and 45 minute drive- but I did get lots of coffee on the trip ;-)

 

[TMHeimer]

For me, it all has to do with what time you get to sleep (not to bed) the night before. With my usual wake up time so late (10-11), this is a problem obviously. I have semi-solved it in recent years by taking a sleeping pill. If you never take one unless absolutely necessary you'd be surprised how well they work. Diving with 5-6 hours sleep instead of 3-4 is quite a difference. Even I can do that for one day and be alert and enjoy the dives.

 

[lv2dive]

I am NOT a morning person but for whatever reason, on dive vacations (as opposed to my weekend trips to N FL) I am generally up with the sun. There is another thread around here somewhere where some people are taking issue with multiple dives a day; me, I'm going to take advantage of being across the country or world and get as much diving in as possible - four or five rec dives/day if possible. Which leads to less desire for night life and more desire for an early pillow date - in turn leading to the earlier-than-typical wakeup, I guess.

 

[tracydr]

This is part of why my husband and I love trips where we shore dive. Somedays we dive late into the evening and sleep in, get up for a late breakfast and start late. Other days or locations, we get started early and finish our dive day earlier. However, we do usually night dive most nights, unless we need a break and decide to drink beer/wine with a late lunch. Then we just relax. If there's a spot that requires an early start to hit the tides we work our night schedule around this so that we can do that spot on a morning when we didn't dive late the night before.
The nice thing about shore diving, especially with a buddy who likes to dive on the same type of schedule you do, is that there is no clock watching, no boat to catch. It's just so relaxing.
Bonaire, Catalina, Hawaii all work well for this. Going to try to make a trip to the northwest, maybe next summer.
Livaboards are really nice but many times we choose shore diving trips because they are just so relaxing.

 

[Doc]

We are currently re-arranging our diving schedules and I was wondering what time people feel comfortable getting up in the morning. Here in the Maldives the sun is up at around 6am, setting at 6pm- yep we're on the equator.

Personally I don't care about waking up at a certain time as it's just a 'number' but some people shudder at waking up at 6am whilst on vacation.

This may seem like I'm joking, but no...

It's your ship, set the clock (not the one in the pilothouse) any way you want. Make sunrise occur at 0700 or whatever.

Tell the guests that since you cross over time zones (what do they know?) you have made a decision to set it "this way".

The advantage that you will have in this charade is that all of your customers have just spent enormous amounts of time in the air traveling South, essentially in one or two time zones. They will arrive befuddled and ready to believe anything you tell them.

Like you say, "it's just a number".

 

[vladimir]

In the Maldives, just about all of your customers are jet-lagged, so their habits matter less. I do not like waking up before dawn, and I like a little time for my morning routine, so I would not want to dive much before 8:00 there. In my experience, if I am diving at 8:00 the dinghy is usually pretty empty.

In Bonaire, with no jet-lag, I usually make the 9:00 boat, but often will shore dive at around 8:00 instead, and catch a leisurely post-dive breakfast.

---------- Post Merged at 10:33 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:30 AM ----------

Tell the guests that since you cross over time zones (what do they know?) you have made a decision to set it "this way".

Hopefully enough to see through that.

 

[mattoau]

Different fish (+other species) do different things at different times of the day. There is always a good reason to dive; morning, noon, afternoon or night. If it's not your time zone then don 't dive

 

[Quero]

I hate getting up in the dark, so those 5 a.m. trips to see threshers at Malapascua Philippines make me groan. But if it's light out, I'm golden and happy to wake up to go diving.