Wall dive advice - low experience diver

[tlehman]

Hi Folks,

Appreciate all the input and considerations ... and the offers to fly in from around the world gave me a good chuckle.

I did the dives on Saturday. As I posted earlier, a person I met here lives in the Bahamas and offered to be my dive buddy. He's an experienced DM and the knows the Stuart Cove dives well. We did AM and PM two-tank dives. In the morning we stuck to hard bottom, around 40-50'. I did the wall on the first dive in the afternoon, maximum depth was about 80-90'. As someone else noted, this is not a sheer drop wall; it has some slope to it as it falls to 6500'. I did not experience any strong down or updrafts; managing depth was pretty easy. Last dive was another 40-50' to explore some wrecks.

Couple of conclusions and words of advice to anyone else in my situation, one general and one specific to this location.

First, having my DM buddy who was there for that purpose rather than on his vacation dive was absolutely the right arrangement. The day would not have gone nearly as well if the other person was just another diver understandably there for their own dive enjoyment. In hindsight, if I hadn't had this great opportunity, I should have hired a DM. It has nothing to do with the wall, frankly. It just made the day go better and I came away a better, more confident diver as a result. In this case, I also met a great person and made a new friend. If he wants to identify himself, I'll leave that to him.

Second, I strongly endorse the Stuart Cove operation. Yes it is a volume operation checking in and getting fitted for any rental equipment. But it all goes smoothly and the people are friendly and helpful. Once on the boat, it became a small boat personalized experience. We only had about 10 divers in the morning, but in the afternoon we have a full load of 20 divers. In both instances, I found the staff attentive, helpful and focused on both safety and making sure we were able to have the fun we'd signed up for. It was a great experience being on those boats. I am very impressed with the operation and would not hesitate for a second to recommend them. If I had time in my schedule here, I'd be over there again.

So now I've tripled my dive count from 2 to 6. Still early in this, but a lot further along on my scuba path than a few days ago.

 

[Den7]

Hi Folks,

Appreciate all the input and considerations ... and the offers to fly in from around the world gave me a good chuckle.

I did the dives on Saturday. As I posted earlier, a person I met here lives in the Bahamas and offered to be my dive buddy. He's an experienced DM and the knows the Stuart Cove dives well. We did AM and PM two-tank dives. In the morning we stuck to hard bottom, around 40-50'. I did the wall on the first dive in the afternoon, maximum depth was about 80-90'. As someone else noted, this is not a sheer drop wall; it has some slope to it as it falls to 6500'. I did not experience any strong down or updrafts; managing depth was pretty easy. Last dive was another 40-50' to explore some wrecks.

Couple of conclusions and words of advice to anyone else in my situation, one general and one specific to this location.

First, having my DM buddy who was there for that purpose rather than on his vacation dive was absolutely the right arrangement. The day would not have gone nearly as well if the other person was just another diver understandably there for their own dive enjoyment. In hindsight, if I hadn't had this great opportunity, I should have hired a DM. It has nothing to do with the wall, frankly. It just made the day go better and I came away a better, more confident diver as a result. In this case, I also met a great person and made a new friend. If he wants to identify himself, I'll leave that to him.

Second, I strongly endorse the Stuart Cove operation. Yes it is a volume operation checking in and getting fitted for any rental equipment. But it all goes smoothly and the people are friendly and helpful. Once on the boat, it became a small boat personalized experience. We only had about 10 divers in the morning, but in the afternoon we have a full load of 20 divers. In both instances, I found the staff attentive, helpful and focused on both safety and making sure we were able to have the fun we'd signed up for. It was a great experience being on those boats. I am very impressed with the operation and would not hesitate for a second to recommend them. If I had time in my schedule here, I'd be over there again.

So now I've tripled my dive count from 2 to 6. Still early in this, but a lot further along on my scuba path than a few days ago.

Hi Tlehman!

Thank you for keeping us posted. I appreciate it as for example personally I learn quite a lot trying to analyze it all in details after my each dive. I think it's a great way to hone and master yours skills by going over your past dives step by step (minute by minute if possible) after your get out of the water. Did you feel OK by the way being as deep as 80-90 feet?

 

[jencirino]

Thanks Tleham! This thread has been a great source of information. My boyfriend and I are planning our first dive trip through Stuart Cove in May, and its good to know that another beginner diver felt comfortable there.

I was wondering how you made sure both morning dives were the hard bottom ones. Was this since you had your DM buddy with you or was the place able to accommodate this? I would really like to know as I would much rather do this as well.

Any other advice you have about diving through their operation would be very much appreciated.

 

[jmasin]

I didn't read all posts so excuse me if some of this is repeated.
WATCH YOUR DEPTH CLOSELY

I'll dupe it either way.

Walls are awesome, but every time I dive one I see someone going WAY too deep because they are not keeping track. Then the inevitable happens... people turn into swimming sheep and follow them down, loosing track of the dive lead and he has to signal them back up.

Pay attention to your depth. There's no excuse for being distracted and not keeping track of your depth.

If you're new and you think that's too much to keep track of then skip the wall dives and dive with a hard bottom like others said.

I'm new enough to still remember that diving to a max depth when the bottom is still a ways down is a skill. As humans we gravitate to the bottom, to a hard stop. I've been on wrecks that start at a good depth and end well below max depth. That takes ATTENTION TO DETAIL to not auto-gravitate to the bottom. Sadly I see people do it all the time, luckily I've yet to see a major issue.

One nice thing about walls, there's stuff to see at a wide range of depth. Depending on the wall around Nassau (I've been on the ones Stuart Cove uses) you can stay at 40 or go to 140 and you still see stuff (frankly below a certain point you see much less).

***
Whoops - EDIT - Realized you posted you've already returned LOL Good to hear you had a good experience!!

 

[Vicksburg Diver]

No way I would advise this for you. LIke others have said, find a location more suited to your skill level. Diving is supposed to be fun. Sandy bottom with a reef that forms a boundary line to the deep would be ideal for you.

 

[tlehman]

Thanks Tleham! This thread has been a great source of information. My boyfriend and I are planning our first dive trip through Stuart Cove in May, and its good to know that another beginner diver felt comfortable there.

I was wondering how you made sure both morning dives were the hard bottom ones. Was this since you had your DM buddy with you or was the place able to accommodate this? I would really like to know as I would much rather do this as well.

Any other advice you have about diving through their operation would be very much appreciated.

The pattern for the 2 tank dives is the first one is led by the DM to the wall and the second is to explore wrecks in about 40-50 feet of water. However the wall dive starts in an area with a hard bottom at about 40-50 feet and they make it clear that if you prefer to hang out there rather than do the wall, that's just fine. The DM will go with the group, however. Since you are buddies, there is no question of who you will end up with and whether that person is going to be set on getting to the wall. As I recall, there were others who opted to skip the wall that morning. I did the afternoon wall dive only because I was feeling quite comfortable at that point and had my DM dive buddy. Certainly would still have been a fun day if I'd opted to skip the wall on the second round as well. The second dives in both cases were only in hard bottom areas.

BTW, our DM on the wall dive I did in the afternoon was quite careful to keep the group at the 80-90 foot level. He said that if experienced divers wanted to get to triple digits, that was up to them, but he was keeping the group at the shallower level. Apparently many walls are more sheer and can have downdrafts that might push you deeper than you realize. I experienced none of that and keeping at the intended depth was no problem at all. In response to an earlier question, the depth was just fine. Actually on my first real dives five years ago in Puerto Rico, one of the dives was about 90 feet with a hard bottom. Didn't have any problems there either.

Hope that helps.

One added edit: If this is truly your first dive, I think sticking to the hard bottom is absolutely the right option. You do not want to do the wall dive as your first dive. No way. Depending on how comfortable you both feel about diving in general, you might want to pony up to hire a DM to go with you on these first dives. The DM leading our small group where I did my very first real dives in PR was my buddy and it was a great help for me. The cost would not be that much considering all the rest of the costs, and would help insure that your first dive experiences are good ones.

 

[jencirino]

Tleham, thanks so much for your response! Do you have any idea how we go about having a DM accompany us? Do we just book the dive though the site as normal and then contact them about it or would it be a completely separate thing? I just wish that there was some way I could garuntee that I wouldn't have to do the wall dive by signing up for the dives. It's quite annoying to me that they don't have another option for those like me that would much prefer to stick to hard bottoms.

I tried calling them at one point to ask about how dive sites are picked, and the lady I talked to was actually quite rude about it, showing no concern for the fact that I was worried about the wall dive. I will look into trying to have a DM accompany us. Would we just need one that would take the two of us?

Thanks again!

 

[tlehman]

Tleham, thanks so much for your response! Do you have any idea how we go about having a DM accompany us? Do we just book the dive though the site as normal and then contact them about it or would it be a completely separate thing? I just wish that there was some way I could garuntee that I wouldn't have to do the wall dive by signing up for the dives. It's quite annoying to me that they don't have another option for those like me that would much prefer to stick to hard bottoms.

I tried calling them at one point to ask about how dive sites are picked, and the lady I talked to was actually quite rude about it, showing no concern for the fact that I was worried about the wall dive. I will look into trying to have a DM accompany us. Would we just need one that would take the two of us?

Thanks again!

Don't really have much more to suggest, unfortunately. I only had the one experience. I know when I emailed them prior to the trip, they had talked about engaging a DM and I just assumed (and still do) that you could do that through them since it would undoubtedly be one of their DM's working for some extra money. But I didn't actually do that. Others can chime in but I see no reason why one DM accompanying the two of you wouldn't work just fine.

The booking connection is in Florida, but I believe you can call them directly in Nassau and speak with someone actually on site. Their description of the dive specifically references the option for people to stay in the shallower water.

Good luck.