Which month for BDE?

[Mod63]

If done BDE I don't know how may times, but I do know that it is completely unpredictable what you see. One year we had OWT on both Brothers and Deadalus in troves, you had to be very carefull not to hit one when jumping into the water. Another year, same time, zlich. Bothers actually was so bad that we called it off after a day (those where the times when you could still stay overnight). As to the number of dives, there is a no night dive policy in the marine parks, but at Fury Shoals, St.Johns and up north we did 4 dives on most days.

 

[Asanoth]

Thanks for the replies.

I think the depth argument is more about "in warmer water, you see hammerheads 20+ meters below you", but I do not know if it makes sense. I read it here a few times.

I understand it is not a zoo, I have done a lot of (land) wildlife travels, but I am still trying to pick the "best chances" month. But so far it sounds it is not so variable as I thought it would be from reading the forum.

Do not LBs do 4 dives even in marine parks? I mean it would be quite simple to do 4 dives with 12+ hours of daylight, no?

Regarding reef sharks, I will always like to see them, but they are of a lesser interest to me (meaning I would not stir the trip according to them even if they were seasonal), as I saw the three species already in Asia, grey only once, but blacktip and whitetip many times.

 

[Mod63]

Do not LBs do 4 dives even in marine parks? I mean it would be quite simple to do 4 dives with 12+ hours of daylight, no?

It will be come very hectic as you can calculate 2:30h from briefing to last diver back for every dive. Filling the tnaks can take an hour and depending on the time of year sunset is at 18:00. A usual schedule is like 6:30, 10:30, 14:30 and 18:30 for the dives.

 

[Asanoth]

Would you then recommend June over September? It's 12.5 vs 13.5 hours of light and if it means adding 4 dives throughout the day...? I will contact the LBs as well to clarify.

 

[Mod63]

Would you then recommend June over September? It's 12.5 vs 13.5 hours of light and if it means adding 4 dives throughout the day...? I will contact the LBs as well to clarify.

Simply accpet that there are only 3 dives a day in Marine parks.

 

[JustSurfaceInterval]

Filling the tnaks can take an hour

Filling tanks should run in the background as there should be enough tanks on board and not only 1 per diver…

A usual schedule is like 6:30, 10:30, 14:30 and 18:30 for the dives.

Assuming all 4 dives at the same place or only short distance between different spots.

 

[Mod63]

Filling tanks should run in the background as there should be enough tanks on board and not only 1 per diver…

On a LoB there is one tank per diver - you set up your gear once and dive with the same tank the whole time...

 

[Dan]

On a LoB there is one tank per diver - you set up your gear once and dive with the same tank the whole time...

I've done 30+ liveaboard diving, about all of them is set up that way.

 

[Mod63]

I've done 30+ liveaboard diving, about all of them is set up that way.

It's one of the things I like about LoB diving

 

[Dan]

It's one of the things I like about LoB diving

I have my way of strapping the tank to my BCD and attaching my regulator to BCD and tank valve and don’t want anyone to touch it after some bad experiences when letting DMs to set it up for me.

1st situation
During my rookie days I used to let DM set my gears up and at one time he put my regulator upside down. I didn’t realize it until I was in the water, when I wanted to turn my head to the left and noticed that my primary regulator hose was too short and ended up biting my mouthpiece off the 2nd stage in trying to pull it to the left with my mouth.

2nd situation
I used to have yoke mount regulator. On my dive #1443, in one of my planned deep (40m) wreck dive, I heard a lot of noise from behind me. I tapped my DM and pointed to my back. His quick response was to grab my BCD shoulder strap and offer me his Octopus. Apparently a gush of bubbles came out of my tank valve. We cancelled out the dive and went back to the surface. We checked the cause of the leak and found out that my yoke mount regulator o-ring seal face was so badly scratched (see Figure 1, below) from so many times of mounting and dismounting the regulator onto tank valves and the scratches may have cut the tank o-ring. The yoke seal face is sticking out and prone to get bump, nick or scratch from rough handling as the alignment boss is very shallow (1/8” or 3mm deep).

Figure 1: Badly scratched Yoke mount regulator seal face.

My fix was to convert it into DIN mount regulator. The DIN mount (as shown in Figure 2, below) has machine screw seal face & o-ring that screws into the tank valve to insure of proper alignment, sort of a fool proof design for rough handling.

The tank o-ring seal is now on my regulator, not on the tank. I have full control of the quality of the o-ring seal. The seal face of the tank valve is well protected inside the female DIN hole of the tank valve. The alignment threads is about an inch (25.4mm) deep and you won’t mesh up the alignment as it is machine screw.

Figure 2: DIN mount regulator seal face.