Trip Reports

Crazyduck

Tom,
Great write up sir.
When you are next in Austin give me some heads up and I will gladly host you to a few interesting places.
San Marcos (south of Austin) has some of the only existing wild rice left in Texas Spring waters. I can provide diving in a waterfall that then runs in front of the University were the ladies sunbath and the clear waters of the San Marcos river runs wild. Depth no greater than 20ft.

Arkansas-
We have a series of lakes. But needless to say there is a lake that has small fresh water jellies. They do not sting and are fragile little creatures. Then off to the Crystals and gold. I have an area called Zebra rock, we have been hauling out crystals for ages and rumor has it there is gold with those crystals. Best digging is 4ft to 20ft.
Then there is the diamond mine- state park only one in the US.

When that gets boring there is the mountains of Arkansas and Texas. I have been hiking in the hills that have water clear as glass and amazing sites. It is not for scuba because of the hike but just the stuff for an O2 rebreather.

When that is all said and done we have Mustang Island near Corpus Christi. The land of turbid water and the blue water that rolls in late in August/ September. We dive the channel and watch for freighters that displace more water than Archimedes could have ever imaged.

Ultimately for me this leads to Cozumel were the ‘German’ can fill O2 tanks on the island and we have Octopus rock. Plans are afoot to visit in stealth mode with a digital camera and a smile- 15ft. Nothing like walking into the water right from the beach hunting in the ell grass.

Later, Andrew

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dave burke

Hi Tom
great report, thank you for taking the time to put finger to keyborad
safe diving
dave

silent running

Hi Stuart, say yes to more trip reports. I don't know why others have not posted theirs, but I tried to post at least one a while back and had a problem doing so. Might be due to my old age and being an inadvertant luddite. Anyway, here's the most recent one from a trip to Ambon Indonesia...


Hello all, I returned from Ambon about 8 weeks ago. I and 2 other CCR divers were there for 12 days diving with Maluku Divers. The diving was excellent and the operation was excellently run by Mario, who's Polish last name escapes me now. We had sharks on almost every dive, a good amount of pelagics at some sites and excellent muck diving in Ambon Bay-saw 3 Inimicus on 1 dive, Leafy Rhinopias, lots of Frogfish and much more. Oh, and there's a big Dutch freighter scuttled during WW2 in the harbor, teeming with life. Only downside of Ambon is like other parts of Indo, there's a lot of plastic and other trash floating around, but still great fish life. I did not feel any security threat, moved freely around the locals, spent some time touring an old mosque and had a pleasant chat with the Imam, although nothing serious came up in conversation.

The onsite accomodations were a bit spartan, but clean and had A/C. There are better hotels in town which they can arrange for you if you're picky. The price was very reasonable, on par with the Philippines, but much better diving and a much more intact food chain. Food ranged from healthy and decent to excellent-swordfish sashimi with an incredible local peanut chili sauce made by incomparable boatman Benny. I highly recomend the place and Mario, who is as knowledgeable, funny and nice as you could ask for. He did not flinch when we asked for O2, % and cylinder pressures from his industrial supplier. In fact, he asked if we would like a picture of the fitting to make sure we had the right one to decant. He took an active interest in our trip. He was a thouroughly experienced OC tech diver and was neither skeptical nor bothered by our requests. I will go back.

On an appetite whetting note, we "attempted" to do a search for a B-17 shot down between the #2 and #3 of the outer islands. There were 6 of us and we were blown off a wide plateau about 18M deep in less than 15 mminutes by ripping currents. 26 minute dive time, I hate seeing anything less than 3 digits on my dive timer. We covered a large area, but saw nothing new. With a current like that, my guess is that the wreck is on the backside of the plateau, and may very well be at diveable depth. If I had known how stong the current was btw the 2 islands, I would've planned a deep dive off the back of the palateau, but nobody asked me. Note to self:next time don't wait to be asked...
.
If you are determined to do only land based diving, I suggest that you include a trip to Banda, which is a smaller nearby island with a sister dive op. I'm told it has even more pelagics and more excellent diving. I was very happy with what we saw in Ambon, but it was all on CCR. Banda on OC might make up the differnce. Mario said we saw more sharks on 1 dive than he saw in a a month.

There are also some liveaboards which depart from Ambon City on 7 day trips to Banda and some uninhabited islands in the Banda Sea, another good idea. Happy trails, -Andy

schford

I love a good trip write up - doesnt matter where it is - also helps me work out where I Want to go dive aorund the world - I am sure that everyone else feels the same!

Stuart

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schford

Trip reports should be in their own thread & / or for fancy ones with photos in the library I will move them - maybe I should do their own forum - that might be an idea.....

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Beanie

sounds like a cunning plan

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silent running

Ummm, to be clear/what I meant was I should've known when I saw the pretty turquoise colored shallow water stretching out before us that the B-17 would almost certainly not be on the bank/shallows btw the 2 island: it would've been found already. Likewise, the current. I asked what it was like and they said that the current was not so strong, which in hind sight meant that they hadn't dived there very often. Should've known, like you wreckers and made the unpopular suggestion to dive on the drop off SW of the 2 islands, might have found something that way...argh.

There's always next time. -Andy

rigdiver

Just back from 2 weeks in Grand Cayman and Innnerspace 2007. I'll try and compose my thoughts and jot something down. It was a great week of Rebreather diving with the best topside support you could ever ask for. You could see Inspo's, Evolutions, Kiss's, Boris, Habanero, and even a working Titan, and a couple of Megs. Had a few manufacturers reps and a diving Doc from DAN. No good question left unanswered. Thanks Nancy, Jay, Nat, et.al..

Bill

Beanie

http://www.rebreatherworld.com/trip-reports/

A nice new forum for you guys to post your trip reports in if you please.

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