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Thread: Caribb-LEM Mark IV! (Utila) March 13-23 2019 Registration details

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by HankLloydRight View Post
    It's actually $220 round trip!
    Derp I thought I edited my message to say that but then I clicked submit without re-reading my post.

  2. #42
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    Thumbs up Caribb-LEM # 4 is coming up soon!

    Hey guys;

    The ticket prices on flights to mainland Honduras have dropped significantly in the past couple weeks. At this point it is much cheaper for me to fly Delta airlines into San Pedro Sula (SAP) as the ticket price is down to just $665. (Which is only ~ 50 bucks more than I paid 2 years ago.) When you add another $220 for the CM airlines flight direct to the island I'm at just under $900 for travel costs, which is pretty reasonable.

    Unfortunately, the flights to Roatan (RTB) have gone up in price since I last checked. It would cost me nearly $1300 to get there from Charleston! So, yeah - I'm going to be flying into SAP again. (At this point it's a tradition!) I'll be booking my flight this weekend.

    I spoke with Rich yesterday. He has 6 to 8 couples that will be joining us from his dive shop in California. (Well, I *think* they are couples; I might have misunderstood him though, so some of those could be singles...) Either way, at this point it appears there won't be any problems with single-occupancy rooms as there should be enough to go around.

    A few people have asked about diving on Nitrox while in Utila. This can be done, but we will need to rent the tanks from a shop in town and have them filled each day. This is going to get expensive. Figure on $12 to $15 *PER TANK* if you want to use Nitrox.

    Given that we've never had to limit our bottom time due to nitrogen there is little benefit to using Nitrox on the island. (We normally dive in the shallows where all the cool stuff is, so we run out of air long before we become nitrogen limited.) Rich used to have Nitrox at the shop at Coral View but he took it out because he found that he never really needed it. But if you still want to use it, just let Rich know in advance and he'll arrange things with one of the local shops.

    Right now we have Brad, Ethan, Hank, and myself all set to go. Anyone else planning to join us?

    Adam

  3. #43
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    May 2014
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    Damn, and I already booked my SAP ticket with miles! Oh well. At least it's first class.


    I agree, I got Nitrox certified for my Bonaire trip, and in the end, it really didn't matter one little bit. Some people claim that when diving Nitrox, even for more shallow dives (say 60 feet or less), they just "feel better" after diving, and not so tired or worn out. That somehow the higher oxygen content (or lower N content) has an observable effect on these people. Frankly, I really didn't notice any difference. Most all of the dives we did were 40 to 60 feet (a few deeper, but not many), and except for one notable exception (I can tell you the stories in Utila), nobody really ran low on Nitrox. And even in our group of about 20, a few were diving air anyway.

    So it was good to get certified, and learn and experience something new, and in case I ever do deeper or longer dives where Nitrox could actually help, I have that available to use. But for recreational diving like we do, it's not really needed at all.

  4. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by HankLloydRight View Post
    Damn, and I already booked my SAP ticket with miles! Oh well. At least it's first class.


    I agree, I got Nitrox certified for my Bonaire trip, and in the end, it really didn't matter one little bit. Some people claim that when diving Nitrox, even for more shallow dives (say 60 feet or less), they just "feel better" after diving, and not so tired or worn out. That somehow the higher oxygen content (or lower N content) has an observable effect on these people.
    I think it does but isn't always noticeable. But none of the diving we did in Utila seemed to need it. It's a hassle, having to analyze before every dive and even here on land is quite a bit more expensive.

    I did a fairly shortish pool session on a 100% o2 CCR and I was tired going in -- could definitely tell it woke me up.

    I will be doing 7 day trip due to work / leave afaik right now. Will book plane Saturday.

    I did mention to Buffo that if I did do a 11 day it would be nice to get Advance Nitrox / Deco proceedure cert while I was there if any shop did it - but I don't think that would be a worry due to not having leave to make it 11 days :-) Hmmm SDI Solo wouldn't be bad either.
    Modern and Retro laser show hobbyist
    Pangolin QM16, QM32, Beyond Adv, LSX, ADAT, FB3, FB4
    LS Pluto II x 2, custom build x 1
    http://lasershowwiki.757.org for my all encompassing laser show wiki.

  5. #45
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    Heyo, Flight booked for the 7 day trip! It's happening!

    Dive buddy Hank, I will be a few days late but going to make it.

    Any of you all use a knock off go-pro? Looks like some of them are doing 4K and ~$120ish.

    As far as laser hardware, I plan to bring my new-used laptop with Beyond 4, and my Pango Beyond Advanced fb3 license jibby. I don't have a small projector. I was thinking of trying to recase my homebuild but I want a sexy case and probably won't have time to source one plus single mode green and driver and rebuild it.

    With Beyond 4.0 Pangolin graciously (THANKS Pangolin!!!) added in the advanced license to include the Cinema 4d plugin. I'd love to try to figure out how to do some stuff in Cinema 4d and export it over to laser. The big thing that Beyond 3d doesn't have (and would never be worth Pangolin adding) is Kinematics where you can take a wired 3d model and make it walk around. I think being able to do that out to laser to make more frames and clips would be cool, and would like to figure that out while I have some time in afternoon to play around.

    Thoughts? What do others want to learn or work on or do besides eat yummy food and chase fish around?
    Modern and Retro laser show hobbyist
    Pangolin QM16, QM32, Beyond Adv, LSX, ADAT, FB3, FB4
    LS Pluto II x 2, custom build x 1
    http://lasershowwiki.757.org for my all encompassing laser show wiki.

  6. #46
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    May 2014
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    Connecticut
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    I'll guess I'll book that CM flight before it sells out! LOL.

    In Bonaire, I used a $50 gopro knockoff which really worked well, it even had an internal (software) red filter for underwater shots. The problem was the waterproof case it came with. I had it in my BCD pocket attached to a camera hand-stick. One the second day, I went to retrieve the camera, and it got bound up on something inside the pocket (likely the integrated weights).. anyway, I struggled to free it to get it out of the pocket, and I guess I torqued the case a tiny bit? Flooded! The thing died a few moments later. Even worse, when I took out the micro-SD card to retrieve what I had recorded the day before, one of the gold traces was burned clear off! I don't know how that happened, but when it flooded the salt water must have shorted something out and arced on the SD card. I was actually a little worried of a Li-ion battery meltdown while on the dive!

    When I got back I sent the entire kit back to Amazon and got a refund. I'll get another one for Utila and just be careful with the case.

  7. #47
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    When I did the flight booking the first leg had a lot of empty seats. I was thinking, "maaan you all could of cut me some pricing slack due to all these excess seats, regardless of my procrastination." But then the next leg to RTB, there was 1 seat left. Phew!

    When I get home tonight I will look up info on the Akaso V50 Pro camera to see what the output really looks like. I found it while googling while stuck in traffic on commute into work.

    Bummer to hear about your ActionCam going thermonuclear with the introduction of salt water. The SD card probably had the 3.3v rail and shorted to ground through the saltwater.
    Modern and Retro laser show hobbyist
    Pangolin QM16, QM32, Beyond Adv, LSX, ADAT, FB3, FB4
    LS Pluto II x 2, custom build x 1
    http://lasershowwiki.757.org for my all encompassing laser show wiki.

  8. #48
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    Jan 2006
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    Charleston, SC
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    2,147,489,446

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    Less than 2 days! Less than 2 days! Man, I can't wait for this thing to start...

    Adam

  9. #49
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    Default 5 days for me, still excited

    5 days here (I leave Saturday.)

    Have USB hard drive plugged into my laptop. Just dumped off video I took in 2017, and will dump all my photos from digital camera and will check phone as well! Will hand off all my photos and video to anyone who wants it from the 2017 trip.

    And of course, will take more photos this time I hope!

    Since I am 3 days behind you all, if you get there and realize you forgot something hit me up.

    I *hope* to have the underwater laser circle thing and underwater laser pointer done by trip.

    Can't wait!
    Modern and Retro laser show hobbyist
    Pangolin QM16, QM32, Beyond Adv, LSX, ADAT, FB3, FB4
    LS Pluto II x 2, custom build x 1
    http://lasershowwiki.757.org for my all encompassing laser show wiki.

  10. #50
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    May 2014
    Location
    Connecticut
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    Quote Originally Posted by buffo View Post
    Less than 2 days! Less than 2 days! Man, I can't wait for this thing to start...
    I'm looking forward to the trip, but I have so many good projects in the air right now, I can't even thing of scuba diving until Thursday morning. It will be a great trip, but the timing for me is like UGH!! NOW???!

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