Room for Scuba Tanks

[maytrix]

Hi,

I've been browsing the forum for quite some time now as we prepare for a bareboat charter in the BVI this October.

The majority of our group are certified Scuba divers so we want to be able to dive while we are there. We are chartering with the moorings and will be on one of their cats. We are still waiting to finalize which one since we may add 1-2 more people, but right now we have the moorings 4000 booked. The 4300 or 4700 would be what we'd upgrade too depending on how many people get added.

What I don't know and am hoping someone has experience with is how many tanks we could feasibly bring without taking up too much space. Clearly space is limited and I'm wondering what others have had experience with. I know we could do some rendezvous diving, but I think we'd all rather not be bothered with having to meet at a specific time and want to just do things whenever we want

Any comments or suggestions would be helpful! Thanks!

[Jeannius]

You can tie as many tank racks as you want along the lifelines. I wouldn't be concerned about space on any of the boats you mention.

With regard to rendezvous diving... You are going really low season and the dive outfits will do whatever you ask just to get some business at that time of year.

[Excalibur5]

We chartered a 4700 in the BVI, and had 4 of us that dove, with 8 tanks on board. The rental company provided us with tank racks that we tied to the rails on the stern of the boat, it worked perfectly. I'm sure you have been into it, but DO NOT MISS the Rhone--it is incredible. If you get to the dive site a little after it gets light (we did) you will be the first ones on it, and there will be fish everywhere. Also, if you hit the mooring buoy that is the only yellow one in the middle of the red (dive charter boat) buoy, it will put you directly over the top of the bow.

We rented our gear from UBS dive center (they have a website). It was OK gear, but not excellent. It was well worth the price to have the gear on board for whenever we wanted to use it. Air fill stations are all over the BVI, and they gave us a book with locations of all the fill sites. With 2 tanks each, we never had any problems running low on air.

To further answer your question, we would have had space for maybe a dozen tanks easy, maybe 16 without crowding too much on the 4700.

PM me if you want, and I'll send you a link to some of our pictures of diving in the BVI.

The diving there is truly world class. Enjoy!

[maytrix]

Thanks for the great responses.

Jeannius - I knew it was the low season - I didn't really think about how easy it would be to get a company to meet us though. Still, with a few of our group not diving, I think we'd like the option of jumping in anywhere at anytime

And it sounds like that shouldn't be a problem anyway Now if I can just get time to accelerate a couple months, all will be good!

[sailvi767]

Maytrix, email me at Sailvi767@aol.com and I will give you some tips on boat diving in the BVI. I dive every trip and do 6 or 7 trips a year. You will have no trouble storing as many tanks as you need on a cat. The one thing to watch for however is make sure they give you some newer tank racks. The older racks will bleed rust all over the deck of the boat during the course of a 1 week charter. I normally carry 2 tanks per diver. As mentioned there are lots of places to fill tanks.
George

[Elzaar]

Ditto on what has already been said. The ability to dive on your own in the BVI is fantastic, but we had dive guides on the Rhone and I was glad we did. There is too much history, etc., associated not to have someone there to tell you all of it and show you around, point out Lobzilla, touch this for luck, etc.