On Liveaboards - Arrival
First night (continued)
Other stuff the briefing may cover includes important information about your cabins, no smoking areas (generally anywhere inside and the gearing up areas), wet and dry areas (Please no sitting on the inside furnishings in a wet salty swimming costumes - even with a towel wrapped around - it will soak through), off-limits parts of the boat and safety procedures.
Cabins will be assigned and then you’ll be asked to start gearing up. Gearing up will no doubt be interrupted by your evening meal.
Gearing up
Its very important that you gear up on the first night. You may have used your equipment recently but the baggage handlers at the airport may not have treated your bags with the respect you believe they deserved. Things may have been damaged in transit. So your guides are unlikely to let you go to bed before this has been done. Besides, its just possible you forgot to pack something and its better to have discovered this the night before your boat departs. In the morning, when everyone else is geared up, is not the time to discover your inflator is broken or your regulator is leaking. While your guide may or may not know how to service your particular make and model of regulator or BCD, the chances are he won’t have the parts.
Which brings me to the topic of servicing gear. A well serviced regulator is great and most manufacturers recommend an annual service. Do not get a perfectly working regulator serviced before a safari unless you have the opportunity to try it out before the trip. On diving safaris we see no end of regulators that are leaking and the sound of air escape is usually accompanied but a wail of “ but I just got it serviced last week”. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
If you require any rental gear you should mention this on the first night - particularly torches for night dives - people always forget those ! Some boats have a small supply of rental gear onboard but not all.
Some liveaboards, like Royal Evolution, carry a number of 15 litre tanks for rent. Many boats however don’t and must rent them from shore. If you know that you are an Air Pig™ (a technical term, I swear), now would be the time to let your guide know. You parted with a fair sum of cash to come on the trip, now you are here you probably want to spend as much time underwater as possible. A few pounds or euros extra a day for a bigger tank that gives you 10 to 15 minutes more per dive is a bargain at this point.
Disclaimers, Logbooks and Certification cards.
You will be asked to sign a disclaimer before you set out to sea.
Your guides will usually be interested to see your log books and certification cards. We just like to see your highest rating and, if you have one, a nitrox certification card. Why do we like to see your logbooks? Well, we like to have an inkling of your diving experience before we take you on the check dive. If you’ve filled it in carefully we can get an idea of the kind of depths you are comfortable at and very importantly your typical air consumption. Air consumption records allow us to make a recommendations as to whether a 15 litre tank may be more suitable.