Golden Dawn: Open ocean diving?

I was looking at the Eastern Fields trip. So what does open ocean diving really mean? You're always in open ocean, bobbing, with never a anchor in the calm; there is no calm; it's up one side of the wave and down the other or ?

Eric?

I'd love to join that trip you have but your current female guest would detect my manliness instantly. :-)

I guess the views must be for checking for accidents cause the subject was clear.

I was looking at the Eastern Fields trip. So what does open ocean diving really mean? You're always in open ocean, bobbing, with never a anchor in the calm; there is no calm; it's up one side of the wave and down the other or ?

 

Eric?

 

I'd love to join that trip you have but your current female guest would detect my manliness instantly. :-)

Did your manliness look here?

http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/papua-new-g...on-nov-dec-2009

Seems to be some good info and a link to Tony's blog with even more info. You might contact them directly about the trip if you really want to go -- they may not find this post in the forum . . .

Mike

PS -- didn't find too many accidents . . .

Did your manliness look here?

 

http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/papua-new-g...on-nov-dec-2009

 

Seems to be some good info and a link to Tony's blog with even more info. You might contact them directly about the trip if you really want to go -- they may not find this post in the forum . . .

 

Mike

 

PS -- didn't find too many accidents . . .

Yup

That trip isn't available because they only have one spot left for a female, thus my comment about wanting to go but can't since I'm a man. So I was thinking of going directly on the boat, but wondered what open ocean would mean here. There is a little information about the location in the link you mention, but not the level of detail I was looking for. So I thought, with all the professionals on this board, someone might have experience.

The comment about accidents is that it's always amazing to me that 160 people would look at the message without one syllable of response when the subject seemed pretty clear.

Yup

 

That trip isn't available because they only have one spot left for a female, thus my comment about wanting to go but can't since I'm a man. So I was thinking of going directly on the boat, but wondered what open ocean would mean here. There is a little information about the location in the link you mention, but not the level of detail I was looking for. So I thought, with all the professionals on this board, someone might have experience.

 

The comment about accidents is that it's always amazing to me that 160 people would look at the message without one syllable of response when the subject seemed pretty clear.

Would seem to be the distance from shore to me

DOD Dictionary of Military Terms

Ocean limit defined as greater than 12 nautical miles (nm) from shore, as compared with high seas that are over 200 nm from shore.

Also look here Discussion of Regions

There are some other things on this, but when I hear open ocean I generally think there ain't nothing going be land around for quite a distance

Shasta,

What more details do you want? The level of detail in the linked page has good info:

Bear in mind that the Eastern Fields is a submerged atoll in the middle of nowhere. It's completely exposed to the elements and virtually uncharted, which is the reason so few people go there. Only a few hundred people have ever dived out there.

I think that is very clear what is to be expected. What else do you want to know?

Oh that "one female" spot is soo calling out to me...alas I am broke from just having returned from PNG.

Suggestion for those who are desperate enough, if Simon can pull off that red dress and the number of cross dressing men in world who can actually pull it off

Shasta,

To answer your question specifically about Golden Dawn's "open ocean diving"...Eastern Fields is 120km from land. There is NOTHING around the area where Craig/Golden Dawn dives. You won't see anything except a few sea birds while you're out there. He has all the dive sites in his GPS and knows them like the back of his hand. He gives the shortest dive briefings in the history of dive briefs! He moors the boat on the leedward side at all the dive sites and you can either use the ladder to dive from or choose to use the tender to take you to the other side of the reef area and do a drift dive back to the boat. He only dives Eastern Fields when the weather conditions are optimal because it's so remote.

We did a 10-night charter at EF in December, 2006. We had great weather the first part of the trip and saw amazing reefs and marine life. The size of the sea fans was mind-boggling. We did some specific dives where we were looking for his favorite sharks. He only dives the sites a maximum of two dives per trip & is very concerned about diver impact on them. Literally those sites only see about 100 divers per year! When the winds started picked up heavily, Craig headed the boat back towards land. It was a long, rough crossing back that took twice as long at the trip out. We bounced out of our beds and all the furniture moved! We ended up diving around Loloata for the remainder of the trip (3 days, I think) which was okay with us; the diving there is amazing as well. Hope that answers your specific question!

Shasta,

To answer your question specifically about Golden Dawn's "open ocean diving"...Eastern Fields is 120km from land. There is NOTHING around the area where Craig/Golden Dawn dives. You won't see anything except a few sea birds while you're out there. He has all the dive sites in his GPS and knows them like the back of his hand. He gives the shortest dive briefings in the history of dive briefs! He moors the boat on the leedward side at all the dive sites and you can either use the ladder to dive from or choose to use the tender to take you to the other side of the reef area and do a drift dive back to the boat. He only dives Eastern Fields when the weather conditions are optimal because it's so remote.

 

We did a 10-night charter at EF in December, 2006. We had great weather the first part of the trip and saw amazing reefs and marine life. The size of the sea fans was mind-boggling. We did some specific dives where we were looking for his favorite sharks. He only dives the sites a maximum of two dives per trip & is very concerned about diver impact on them. Literally those sites only see about 100 divers per year! When the winds started picked up heavily, Craig headed the boat back towards land. It was a long, rough crossing back that took twice as long at the trip out. We bounced out of our beds and all the furniture moved! We ended up diving around Loloata for the remainder of the trip (3 days, I think) which was okay with us; the diving there is amazing as well. Hope that answers your specific question!

Thanks very much for your response. To all who asked, I was trying to understand whether open ocean on this particular trip meant that, typically, the majority of the time you're bouncing out of bed and the furniture is all moving and big waves all the way out there and bobbing all over the place on site or whether it's a mixture like clownphoto has seemed to describe. Since there was a lot of deserved emphasis on diver ability to handle this, I wanted to find out what was meant.