You are here:  North_America / United_States / Wally Barnes and Accomplices
<< — Back to search results < — Previous   Next — >>

Wally Barnes and Accomplices

(English)

Service:
  • Air
  • Equipment Gear Rentals
  • Gear Equipment Servicing
  • IANTD
  • Liveaboard Diving
  • NAUI
  • NITROX
  • PADI
  • Rebreather Rental
  • School Course Learn to Dive
  • TDI
  • TRIMIX
  • Technical Diving
  • Wreck Diving
Company description We are a group of instructors, DiveMasters and divers in Miami joined in a common effort to :
a...promote high quality underwater education and activities with safety as its PRIMARY goal.
b...encourage aquatic activities beneficial to the diving environment.
c...entice divers of all levels and agencies to participate in diving-related activities that improve their skills and knowledge as well as enjoyment of the underwater world.
To accomplish our goals, we independently teach diving courses of various levels at different places; i.e. schools, clubs, scuba stores and marinas to name a few. Our program develops skills by increasing diver involvement all the way to the instructor level.
As a closely-knit gang of instructors, we do ALL KIND OF DELINQUENCIES related to our very favorite sport.
We also plan and carry out all different types of dives; from the simple 1/2 day shallow coral reef dive in the Miami area aboard different local charters or SHALLOW WRECKS down in the Florida Keys, through specialized DEEP WRECKS (for which Miami and Ft. Lauderdale are famous) or from complex technical deco dives to the more serious multilevel, multidive, multiday live-a-board trips to the Bahamas Islands on board several available vessels. In any vessel, we charter the entire trip and divide the cost amongst all the participants, keeping the cost under control at a very minimum. The average trip to the Bahamas or our new ``Wreckers Delight`` (See our trip report window) runs typically between $165 to $195 pp/day ...... ALL INCLUSIVE, except taxes and hard liquor ...... OR BAIL!!! 8-))
As in most of our other dives, NITROX or TRIMIX, at different percentages of mix, are our prefered gases for diving. Although each person decides what they use and we cater to air divers, the safety offered by NITROX or TRIMIX and their extended bottom time make them our most popular gases, specially during those long exhaustive liveaboard trips. (See our window on ``Why We Dive Nitrox``). To extend our safety in our more serious dives, we teach and practice the techniques of High-Oxygen percentage decompression stops ...... even for our safety stops!! This helps the elimination of Nitrogen and hammers the discipline of Nitrogen and Oxygen planning into our ``serious`` divers.
As we become more and more known in the diving community and our contacts reach out into other sites and countries, we have developed good relations with divers and operators from other parts of the world. We now have accomplices running rampant in Panama, Puerto Rico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic Argentina, Venezuela, Bonaire, San Andrés Spain, Chile and, of all places ...... FINLAND !! These new breed of Accomplices are mainly instructors certified through our program or dive leaders who have been diving with us and we like their techniques. With their help, we can now plan trips to these islands/countries in the Caribbean, where the water is warm (well, OK; not in Argentina and definitely, not in Finland) and the piña coladas flow all through the year.
Location description: The wreck of the Tortugas lies 110` below a couple of miles off north Miami Beach. It was sunk as part of the movie ``Fair Game`` filmed in Miami with Cindy Crawford.
Our arrival to the wreck was uneventful, so were our preparations and entry. On descent, we hung our deco tank on the descentline and proceeded to the deck of the Tortugas at 90`. The group ismade up of two nitrox student on their checkout dive and a DM with them. Wally, the instructor, monitors the group from 10` behind and slightly above.
We arrive the end of the line tied on the stern of the wreck, checked each other and OKed the continuation of the dive. We then proceeded to the bow along the freeboard and checked each other again when we got there. As we started our return to the stern at a very slow pace to reconoiter its entirety before we started some penetrations, I noticed this LARGE shadow approaching from the sandy bottom. It was a hammerheadshark, size is still debatable; I say OVER 8 feet, Wally still insist was under 6 feet, but regardless, it was my biggest ever and at less than 10 ft away from me!! My shark dive experience in the Bahamas was NEVER as exciting as this!! Wally accelerated his kicks and got in between the shark and the swimming students, who STILL have NOT NOTICED the shadow moving in from behind. I did likewise, I surely wasn`t going to miss this adventure. We swam for about half the length of the Tortugas in this formation (must have been a minute or little more) as I watched this wonderfuland fascinatingly beautiful muscle machine (definitely the shark, not Wally) swimming right next to me (I could even FEEL the water coming out of its gills). Then, the shark closed in the distance to Wally and the divers, at which point Wally poked it in the gills with his short blunt-tipped stick and the shark hurriedly swam away.
We continued the dive, as wonderfull as it was, penetrating the wreck and playing with fish of all kinds, even a lobster (out of season), but nothing compares to that minute or minute and a half that I spent swimming with one of the real masters of the ocean. The anti-high point was the deco hang. As many as I have done before, this must have been my most excruciating one, even though it was only for 8 minutes. I had this funny feeling the hammerhead was teed-off by the poke and went to gather its friends to come and get even!! I spent all my deco looking all around me rather than my gauges!! But the shark never came back, thanks God!!
I will soon have more stories for you from our dive activities in this windowat the Accomplices Web site. Hopefully, I will scan some pix of me and the gang. Stay tuned for more!!

Website: Preview http://miamiinfo.com/wally by Thumbshots.org http://miamiinfo.com/wally
Wreck diving and Liveaboards to the Bahamas and the Florida Keys. DAN, NAUI and IANTD courses in English and Spanish.

Contact information:
Phone: (305) 975-1716
Street Address:

Florida
United States
Spoken language(s): English,Spanish
Open: from 09-00 till 17-00
Local time:  GMT - 5 Bogota, Lima, Kito
Note: No guarantee is made to the accuracy of these details.

If you are a representative of Wally Barnes and Accomplices , you may update your options or details in our scuba diving directory. Please use contact form or email us at info@divingfinder.com.


< — Previous   Next — >>

BritShop.ru

Mission statement: To collect all world scuba diving related businesses on the Web.- Add new!
Vision statement: 5400+ of dive centres, scuba diving shops, diving schools, scuba centers collected.

  • Site map