Solo diving in Coz....

[cruiser]

Fair enough on the visibility point. I’m not sure that I agree on the rock thing though. If you are still underweighted at depth, to the point that you are grabbing rocks, you were really seriously underweighted to begin with, right? How did you get down in the first place? And why not just do a buoyancy check at the surface and adjust weight accordingly?

If you lose weights at depth, then you're underweighted and rocks come in real handy. Getting down while slightly underweighted isn't that difficult, but when I was a newish diver, ascending with an empty tank made it impossible to do a safety stop at 15 feet -- the DM had to hold me in place -- because I did my buoyancy check at the surface with a full tank. Now I prefer to be overweighted so I can quickly descend if there's boat traffic, and it keeps me steadier while doing U/W photography. Whatever the reason, I'd rather grab a rock than try to wrestle with positive buoyancy during the dive.

 

[cruiser]

Hi Crusier,

I saw your post last week when I was staying at Hotel Cozumel. I had a chance to ask Angel (The nice gentleman that works the counter at Dive Paradise for many years) about solo diving change in policy. He did confirm this is the new policy. It was a company decision not his.

This thread has gone way off topic. For people that have never done a shore dive off of Hotel Cozumel pier or Scuba Club located next door it's a 20 foot dive. Yes you can swim way out to get deeper. I would say most of the divers in this area stay within 15-20 foot depths. This shore dive should not be compared to shore diving up north where you will encounter stronger currents and deeper closer to shore.

I hope Dive Paradise ends up changing this policy of not renting weights and a tank to a solo diver. I wonder if Scuba Club has changed there policy also?

The shore diving from Dive Paradise is some of the best. There is a wide variety of critters and spiny urchins too numerous to count. It's a rather benign dive. I go south into the current to the (ferry?) pier, then let the current take me back north to my exit point, which is the shallow pool with a cut-out on the other side of the Dive Paradise dock.