Reg Braithwaite
Contributor
We just returned from a week on Cozumel with two small children. Thankfully, we were able to take our caregiver, so we snuck out to do a few dives. We stated at the Holiday Inn White Sands (a/k/a "The Occidental Allegro") and booked most of our dives with Aldora Divers.
As advertised, Aldora picked us up and dropped us off at our hotel pier. They provided 120 cubic foot tanks for me and 100 cubic foot tanks for my wife. The dive times were amazing, as you would expect from diving with 50% more gas than an AL80. My tanks were DIN, hers yoke. On their web site they talk about adapting yoke regulators to DIN, but they now supply both kinds of valves so there was no hassle for her.
Also as advertised, they kept our gear and when the boat arrived it was set up for the first dive. Although you are supposed to go to their shop on the first day, they had no problem picking us up on the pier and I didn't visit their shop until doing another errand in San Miguel.
They guarantee an afternoon dive on your first day, and indeed we did go out the Saturday we arrived. We were bagged: We were up at three in three morning to fly down and we were in the water at three in the afternoon a promised. We did a nice easy dive, I think it was Santa Rosa. My wife has only had a few pool sessions since the birth of our youngest, so she was a little rusty, but the dive was relaxed and easy. The surface was rough, but once underwater it was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
You already know this of course, but the reef has incredible coral formations with tons of swim-throughs and lots of big life. We were practically tripping over turtles on every dive.
When she ran low on the first dive, Gustavo(s?) the DM unshipped his long hose to share air with her. There are obviously many things one can say about this practice, but I took a "When in Cozumel..." attitude and it certainly was a consideration to the other couple on the dive who would otherwise have needed to surface early. This first dive was the only time I saw that happen, after that my wife was 100% comfortable and consistently breathed way less than I did.
We took Sunday off, then Monday morning we did a two tank dive with Aldora. They had forgotten our Nitrox, but we did two lovely multi-level dives with them. They went to the beach for the surface interval where there were showers, rest rooms, and you could purchase juice or snacks. The pier was actually one pier over for our hotel, so we actually walked along the beach back to our place and surprised our kids before retuning to the boat for the second dive. Again, wonderful dives. My wife was in her element and we drifted lazily with the current holding hands. It was great diving together again.
Aldora used a smaller boat for our first two days with them. I have heard this can be a bit much for a long ride from the marina in San Miguel, but as our hotel was down South, it was no problem for us, we were on and off the reef in a few minutes.
My wife took Tuesday off and I dived with Anita Divers as part of a recreational trimix course. Anita used a much bigger boat, it was "low and slow." It had a head, lunch was served on the boat, there was an upper deck for sun bathing, it was a different and very good experience. I was with my instructor but I noticed they had two other DMs with separate groups and everything seemed very professional and their guests were having very good dives.
Wednesday we were back with Aldora for the "Twilight Double Header." This is an afternoon dive followed by a twilight dive. This time the nitrox was ready and waiting, and as a bonus they had shlepped over to Anita Divers to pick up a mask I had forgotten on the boat. Very good service. We hooked up with Bill from ScubaBoard for these dives. His wife Tonia was tired from previous dives and didn't join us. Bill was fun and relaxed, taking pictures and having a good time.
The afternoon dive was good, but the twilight dive was better! We entered the water in almost full light and night fell on the dive so it was dark when we exited. I literally cannot write about how fantastic this dive was. I saw my first Octopus and two squid on this dive, along with some massive lobsters, a king crab the size of a Great Dane, and schools of fish that practically blocked out the dying light. I think that was Franchesa(?) reef. I will say the current was stronger than the other dives on that one, there were a few times I drifted away from the DM and had to work to get back. But we enjoyed the dive tremendously.
The DM did a good job of using his light and a laser pointer to point out things to see and we even had a swim through. I'd do this dive again in a heart beat. All together the Aldora DMs were great, no dragging people around by the tank valves, nice multi-level profiles, and they do their deco from about 40' up so the profiles are very compatible with folks doing stops every ten feet. Whether diving Air or Nitrox I felt great after every dive.
We bade them farewell Wednesday night on our pier and the next day we lugged our gear on the ferry to Play del Carmen, then took a taxi to Hidden Worlds to dive the Dos Ojos cenote. Most shops on Cozumel will arrange day trips to dive cenotes, and we would have gladly gone with Aldora, however we were taking our children and wanted to be on our own schedule. It's a little cheaper to arrange cenote dives on the mainland, but of course you have to deal with your own transportation. It's no big deal to do that, IMO, all part of the adventure.
We showed up at 11:30 and were aghast to discover this was not enough time to do everything at a relaxed pace. There's a lot to do, more than we expected. The staff got us into Dos Ojos for a 12:00 dive while our children relaxed with our caregiver. I should say something about "getting us into Dos Ojos." This involved standing on the back of a truck whistling the Indiana Jones theme song while it jolted and jounced over a dirt track to the dive site. Exciting!
Our guide Victor was terrific, and we had a nice, relaxed dive with no buoyancy or silting problems. The signature "cover the lights" moments were spectacular, and with every fin stroke our gear got a little more of a fresh water rinse for free
I recommend ending every Cozumel trip with a fresh water cenote dive for this reason...
After we exited the water we had fun on the ziplines, bicycle zip lines, snorkling in the cenote with the kids, ... a great family opportunity. My advice to families is to look into doing a whole Day at Hidden Worlds and manage the logistics so that the kids can do stuff as well. If we had gone without them we could have done two dives instead of one, but the experience of snorkling with my four year-old is one I will never forget, and it was nice to combine this with cenote diving. We took a taxi back to the ferry. It is easy to get a cheap Collectivo if you are just adults, but gear plus kids makes everything logistically challenging.
The ferry took us back to Cozumel and sadly, our dive adventure ended there. But not to worry, our "Surface Interval" before flying home consisted of visiting the ruins at Tulum and other adventures... Altogether we had an amazing time juggling family and diving and I encourage families to make it work.
As advertised, Aldora picked us up and dropped us off at our hotel pier. They provided 120 cubic foot tanks for me and 100 cubic foot tanks for my wife. The dive times were amazing, as you would expect from diving with 50% more gas than an AL80. My tanks were DIN, hers yoke. On their web site they talk about adapting yoke regulators to DIN, but they now supply both kinds of valves so there was no hassle for her.
Also as advertised, they kept our gear and when the boat arrived it was set up for the first dive. Although you are supposed to go to their shop on the first day, they had no problem picking us up on the pier and I didn't visit their shop until doing another errand in San Miguel.
They guarantee an afternoon dive on your first day, and indeed we did go out the Saturday we arrived. We were bagged: We were up at three in three morning to fly down and we were in the water at three in the afternoon a promised. We did a nice easy dive, I think it was Santa Rosa. My wife has only had a few pool sessions since the birth of our youngest, so she was a little rusty, but the dive was relaxed and easy. The surface was rough, but once underwater it was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
You already know this of course, but the reef has incredible coral formations with tons of swim-throughs and lots of big life. We were practically tripping over turtles on every dive.
When she ran low on the first dive, Gustavo(s?) the DM unshipped his long hose to share air with her. There are obviously many things one can say about this practice, but I took a "When in Cozumel..." attitude and it certainly was a consideration to the other couple on the dive who would otherwise have needed to surface early. This first dive was the only time I saw that happen, after that my wife was 100% comfortable and consistently breathed way less than I did.
We took Sunday off, then Monday morning we did a two tank dive with Aldora. They had forgotten our Nitrox, but we did two lovely multi-level dives with them. They went to the beach for the surface interval where there were showers, rest rooms, and you could purchase juice or snacks. The pier was actually one pier over for our hotel, so we actually walked along the beach back to our place and surprised our kids before retuning to the boat for the second dive. Again, wonderful dives. My wife was in her element and we drifted lazily with the current holding hands. It was great diving together again.
Aldora used a smaller boat for our first two days with them. I have heard this can be a bit much for a long ride from the marina in San Miguel, but as our hotel was down South, it was no problem for us, we were on and off the reef in a few minutes.
My wife took Tuesday off and I dived with Anita Divers as part of a recreational trimix course. Anita used a much bigger boat, it was "low and slow." It had a head, lunch was served on the boat, there was an upper deck for sun bathing, it was a different and very good experience. I was with my instructor but I noticed they had two other DMs with separate groups and everything seemed very professional and their guests were having very good dives.
Wednesday we were back with Aldora for the "Twilight Double Header." This is an afternoon dive followed by a twilight dive. This time the nitrox was ready and waiting, and as a bonus they had shlepped over to Anita Divers to pick up a mask I had forgotten on the boat. Very good service. We hooked up with Bill from ScubaBoard for these dives. His wife Tonia was tired from previous dives and didn't join us. Bill was fun and relaxed, taking pictures and having a good time.
The afternoon dive was good, but the twilight dive was better! We entered the water in almost full light and night fell on the dive so it was dark when we exited. I literally cannot write about how fantastic this dive was. I saw my first Octopus and two squid on this dive, along with some massive lobsters, a king crab the size of a Great Dane, and schools of fish that practically blocked out the dying light. I think that was Franchesa(?) reef. I will say the current was stronger than the other dives on that one, there were a few times I drifted away from the DM and had to work to get back. But we enjoyed the dive tremendously.
The DM did a good job of using his light and a laser pointer to point out things to see and we even had a swim through. I'd do this dive again in a heart beat. All together the Aldora DMs were great, no dragging people around by the tank valves, nice multi-level profiles, and they do their deco from about 40' up so the profiles are very compatible with folks doing stops every ten feet. Whether diving Air or Nitrox I felt great after every dive.
We bade them farewell Wednesday night on our pier and the next day we lugged our gear on the ferry to Play del Carmen, then took a taxi to Hidden Worlds to dive the Dos Ojos cenote. Most shops on Cozumel will arrange day trips to dive cenotes, and we would have gladly gone with Aldora, however we were taking our children and wanted to be on our own schedule. It's a little cheaper to arrange cenote dives on the mainland, but of course you have to deal with your own transportation. It's no big deal to do that, IMO, all part of the adventure.
We showed up at 11:30 and were aghast to discover this was not enough time to do everything at a relaxed pace. There's a lot to do, more than we expected. The staff got us into Dos Ojos for a 12:00 dive while our children relaxed with our caregiver. I should say something about "getting us into Dos Ojos." This involved standing on the back of a truck whistling the Indiana Jones theme song while it jolted and jounced over a dirt track to the dive site. Exciting!
Our guide Victor was terrific, and we had a nice, relaxed dive with no buoyancy or silting problems. The signature "cover the lights" moments were spectacular, and with every fin stroke our gear got a little more of a fresh water rinse for free
I recommend ending every Cozumel trip with a fresh water cenote dive for this reason...After we exited the water we had fun on the ziplines, bicycle zip lines, snorkling in the cenote with the kids, ... a great family opportunity. My advice to families is to look into doing a whole Day at Hidden Worlds and manage the logistics so that the kids can do stuff as well. If we had gone without them we could have done two dives instead of one, but the experience of snorkling with my four year-old is one I will never forget, and it was nice to combine this with cenote diving. We took a taxi back to the ferry. It is easy to get a cheap Collectivo if you are just adults, but gear plus kids makes everything logistically challenging.
The ferry took us back to Cozumel and sadly, our dive adventure ended there. But not to worry, our "Surface Interval" before flying home consisted of visiting the ruins at Tulum and other adventures... Altogether we had an amazing time juggling family and diving and I encourage families to make it work.
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