Aldora and 3 P's Reviews

[Dave Dillehay]

High capacity tanks are only part of the equation. We structure the first dive so that we begin deeper, then as the no deco limit approaches we slowly ascend…usually organized so that we finish in shallow water over interesting corals, etc. There are many Cozumel dive sites where that is pretty simple to do if the DM wants to. It is simple choreography and can even make the safety stop exciting.

Then with a long surface interval on the beach we have plenty of no deco time for the second dive.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[MMM]

Not to hijack this thread, but were Aldora's tanks actually filled to 3400-3500psi? The reason I ask this is because I used 'another 120 steel' operator in COZ and my tanks were only filled to 2700psi, giving us much less air then the 120 should hold.

Were they LP tanks? If so, a proper fill is 2400 lbs. same amount of gas (or more at 2700 lbs) than an HP filled to its rated pressure.

 

[noj3333]

Were they LP tanks? If so, a proper fill is 2400 lbs. same amount of gas (or more at 2700 lbs) than an HP filled to its rated pressure.

They were (according to the website) HP120's

 

[Trailboss123]

What I had in mind was, a solo diver, or a pair of dive buddies (e.g.: maybe husband and wife), do the typical 1 week dive trip, this time to Cozumel. Fly in Saturday, start diving Sunday daily till noon Friday (say, 2 tanks Friday morning), chill that afternoon, and fly out Saturday afternoon.

Putting aside differences in trip price for a moment, our potential customers are shelling out fixed costs for round trip airfare, lodging and food, and they want to know how much diving (in terms of # dives, total bottom time, # of different sites) will I get that week if I dive with Aldora vs. the 3P's.

Let's assume day trips and ignore night dives; I'm making that somewhat arbitrary distinction because a number of people aren't yet comfortable with open ocean night dives (or are tired at the end of the day), and in some places night dives aren't an every night thing (maybe 1 or 2 offered per week, if enough people are interested). Bottom Line: a night dive option is a nice bonus, but not what I'd use to assess overall value to the majority of divers. Your mileage may vary...

So with Aldora you get longer dive times (less hauling out, gearing out and back up, jumping back in), but with the 3P's you get more dives if I understand correctly?

From Aldora's website:

Daily trips and schedules
MORNING TWO-TANK DIVES
(avg 5 hr round trip) starts at7:30am

LATE DEPARTURE 2 TANK TRIPS
(average 5 hr round trip) tailor made for our CRUISE SHIP and MAINLAND DIVERS

TWILIGHT DIVE
(average 5 hr round trip) starts around 4 pm (depends on the time of year)
We take you on a regular dive and a night dive afterwards

AFTERNOON 1 TANK TRIP
(average 2.5 hrs round trip) starts around 2 pm

NIGHT DIVES
Departs at dusk

How practical is it for most Aldora 2-tank morning customers to make that afternoon 1-tank trip leaving at 2 p.m.? That'd be 3 long dives/day.

From Tres Pelicano's website I couldn't copy & paste the rates table content for some reason. It's not clear from their display that they offer 2 2-tank boat trips/day (not counting night/twilight). But uncfnp's 1st post indicated that catching both morning and afternoon trips was an option (was the afternoon trip 1-tank or 2?).

If 3P's offers 3 or 4 dives/day conveniently (excluding night/twilight), I wish their website made that plainer, because for some customers that's a serious advantage.

So, Tom and Dick go to Cozumel and dive 5 days 2-tank morning & afternoon (if available, and how many tank), and 1 2-tank morning (Friday). Tom dives with Aldora, Dick with 3P's. How many dives do Tom and Dick get?

Richard.

Rich, I think you probably have your answer (more or less) at this point. I will just say this from my own experience and setting aside dive ops for the moment. It is absolutely possible to do 4 dives a day in Coz. I have done it-- however, it is definitely a much longer and more exhausting day by comparison to some places like Bonaire, Grand Cayman, CocoView.. and you will give up some of the other cool stuff that we all go to Coz for in exchange.
Factors for this are the lack of quality shore diving, the subsequent boat travel time to and from dive sites and the fact that the vast majority of people you will read on this forum choose to stay closer to downtown for all of the awesome reasons already well documented- which will thus extend your day and travel time and the fact that most of the "signature" dive sites that Coz is known for and your other dive boat participants are going to want to dive are at the far south of the island (although personally, I have yet to meet a dive site on the island that I don't like). I tend to be a bit more like you, I think-- sort of a dive nazi when on a dive vacation. I want to get in as much diving as possible. One solution I have found for me is to have my dive op drop me at one of the restaurants down south between the AM and PM dives. I can chill, get a nice lunch, go to the bathroom and off gas leisurely while they run back to the marina to grab more tanks and the other afternoon divers. That being said, after 3-4 days of that routine, I and my dive buddies are getting fried and dragging our butts. I have since settled into a new routine. Fly in on a Friday and depart the following Sunday on an afternoon flight. This gives me a solid 7.5 days of diving opportunity. I will do the 4 dives a day routine as outlined above for 4 or 5 of those days and space them out to recover in between and I will throw in 1 or 2 night dives on the 2 dive days, so that they become 3 dive days. Night diving in Coz have always been my very best night dives anywhere. So, a bit long winded-- but bottom line, you can make it happen, but it takes way more out of you physically. Either way, one thing you have certainly learned is that there are a lot of passionate lovers of the island and its diving and food and margaritas and.... So much so, that we will always go back and take what we can get. I will be back down there in about 4 weeks and can't wait-- and then I will go back to Bonaire in August and do a very easy and pain free 4-5 dives a day. Cheers! Oh yeah-- another solution to reduce the fatigue and get in the dives would be to stay at one of the AI's down south, like Iberostar-- however, that is not my cup of tea for a host of reasons.

 

[MMM]

Uncfnp, since you got a chance to dive the ops back to back, you might be in a unique position to answer. Did they structure the dives on the sites the same way? I'm generally not air limited when diving off a rec dive boat; just good genes I guess . In Coz, even on nitrox, on many days my computer (not particularly conservative) is "talking to me" by the end of the second dive. I'm not a "go deeper" cowboy, but if I'm diving a reef, I'm down on the reef. I generally get 60 - 70 min. dives with my op of choice. After checking my log, many of my dives have avg. depths of 55'+ which is a bit deeper than you mentioned (maybe yours was an average of averages). I like the idea of longer dives. I'm wondering how others are getting 80 and 90 min. dives on what I assume are the same sites without hanging shallow or somehow structuring the dives toward the shallow end. In my experience, with Coz guide rules & drift diving, the DM/guide has a bit more of an impact than in other locales where you can do more of your "own thing" if you choose. Did it "feel" different? Maybe my guys have been taking me deeper to shorten the dives... (j/k about this) Any of you other guys & gals that have used both "standard" and "big tank" ops in Coz?

Hi there. I dive with a "big" tank operator although I don't use a 120. I just had my computer pull up my last couple of days of diving and can share these numbers: Day A, Dive #1: (on 21%) 80 feet deep for 78 minutes, average depth 44 feet. 80 minute SI and switch to 32% for Dive 2: 81 feet for 78 minutes, average depth 52 feet. Day B, Dive #1, 21% 90 feet deep, 89 minutes and average depth 45 feet. 94 minute SI. Dive #2, 32%, 78 feet, 55 minutes, average 57 feet. CAme up with 1/3++ of my tank left after that dive but everyone had hit NDL due to length of the first dive. These are just 2 days but it would appear reasonably comparable with your average depths albeit a shade shallower.

 

[BRT]

Dive 2 boat dives in the morning and then do a shallow shore dive in the afternoon. It is great to slowly go along looking at the life in the coral heads without any pressure from the rest of the group.

 

[uncfnp]

Not to hijack this thread, but were Aldora's tanks actually filled to 3400-3500psi? The reason I ask this is because I used 'another 120 steel' operator in COZ and my tanks were only filled to 2700psi, giving us much less air then the 120 should hold.

As others have said, Aldora does true HP fills to give you the full capacity of the tank. We even had the office ask about our numbers to confirm good fills.

To continue the comparison with the aluminum 100 tanks, the fills are the standard 3000 so the fill is only about 93 cf instead of the 100 of a full to pressure rated fill.

 

[gopbroek]

3P is in the process of setting up their own compressor for both air and nitrox fills.

 

[BRT]

3P is in the process of setting up their own compressor for both air and nitrox fills.

Go Steve!

 

[Lorenzoid]

Rich, I think you probably have your answer (more or less) at this point. I will just say this from my own experience and setting aside dive ops for the moment. It is absolutely possible to do 4 dives a day in Coz. I have done it-- however, it is definitely a much longer and more exhausting day by comparison to some places like Bonaire, Grand Cayman, CocoView....

To that list of other places I would add just about everywhere else I have been. Coz seems to be the anomaly for my wife and me. Everywhere else, we generally do four dives a day if offered. We are there to dive. Dive, eat, sleep, repeat, as the saying goes. But in Coz, the logistics just make it too exhausting for us. Granted, we have never stayed in an all-inclusive south of town, because we don't like being isolated unless we're isolated at a true dive resort somewhere there are no other options.