Article: Diving in Cozumel with Dive Paradise

[caseybird]

A few comments on the comments:Any dive op can pick up at the Hotel Coz pier, you are not required to use Dive Paradise. There is a shore entrance and some shore diving off the hotel beach. I've seen it used for training and tune up dives. You are not taking your life into your hands drinking the water. The AI food is bland at Hotel Coz, but the price is right. It's a ten minute walk into town and the good restaurants. I have never met a dive op on Coz to whom the diver's safety was not the primary concern. I have met many divers who felt they were too good to be hurt, or too willing to take risks they weren't prepared for. Fight this temptation and follow your gut instincts about your safety on a dive. Don't allow peer pressure to get you into a dive you're not ready for. The prime example of this on Coz is the Devil's Throat dive. Everytime I get to Coz, we get on the boat and the DM asks where people want to dive. Inevitably, a few people on board bring up Devil's throat. Great dive, I've done it at least three times. However, as I've gained more experience, I like it less. I don't believe low time (less than 100 dives) divers need to be going single file through swim thru's at 130' without redundant air supplies. I always speak up, I usually find out at least a couple of divers are very nervous about the dive, but are afraid of "spoiling someone else's fun". It's OK: don't be sucked into a bad dive because the loudest guy on the boat wants to prove he can dive deep. Nuff' said.

 

[JG109]

Nice article. It didn't read like an ad to me, it read like an enthusiastic trip report. I've been to Cozumel quite a few times. December will be my 3rd year in a row staying at Hotel Cozumel and diving with Dive Paradise. Are they perfect? No. Does the airfare-all inclusive price/location/dive op/fellow divers work for us? Perfectly! Caseybird, I definitely agree about Devil's Throat (southern point in general) dives being experienced/advanced. We exited Devil's Throat at 130'+. A novice in the group, feeling narcosis for the first time, didn't realize he was sinking, so we ended up doing a 150 ft dive on single 80's. Never again, I'll bring my soft double bands if that's on the agenda. Not worth the potential.

 

[dmoore19]

HJeffreyM -- it could be possible that Muggsy knows how to write. And BTW, my wife and I were down at Hotel Coz and Dive Paradise in March with a trip by A-1 and her review was spot on. And what's more, you can drink the water AND make beach dives there as we did four of them and were not taken out to sea!

I was on that trip. How are you guys?

 

[jfischerphotog]

I have photos at Joseph Fischer Photography: Home

 

[GenevieveGolden]

I've never posted based on a review before...but this is obviously a pro review, written by the dive op/hotel. I'm surprised no one else has spotted this, but any review that has absolutely zero negatives is a plant.by the way Coz is awesome, but if I were to write a review, I'd say that you can't drink the water, watch what you eat, be careful as to which dive op you select as this is Mexico and your safety may not be the diveops primary concern...oh and check your air and EAN fills for carbon monoxide as there have been a few "incidents" in recent years there. It is, by the way ALL drift diving...no beach dives and no get off the boat, swim around Personally, I love Dive Mau because their boat crews could follow your bubbles in a six foot swell while it's raining...yah they're that good. Cozumel IS a great dive location...some of the best drift diving and wall/pinnicle diving in the world. But the above review make it too good to be true and it's not.Happy diving!

Go you on the spot of the support of the resort and the dive shop. Sure they are good. But Mau is my spot also.......

 

[vonkarl]

My wife and I dive Cozumel twice a year, every year since 2004, always with Dive Paradise out of Hotel Barracuda. There is lots of great shore diving and the best drift diving around. We are both U/W photographers and wouldn't dive anywhere else for the money. The diversity of underwater life is incredible. All water is bottled, the food is great everywhere we go, on strip or inner city. A person can swim around or snorkel on surface intervals anytime they want. We have never had any problems with quality of air or nitrox. The night diving off Hotel Barracuda is unreal. The old dolphin pen is just south of their dock. I think it'd obvious I highly recommend Dive Paradise and Cozumel as a whole.

 

[RTee]

Mid-December 2011 will be my third time in Cozumel and none of them have been with the subject of this review and the reason is fairly simple...packages out of Ottawa and Montreal never seem to include this hotel and attempting to book an all inclusive hotel and flight separately is neither practical or competitive from a pricing perspective.Having said that, I love diving in Cozumel and so does my GF who was introduced to that location last year and cannot wait for December. In fact, we get to go back to the very same hotel and dive operator we used last year who covers the same spectacular sites as the other dive ops and provide hour long dive and free nitrox upgrade. Hotels...both times all inclusive (and different ones btw) and I never had problems with food and/or water. Not sure if this is applicable to all restaurants in St Miguel though. As for the dive ops...absolutely nothing to say negative about the two dive ops I dealt with. Last year, we had a combination of American, French and Mexican DMs and I thoroughly enjoy how they dealt with us...as they regrouped experienced divers together (segregated by gas as well so Nitrox folks are grouped together) and treated them accordingly. From captains to mates to DMs....very professional organization. My first experience was also similar in that regard. What I truely enjoyed though was their nitrox policy and being first one out and last one in which allowed us to do hour long dives . Looking forward to that treatment again.

 

[DesertDiving]

The ad was well written. I always dive with SeaRobin.

 

[Japper]

I had a very positive experience during my week with Dive Paradise back in 1986. Great service with a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere. Although Cozumel was a popular dive destination back then, it hadn't been developed much yet -- the cruise ships were still an infrequent offshore phenomenon at the time. I made some nice friends on the island and returned 7 months later with my Zodiac and camera gear for a 3 month stay. It was a treat to take the divemasters out on their days off to visit sites that they couldn't go to with the tourist crowds. Had plenty of time to cover the entire area from Paradise Reef south past Palancar and Columbia from the drop-off to the beach and everywhere in between. There is a lot of variety to Cozumel that reviews, magazines, and books can't cover completely but is well worth taking the time to see. If you can't manage a long stay on the island, you might consider planning on returning several times since it would take about 50 dives for a good sampling of all the sites & sights. There are more shore diving opportunities than most people realize, but if you're on a tight schedule you'll probably be better off with the boat dives. The added benefit of a longer stay is the opportunity to sometimes witness some of the unusual marine life behavior. It was pretty interesting to watch two dolphins playing with a hammerhead shark near the surface as they moved upstream past us. Wish I had that one on film... The other memorable one was the occasional mobbing behavior between various reef fish species and moray eels where the fish would "push" the moray back into its hole with something akin to a cross-body block. Paradise Reef was one of the busiest places I experienced in terms of fish activity and spectacular behavior, but that was before the cruise ship dock was built. I often wonder what it is like now and if my little toadfish friends would still readily attack my close-up framer as they once did in an odd form of daily greeting.

 

[dmoore19]

The ad was well written. I always dive with SeaRobin.

Welcome to Scubaboard DesertDiving!!

I think that is part of the problem here. It was not an add. It was a very well written report. Lots of people post Trip reports in various places on ScubaBoard.