aquagal
Guest
Just returned late last night from my first trip to Cozumel. I had a fantastic time! I thoroughly enjoyed the diving. My buddy for a majority of the dives is an instructor and he really helped me improve my skills.
This was my first time ever in warm water, diving from a boat and I did my first night dive! Very cool!
We dove Santa Rosa reef , Yocab, Palancar caves, Devil's throat, Columbia shallows, Tormentos and the wreck Xi Co Tencatl. Santa Rosa reef (the top) was my favorite because I got to swim along with a sea turtle for a bit.
The water was very warm 84-86F. I wore a .5 mm wetsuit and was perfectly comfortable. Most of our group wore 3mm and felt too warm. We averaged 80-130 vis which I thought was phenomenal but several of the veterans said they'd had better. It rained almost every night the run-off affected the vis. The best vis I'd been in until then was 30-40 feet; I couldn't complain.
We dove with Dive Cozumel - it was a nice operation. We had 10 divers on a nice fast boat. We also had 4 children on board who snorkled during our SI. (They did get a bit bored while we were diving.) We had a DM as a leader and then a 'last' pair. We didn't have to surface as a group except when we dove Devil's throat.
We did 5 days of two dives a day and one night dive. The night dive was amazing. It didn't seem like we were in water. The atmosphere reminded me of movie special effects where they use smoke to simulate being underwater. There was a full moon and my buddy and I hardly used our flashlights. There were also a lot of divers around and we could see pretty well by their lights.
We did have a frightening experience which we were very lucky turned out OK. During the night dive one of our group experienced a non-dive related medical emergency. She didn't panic, and calmly let her buddy know she needed to surface. Her buddy got her to the surface, summoned the boat (it did take our boat a few minutes to realize it was their diver in distress - there were 5 other dive boats over that reef), got her on O2, took her to shore and to a waiting ambulance. The rest of us never knew anything was wrong. We completed our dive about 45 minutes later and the boat picked us up. We thought this pair was still in the water until the crew calmly informed us they were on shore. Had we been further from shore the boat would have rousted us but even this would have delayed her getting medical care.
Fortunatly her buddy was an EMT and spoke Spanish. He knew immediately what was wrong and had to convince the ambulance she didn't need to go to the chamber. She got treated and ended up having to stay a few days at the American hospital clinic; she said they took excellent care of her. I really admire how calm and brave she was throughout her ordeal.
She was able to join us back at the hotel two days before we left. We felt bad for her not being able to dive the rest of the trip and we were extremely happy she's ok.
Yes, this trip was an adventure. For the most part we all had a very good time and hope to return soon.
This was my first time ever in warm water, diving from a boat and I did my first night dive! Very cool!
We dove Santa Rosa reef , Yocab, Palancar caves, Devil's throat, Columbia shallows, Tormentos and the wreck Xi Co Tencatl. Santa Rosa reef (the top) was my favorite because I got to swim along with a sea turtle for a bit.
The water was very warm 84-86F. I wore a .5 mm wetsuit and was perfectly comfortable. Most of our group wore 3mm and felt too warm. We averaged 80-130 vis which I thought was phenomenal but several of the veterans said they'd had better. It rained almost every night the run-off affected the vis. The best vis I'd been in until then was 30-40 feet; I couldn't complain.
We dove with Dive Cozumel - it was a nice operation. We had 10 divers on a nice fast boat. We also had 4 children on board who snorkled during our SI. (They did get a bit bored while we were diving.) We had a DM as a leader and then a 'last' pair. We didn't have to surface as a group except when we dove Devil's throat.
We did 5 days of two dives a day and one night dive. The night dive was amazing. It didn't seem like we were in water. The atmosphere reminded me of movie special effects where they use smoke to simulate being underwater. There was a full moon and my buddy and I hardly used our flashlights. There were also a lot of divers around and we could see pretty well by their lights.
We did have a frightening experience which we were very lucky turned out OK. During the night dive one of our group experienced a non-dive related medical emergency. She didn't panic, and calmly let her buddy know she needed to surface. Her buddy got her to the surface, summoned the boat (it did take our boat a few minutes to realize it was their diver in distress - there were 5 other dive boats over that reef), got her on O2, took her to shore and to a waiting ambulance. The rest of us never knew anything was wrong. We completed our dive about 45 minutes later and the boat picked us up. We thought this pair was still in the water until the crew calmly informed us they were on shore. Had we been further from shore the boat would have rousted us but even this would have delayed her getting medical care.
Fortunatly her buddy was an EMT and spoke Spanish. He knew immediately what was wrong and had to convince the ambulance she didn't need to go to the chamber. She got treated and ended up having to stay a few days at the American hospital clinic; she said they took excellent care of her. I really admire how calm and brave she was throughout her ordeal.
She was able to join us back at the hotel two days before we left. We felt bad for her not being able to dive the rest of the trip and we were extremely happy she's ok.
Yes, this trip was an adventure. For the most part we all had a very good time and hope to return soon.
