susan6868:
Heading out on a cruise this weekend with my 14 year old son who is also certified.
We were considering doing the dive the cruise line offers from the beach at their private island "Coco Cay"
We take any oportunity to log another dive wherever we are but I wondered is anyone out there has a review of the diving on Coco Cay. Please let me kniw what your thoughts are because if it's totally lame, we're going to pass.
Thanks!
I dove there this past June and had a good time.
The dives are shore dives and are done in the morning before the crowds get there as the dive masters also pull double duty after the dive working other events.
Here's about hoiw it happened.
You mean about 7:30 or 8am at the bottom of the ship where the "Tender" departs. There you fill out the standard forms. Take your certification card. You then take the tender over to the island where the Divemasters meet you. They assign you gear. I was actually impressed by the quality of the gear. I expected "cheap" rental gear, but they had Aqualung regulators and Sunnto gauges. They also had mask/fins/snorkles and wetsuits, but most people brought their own stuff. Tahnks
were AL80's.
After you gear up, you do a short walk down to the beach. The reef system is
about a 150 yards off shore. If you're not at low tide, they tow you out to
the dive site on the rescue sled of a jet ski. We went at low tide and it was
too shallow to use the sled and had to swim out. But it wasn't too bad.
They brought us back on the jet ski. If you do ride the jet ski sled, put your
regulator in your mouth. Otherwise you breath exhaust fumes off the jet ski.
After you get to the dive point, it drops from 5 to about 20 feet on a gradual
slope, then there is a small wall that you drop over. max depth was about
40 feet. The dive is pretty simple. You swim down the wall with a divemaster
and then at some point you turn around and come back. On the way back
they swim along the top part of the wall some also.
There was only 3 divers in my group, so it was a very pleasant experience.
When you run down to 500psi on air, simply ascend up the towed dive flag
line and the jet ski is waiting nearby to come pick you up and take you back
to shore. The others continue the dive. My total dive time I think
was around 50 minutes.
Large ocean critters we saw were a very large octopus with a huge head on it
and several stingrays. lots of fish there, but not huge amounts. The reef
is in good shape, but has had some damage on it from previous storms and
sand dumped on the reef. You'll find better diving in other places, but
this still sure beats diving in the quarry.
After the dive you head back to the dive shop to rinse gear. If you brought
your own gear, you can leave it in a privacy fenced area at the dive shop
to dry. After that, you can kick back and enjoy the rest of the island.
I personally thought that CoCo Cay was the best stop on the cruise trip.
they have chairs set up everywhere and waiters bringing around drinks.
Brink your ship charge card to pay for drinks. Lunch is included as part
of the cruise. There is a small "straw/flea market" for t-shirts and stuff
the "locals" sell if you're interested. I think it was cash payment instead
of cruise boat charge card.
So was the dive worth the $50 bucks they charge? Yes. I'd do it again.
It's not the most exciting diving, but it was still pretty good. The staff
at the dive shop was very helpful also.
Hope that all helps. feel free to ask questions if you have any.
if you want some pics of the place, PM me your email adress and
I can send you some.
-mike
