Coming Week Norte

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I think of myself as pretty cold-hardy. It's been bitterly cold here (-10F, -23C) for some time. I usually dive in just a Lycra skin. But during a norte it can get very cold indeed on a fast-moving boat when one is wet. We spent too much time huddled low in the middle of the deck riding back to the Caleta during nortes and finally got dive parkas. I feel as if I look like Uncle Fester when I wear it, but it's worth it.
 
It's quite cool (for Cozumel standards) today. Breezy and overcast. 71 degrees. Personally, I prefer this over the 90 degree weather. Of our 3 kids, one wears a rash guard and swim suit (14 yr old boy), one wears a shorty (16 yr old girl), and the other wears two wetsuits (17 yr old boy). Go figure. The parkas really make a huge difference on the boat ride.

Diving was great today. Big rollers on the ocean - the boat climbed the back of the waves slowly, then surfed down the front. It seems a bit calmer this afternoon, as I don't see whitecaps anymore. Vis was noticeably better today than yesterday. It was calm enough to be picked up at the dock, so that's good.
 
Christi:
Closed for boats 40' or less - but I'm actually much more optimistic about tomorrow now!
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Nailed it! What's the Christy forecast for Thursday, January 4th Christy?
 
Windguru
Similar to yesterday but a few mph less. More wind than today.
 
Dave Dillehay:
There are no Cave/cenote dives that I would ever do in Cozumel. Forget the Croc, they are all very dangerous, even for the highly trained......
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Not trying being argumentative, but why do you say that? We used to dive the hell out of Aerolito (next to caleta) back in the mid 1990's, and there was nothing particularly heinous about it ,and we used to go way, WAY back, mostly trying to find a connection to the cenote near Chankanaab (Que brada, I'm thinking?)
In fact, now that I think about it, we used to rent tanks from you guys for all those dives,LOL! (steel 120's, painted blue on top, with DIN valves, IIRC)
We'd rent a load of them for a whole $2 each, toss them in the back of the biggest taxi we could find, and then hop out of the taxi once we got to the dirt road leading to the cenote, to take weight out of the poor taxi, and the driver would still be cussing us !! We even saw a croc crossing the road in front of us, and go right into the cenote (only time we ever saw one).
Anyway, me and my buddy Brad F. (who used to staff the hyperbaric chamber for a while) did our cave certs with Chuck and German, and most of the dives were in Aerolito.
But, I never had the balls to do that run that let out right into the caleta harbor. I've heard that was REAL hairy, and I never liked what I heard about it. But Turtle Pass, The Road to Chankanaab, and other areas were fantastic cave dives, and no nastier than car Wash,Temple of Doom, Dos Ojos, etc.
 
Dear Mark IV,

Lots of people died there and more will with your comments. That is the first part but we just ,in the interest of scientific exploration we loaned you high pressure steel tanks only to see them all scratched up and near worthless for our normal diving. Those tanks cost us $450 each and I don't guess you saw them as anything but play toys for your adventures. I'm glad you enjoyed that and survived, but you are nuts to invite others to enjoy the same stupid risks.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers
 
No norte today; there is plenty of boat traffic visible on the webcams. It looks like a beautiful day in paradise. I wish I were there.
 
Dave Dillehay:
Dear Mark IV,

Lots of people died there and more will with your comments. That is the first part but we just ,in the interest of scientific exploration we loaned you high pressure steel tanks only to see them all scratched up and near worthless for our normal diving. Those tanks cost us $450 each and I don't guess you saw them as anything but play toys for your adventures. I'm glad you enjoyed that and survived, but you are nuts to invite others to enjoy the same stupid risks.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers
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WTF,dude ????? I don't even know where to begin with this bizarrely bitter rant.
First off, all that cave diving I mentioned occured like TWENTY years ago, so you can stop seething and gritting your teeth any time now, LOL!!! And, scratched tanks are not "near worthless for normal diving", (ever take a look at all the other tanks on the island?) and I'm pretty sure we never thrashed your tanks, because doing so would've also done it to our own gear, and we were always careful not to damage the system's formations.
And, we weren't secretive in the least about what we were doing with the tanks. (and as I recall, the little painted blue part on the top of the tanks, were already scratched up, presumably from people doing all those "normal" dives, scraping and banging through the truly restrictive sea caves at Palancar,Punta Sur,etc.)
Also, people have died in cave systems all over the world, and the vast majority of them did so simply because they were not properly trained or equipped for it.
And, I wasn't encouraging un-trained divers to go get killed in Aerolito, I was just saying that it was a very nice cave system once you got past the admittedly narrow and sketchy cavern zone, but you seem to have some sort of irrational hate-on for cave diving (or just the ones on Cozumel, I dunno).
Anyway, just take a deep breath and relax,man, it's all good bro, we're just shooting the breeze here, that's all, I'm sure the island isn't going to run low on body bags due to my "irresponsible" comments ! :D
 
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When you scrape off the galvanization of HP steel tanks they rust immediately. Aluminum tanks, so what. We've been here 25 years and I still remember a lot of things, like never loan out our tanks no matter how friendly we want to be. And I also remember you guys were not very grateful. That is all

dave
 
ggunn:
No norte today; there is plenty of boat traffic visible on the webcams. It looks like a beautiful day in paradise. I wish I were there.
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Well.... it was the roughest of the last 3 days today. We took one wave over the bow on the way past the cruise ship pier. To be fair, though, the sea state in that area always seems a bit more confused and rougher than the rest of the coast. Parkas all day. Boat ride was WET going out and coming back. Comfy underwater, but a stiff (and cool - 70 degree?) wind when we surfaced. Not bad at the beach for our surface interval, but I'm sitting on the porch at Aldora and it's quite windy and borderline cool.

I heard two boats sank yesterday. One was a dive boat. I can't confirm that, but our divemaster said it had a few passengers (all OK), but a big enough boat for about 18 divers.

On our way out, our DM said "put air in your BCD now, and have your fins ready". I asked "is the boat going down". He said "I hope not".

I'll post up a video if I can.
 
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