Cozumel-Diver lost

[RonFrank]

What we have here, Brian, is a failure to agree. You like diving with cruise people, fine, be my guest. Have fun.

Since we do not have any info on this poor lady, we are not sure of very much. Until we know, nothing can be ruled out. n'est ce pas?

Based on this, I assume you interview all divers you dive with on a boat, determine the skill level, where they are staying, and if they are up to your standards? I then assume that if they fail your lofty expectations, you sit out the dive?

Based on your last experience at the Throat, I'm not sure you are up to others standards? :11:

You REALLY need to learn to let things go PF....

 

[jon m]

as a newb (relativly) i would never go, or allow my buddy (wife ) to go into that hole!!!
we have to be responsible for our own safety...

 

[pilot fish]

Based on this, I assume you interview all divers you dive with on a boat, determine the skill level, where they are staying, and if they are up to your standards? I then assume that if they fail your lofty expectations, you sit out the dive?

I dont' dive with pod people from cruise ships. If had to, I would sit out the dive. This has never been my experience though since all the dive ops I've dove with do not mix pods with divers. They have more sense.

Based on your last experience at the Throat, I'm not sure you are up to others standards? :11:

What happend to me on my 3rd dive on the Devil's Throat could have happened to any diver foolish enough to dive it on a single 80 cu ft tank on air TS&M has made me a believer. Have you ever dove Devil's Throat, Ron?

You REALLY need to learn to let things go PF....

I would be happy to let it go, Ron. Let's do that?

Any more info on this accident?

 

[Ayisha]

Here's some(4 short) videos of the dive, guess which one is/was a brand new diver......Work your way backwards (ie page 3 then page 2--- DT's beginning, 2, 3, then 4))for the correct order for the dive........

GEAUXtiger/CZMUWvideoNov07 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

When I first started diving in Coz., I hooked up with a local DO who taught me A LOT about diving there and would NEVER have taken me to the throat. He said the throat was a cave dive at exterme depth and if you didnt have overhead training and advanced certification, you had no business going in there. I believed him then and I believe him now.

From diver85's videos and Ron Frank's reference to a second entrance and other references to a series of swimthroughs, I can see and read that Devil's Throat has changed a lot since the hurricane. When I did it, there was one entrance and you could not see the outside of the tunnel unless you were at the entrance at 80 feet or the exit at 120 feet. The passage was fairly narrow and winding, and was way beyond 40 feet of dark tunnel. You needed at least one light to see anything in there, and it was quite beautiful and colourful - with a light. It was no swimthrough.

It's interesting that Mawg said it was a cave dive, because that was what a couple of our accompanying instructors said after we did it. They said it was technically cave diving because it was way more than 130 linear feet from the surface and outside of the light zone.

Having said that, I see that it has changed considerably and it has much more potential for exiting and more light, and is split into sections - but it is clearly still a very advanced dive.

What happend to me on my 3rd dive on the Devil's Throat could have happened to any diver foolish enough to dive it on a single 80 cu ft tank on air

Well, pilot fish, I dove DT on a 72 cf air tank, which probably makes many people nervous. However, I am a petite female and exceptionally good on air. I normally use an AL 63 for all my dives, mostly in the Great Lakes, even to 130 feet at 38 - 40F darkish, low to medium viz water. No problem, and I normally complete the dive with 1300 - 1500 psi left going to or near the NDL's - and DT was no exception. I am EANx certified, and I sometimes use Nitrox here, but I don't believe it was offered to us in Coz. I have carried a pony bottle the odd time in particularly deep cold sites in case of freeflow, but I did not consider it for DT.

 

[deepstops]

I dont' dive with pod people from cruise ships. If had to, I would sit out the dive. This has never been my experience though since all the dive ops I've dove with do not mix pods with divers. They have more sense.

I see not much has changed since this thread PF.

Once a git, always a git.

 

[AndrewJD]

Some better video of Devils Throat. The footage starts at about a third through the entire video.

Life After Hurricane Wilma by Dive X-tras

 

[pilot fish]

Well, pilot fish, I dove DT on a 72 cf air tank, which probably makes many people nervous. However, I am a petite female and exceptionally good on air. I normally use an AL 63 for all my dives, mostly in the Great Lakes, even to 130 feet at 38 - 40F darkish, low to medium viz water. No problem, and I normally complete the dive with 1300 - 1500 psi left going to or near the NDL's - and DT was no exception. I am EANx certified, and I sometimes use Nitrox here, but I don't believe it was offered to us in Coz. I have carried a pony bottle the odd time in particularly deep cold sites in case of freeflow, but I did not consider it for DT.

Very very enviable gas consumption. You are to be congratulated. Wish I could do that. That size, 80 cu ft, is fine, if everyting goes alright but not so if you should run into trouble.

 

[pilot fish]

Deepstops, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

:laughing:

 

[lmorin]

That's a serious question from a tech diver?

OK, all good ops do NOT mix pod people, cruise ship "divers," with regular divers because MOST cruise ship divers are not current, are not as serious about diving as those that do not go on cruises and usually have very few loggged dives. Diving to cruise ship people is an after thought, a ship board activity, and not their main focus. They are notorious for injuring reefs with thier lack of skills and disregard for the uw environment. They also have rental gear and a rental mentality about diving. Is this a generalization? Sure. But it is more true than not.

Among the already-mentioned problems with the thinking behind this post is the fact that it is largely irrelevant because it implies that non-pod people are better divers than the pod-people. That is not a good assumption. My personal experience in Cozumel can attest to that fact. On all of our deeper dives, "led" by a required dive guide, divers popped to the surface at widely spaced intervals totally out of sight, let alone the guidance, of the leader. About 50% lasted no more than 45 min and had no sense of gas or buoyancy management. On one high speed drift dive, two guys wearing steel 120's got pulled down beyond 130 fsw, bounced off multiple coral heads, and blasted through their air in less than 30 min. One of them was blocked by his computer from making the second dive. Stupidity? Arrogance? Naivety? Ignorance? Lack of skill? I really don't know, but they sure may me uneasy. And, they weren't pod people from the cruise ships. Just "divers" from a very well known dive resort--like you and me.

 

[Waterskier1]

I was in Cozumel last Nov 07, and many on our boat (I went with a LDS group and we split into two groups, I was in the advanced) wanted to do Devils Throat. I would have gone. The requirement from DP was first you had to be AOW, which most were, and second you had to have over 50 (maybe it was 75) OW dives. I had more than either of those so I don't remember for sure. About 8 of us (we were on a large boat - 12-16 divers plus 3-4 DMs plus skipper) meet those requirements. The head DM was disappointed - clearly he didn't want to go there. Next he told us there were would be an additional $65 on top of our already paid for dive. When we agreed to that, he then told us that that dive would also count as both our morning dives. So in effect they wanted us to pay for two dives plus an additional $65 to take us there. They finally wore us down. We decided it was not worth the expense. I'm not sure what the next hurdle would have been. It wasn't that important to me. Instead I went to the mainland and took in two Cenote dives for little more. That was way cool.

Regarding divers on cruise ships, I also cruise so I can try lots of different sites in the Caribbean, a different island each day. I don't consider myself a pod diver. I dove over 95 dives last year. As far as not letting cruise ship divers dive with non cruise ship divers, every dive I did was with non cruise ship divers, and I was the only non cruise ship diver on the boat. I did book my own dives, versus taking the ship's excursions.