Devil's Throat - Cozumel

[ggunn]

Been there, done that. It was fun to do once, but I don't have a desire to do it again. I enjoy the occasional swimthrough as part of a dive, but not so much when there's just one that is most of the dive.

DSFDF and YMMV, of course.

 

[fishi]

Gordon,
My mileage does vary from yours. I attribute this to the use of 120s, Nitrox and GPS. As you can see in this video it only takes 2 minutes to swim through the DT tunnel.


That dive was 70 minutes long, and was done just as Dave described in a earlier post. We were dropped at the beginning of Punta Sur where we saw 5 small Caribbean reef sharks, then some eagle rays. We swam through many tunnels, and over beautiful cuts and walls. We hit the DT towards the end, it was hardly the focus or the highlight of the dive.

Another misunderstood dive that Aldora doses quite well is the Maracaibo Arch. You can see the arch at the end of this video


The best way to do Maracaibo IMHO is to get dropped above the arch. When you get to the arch enjoy it, then crossover to the shallows. You can see the shallows in this video. It is an absolutely beautiful place to dive, and one of my favorites.


Another dive Aldora does very well is Columbia Deep. There are some swim-throughs there that no aluminum 80 op (and I have dove with a lot of them) has taken me to. I'm not sure thay even know thay exist. So yes my diving experiences are very different from yours and we all have our preferences.

PS I have enjoyed many dive ops in Cozumel over the years. I don't have a favorite. They all do things in their own way and most are very good at it. Enjoy your dives.

 

[deepsea21]

Another dive Aldora does very well is Columbia Deep. There are some swim-throughs there that no aluminum 80 op (and I have dove with a lot of them) has taken me to. I'm not sure thay even know thay exist. So yes my diving experiences are very different from yours and we all have our preferences.

I'll never get the fascination with these steel 120's. I've NEVER been diving with one for the simple reason that I ALWAYS run out of bottom time on my DC before I run out of air on an AL80. For those who like to suck all that air and choo-choo train about or chase this and that everywhere I guess they serve a purpose but that is not proper diving IMHO and I'll go one further... Strenuous exercise at depth increases DCS risk as tissues load nitrogen more quickly. Same goes for strenuous activity post dive as tissues degas more quickly.

What were we all taught long ago? The urge to breathe isn't created by a lack of O2 but a buildup of CO2. Long, SLOW deep inhale followed by a long SLOW & FULL exhale that squeezes out as much CO2 laden dead air as possible, take it easy, minimize physical exertion at depth and always maintain proper buoyancy such that with 1/2 a breath you are neutral... full breath you rise and full exhale you sink?

Has anyone considered that perhaps someone who "requires" a steel 120 to achieve the same bottom time as others on AL80's is perhaps exposing themselves to more risk diving than those who don't "require" that much air? Just some thoughts as I've no interest in starting yet another an AL80 vs. Steel 120 argument.

 

[scubadada]

I'll never get the fascination with these steel 120's. I've NEVER been diving with one for the simple reason that I ALWAYS run out of bottom time on my DC before I run out of air on an AL80. For those who like to suck all that air and choo-choo train about or chase this and that everywhere I guess they serve a purpose but that is not proper diving IMHO and I'll go one further... Strenuous exercise at depth increases DCS risk as tissues load nitrogen more quickly. Same goes for strenuous activity post dive as tissues degas more quickly.

What were we all taught long ago? The urge to breathe isn't created by a lack of O2 but a buildup of CO2. Long, SLOW deep inhale followed by a long SLOW & FULL exhale that squeezes out as much CO2 laden dead air as possible, take it easy, minimize physical exertion at depth and always maintain proper buoyancy such that with 1/2 a breath you are neutral... full breath you rise and full exhale you sink?

Has anyone considered that perhaps someone who "requires" a steel 120 to achieve the same bottom time as others on AL80's is perhaps exposing themselves to more risk diving than those who don't "require" that much air? Just some thoughts as I've no interest in starting yet another an AL80 vs. Steel 120 argument.

So, I guess you must stay a lot deeper than I do to run out of NDL before running out of gas. I don't know what your average RMV is, mine is 0.37 cf/min. Our average bottom time with Aldora was 75 minutes, sometimes limited by NDL, sometimes by gas, how about you? What computer decompression algorithm do you use?

 

[BRT]

I'll never get the fascination with these steel 120's. I've NEVER been diving with one for the simple reason that I ALWAYS run out of bottom time on my DC before I run out of air on an AL80. For those who like to suck all that air and choo-choo train about or chase this and that everywhere I guess they serve a purpose but that is not proper diving IMHO and I'll go one further... Strenuous exercise at depth increases DCS risk as tissues load nitrogen more quickly. Same goes for strenuous activity post dive as tissues degas more quickly.

What were we all taught long ago? The urge to breathe isn't created by a lack of O2 but a buildup of CO2. Long, SLOW deep inhale followed by a long SLOW & FULL exhale that squeezes out as much CO2 laden dead air as possible, take it easy, minimize physical exertion at depth and always maintain proper buoyancy such that with 1/2 a breath you are neutral... full breath you rise and full exhale you sink?

Has anyone considered that perhaps someone who "requires" a steel 120 to achieve the same bottom time as others on AL80's is perhaps exposing themselves to more risk diving than those who don't "require" that much air? Just some thoughts as I've no interest in starting yet another an AL80 vs. Steel 120 argument.

Maybe you should try nitrox.

 

[deepsea21]

So, I guess you must stay a lot deeper than I do to run out of NDL before running out of gas. I don't know what your average RMV is, mine is 0.37 cf/min. Our average bottom time with Aldora was 75 minutes, sometimes limited by NDL, sometimes by gas, how about you? What computer decompression algorithm do you use?

We generally hang shallower than most as my wife enjoys UW photography and I like to see more color other than what I can reveal with my dive light. Also, the trip to the surface from 60' is 1/3 shorter than than from 90'! Most of our dives are graduated dives that start around 80' or 90' but we tend to hang about 10' to 20' above the group with the UW photo folks so our personal dive range seldom starts deeper than 70' and generally graduates up to about 40-35' before safety stop. That buys bottom time and saves on air but we never run out of air before we run out of bottom time. I will say we never push it to the NDL limit as I personally like a buffer and prefer to surface in the green or early yellow (never in the red). If we pushed it all the way to the NDL limit maybe we would run low on air but I think other divers on the boat and our dive op would start to get a bit irritated as they request that every dive not extend beyond 70 minutes as that starts to screw with their afternoon trips. Perhaps I should pay more attention to the calculated time remaining at different depths before I reach my NDL limit but I'm not a 20-something Navy diver those NDL limits were based on through trial and error (even though our DC's do plug in an additional buffer) so I've no interest in pushing it to the absolute limit. Which Algorithm? Whatever was built into our Atmos II and Atmos Pro DC's (both are over a decade old now - her's is more conservative than mine - and I tossed the manuals years ago). Couldn't tell you what my SAC or RMV is as I've never calculated it.

 

[deepsea21]

Maybe you should try nitrox.

That's the funny thing... I was almost ready to pursue a Nitrox cert for more bottom time but our friends who generally dive Nitrox on their 1st dive (or both dives) and others on the boat usually surface before we did. I will say they tended to average deeper dives so they could stay down longer before hitting NDL on Nitrox but as we generally stay shallower there seemed to be no point as we'd be the last in the water and don't want to P everyone off waiting for us. At the end of the day, I say the same thing over and over, one can dive deeper and shorter or shallower and longer but from what I can tell there is absolutely no benefit to us diving steel 120's as we'll just end up surfacing with that much more air and making the tank filler's day.

 

[BRT]

That's the funny thing... I was almost ready to pursue a Nitrox cert for more bottom time but our friends who generally dive Nitrox on their 1st dive (or both dives) and others on the boat usually surface before we did. I will say they tended to average deeper dives so they could stay down longer before hitting NDL on Nitrox but as we generally stay shallower there seemed to be no point as we'd be the last in the water and don't want to P everyone off waiting for us. At the end of the day, I say the same thing over and over, one can dive deeper and shorter or shallower and longer but from what I can tell there is absolutely no benefit to us diving steel 120's as we'll just end up surfacing with that much more air and making the tank filler's day.

So long as you are spending most of your time shallow there is no advantage to nitrox or 120's. 3442 psi 100's are another thing. 30% more air and you dive 5 or 6 total pounds lighter. Of course if you are one of those people who doesn't carry 6 lbs of lead then that is no good either. I use less air than one of my buddies but I kind of like coming up with 12 or 1500lb. More air is never a bad thing.

 

[redacted]

I'll never get the fascination with these steel 120's. I've NEVER been diving with one for the simple reason that I ALWAYS run out of bottom time on my DC before I run out of air on an AL80.

That is mostly a matter of how you manage your gas'

Has anyone considered that perhaps someone who "requires" a steel 120 to achieve the same bottom time as others on AL80's is perhaps exposing themselves to more risk diving than those who don't "require" that much air? Just some thoughts as I've no interest in starting yet another an AL80 vs. Steel 120 argument.

Yes, that has been considered and rejected by most.

 

[divenutny]

I hadn't heard about those fatalities. What year did they happen? Did they involve older divers having heart attacks?

Do a search on SB, you will find a few. One of them was a woman diver that was never found. The DM's attention was drawn to another diver in the group. I do not recall any of the accidents being "older people having heart attacks".