I will offer you my 2 pennies as a first-time diver in Cozumel
My trip came up quickly, so I had only a week to get ready for it. I did a quick search here and on Tripadvisor for dive outfits and settled fairly quickly on what I wanted. I wanted to dive, dive, dive and be located in town (this might not apply to you). My main criteria for choosing a dive shop were:
- Able to dive in steel HP120 (lots of bottom time)
- Small boat (6-8 divers max, with DMs)
- Able to pick me up, store my gear
- Have O2 onboard
I quickly narrowed it down to three:
Aldora Divers,
Living Underwater,
Liquid Blue Divers. As I said I didn't have much time to email and call around, so I looked at their websites, got their local phone numbers and decided to call them after arrival on the island. Plus, this being my first time on the island I wanted to see and talk to people in person before making decision. I'm one of those people who likes to look others into eyes and shake their hand beforehand. Always served me well...
After arrival, I picked up the first # and called Liquid Blue Divers. I was in Suites Bahia and lo and behold Kami Michels, the new owner of the dive shop (since January 2013), was right across the street in a coffee shop with David, her DM. I ran down and we got to talk, I felt confident about them, they about me and we sealed the deal. I was ready to dive the next morning. I could have probably ended up with the other two shops, if I called them first. It just was the luck of a draw in the beginning but it was confirmed later, that I made a right choice.
To the actual diving. I LOVED IT!!! I was diving with them for 8 days (17 dives). I got to see a nice selection of intermediate and more advanced dive sites. The boat was comfy, with water and refreshments onboard (fruit, granola bars, water), oxygen, too. Javier, the boat captain was on time every morning, quick to get as to our dive sites but safe. We usually were there among the first boats, if not the first one. David was great and experienced divemaster, safety conscious without being overbearing, knowledgeable, great fish and reef creature spotter and decent lionfish hunter, too. Because the boat was fairly small, accepting max. 8 divers, we were mostly between 4-5 clients, plus David and Kami, the owner who dove with us the most of my days with the LBD. I was a solo diver, most of the others were couples. One morning, I was the only one diving, David took me up to the Barracuda Point to see the eagle rays!!! Amazing experience!!! They don't have a divers minimum to go out. I liked that!!!
Clients were mostly intermediate and experienced divers, which allowed us to go to more advanced and interesting sites, i.e. Punta Sur Cathedral, Devil's Throat, Barracuda Point and all the usual areas Coz is famous for... Palancar, Santa Rosa, Tormentos, La Francesa, Yucab and others... Drift diving par excellence!!! Amazing swim throughs and lots of wildlife: I saw pretty much everything that Coz has to offer (only missed Maracaibo site due to rougher seas): splendid toad fish, lots of hawksbill turtles, and I mean a lots!!!, many, many stingrays, huge groupers, school of eagle rays, sea horses, plenty of barracudas, moray eels (spotted, green), many huge rainbow parrotfish, a few nurse sharks and one black tip reef shark, octopi and bigfin reef squids on a night dive on Yucab reef. Plus, all the usual reef suspects: parrot-, angel-, porcupine-, butterfly-, file-, trigger-, trunk-, rabbit-fish, grunts, jacks, too... TRULY AMAZING!!!
Dive briefings were to the point, but with enough info provided to feel confident. Javier and David set up our tanks and helped with putting them on. David even helped with rare equipment failures and asked us where we wanted to dive every day. Most of the time we left it up to him and he was able to give us a nice mixture of everything. Kami, as the owner on the boat, was funny, cheerful and paying enough attention to clients, just to make sure they get what they came for.
We did two dives a day: deeper first, shallower second. The small boat meant our entry was a backward roll all the time. We dove Air and Nitrox 36 HPs (either 100 or 120). The air was filled with 3,000 psi, Nitrox 3,500 psi giving us plenty of bottom time. The shortest dives were 60 minutes, the average 75-80 minutes, the longest 89 minutes. Basically, I got two dives worth when comparing to my AL80 dives. SUPER!!! Safety stops were 5 minutes, not the usual 3 min, that I was used to. I guess taking into account are long bottom times, it was safer. Upon surface, Javier was usually waiting for us with his boat already. He never lost track of us, even on a San Juan drift dive, where we covered at least three miles, one helluva swift and speedy dive.
We had easy and relaxing surface intervals, either at the Paradise Resort or at docks on wild beaches nearby our dive sites... On average, around 80-90 minutes. There were always plenty of other dive charters, so you could interact, share stories, make new friends, if you wanted to.
No idea what else to add... Only that I prefer this smaller, more catered, personalized approach to diving, rather than the bigger boats... Don't mind paying a little extra for it. It's wort it!!! I dove with the same DM, and most of my stay, I dove with the same people. You get to know your dive buddies and it's just more comfortable and safer, too. And I loved the HP120s!!! Never dove with steel tanks before and it's worth it, better buoyancy control, no weight belt, great!!! WILL DEFINITELY DIVE WITH THEM AGAIN.
Sorry for my long-winded and too detailed response. Hope it's helpful in some ways
I'm confused....
