Diver lost in Cozumel today

[boulderjohn]

There are tons of sources of information about dive sites on Cozumel, and almost every one I have ever seen refers to Santa Rosa Wall as a difficult and challenging dive requiring moderate to advanced skill level. We can whine and cry all day about why the operators took "cruise ship divers" to such a difficult site, but that really starts by assuming that the cruise ship divers are somehow different than other divers and should be held to some lower expectation of knowledge and training.

.......
It isn't like the cruise ship dragged them out of bed by surprise, dropped a BC on them, and threw them in the water with no idea where they were...cruise ship divers plan these trips in advance just like land-based divers do, and have plenty of time to read up on Cozumel conditions and dive sites. They have the ability to tell the DM they want a site suitable for beginners, and when he says "Santa Rosa Wall" or "Devil's Throat", they can say no, my skills aren't up to that. It is the individual that has the responsibility to understand their skill level and to understand where they are being taken to dive, regardless of whether they are on a ship or

I just Googled "Cozumel Dive Sites" and checked out the first dozen I came to. Some sites listed about 40 dive sites for customers to read and memorize before such a trip. Some of the most extensive sites did not even mention Santa Rosa Wall, which I find amazing. Of all the sites I found, only one gave sites a difficulty rating, and Santa Rosa was listed as "intermediate," with only "novice" being easier and two levels of difficulty greater.

I think asking divers on a cruise to know the difficulty of every possible dive site they can encounter on a vacation might be asking a bit much.

 

[flots am]

I think the whole agitation about which site novice divers were diving and with who is a distraction from the likely root cause of any issues that might occur while diving in such a situation, which would seem to be inadequate training and insufficient knowledge of the dive conditions. Every training agency teaches their divers that the individual is responsible for making sure their dive skills are sufficient for the conditions they plan to dive in.

They have the ability to tell the DM they want a site suitable for beginners, and when he says "Santa Rosa Wall" or "Devil's Throat", they can say no, my skills aren't up to that. It is the individual that has the responsibility to understand their skill level and to understand where they are being taken to dive, regardless of whether they are on a ship or staying in a hotel.

Actually not.

While I can't speak for what happened in this instance, the ship does not disclose the dive site, neither does the dive op until the boat is underway and the captain selects the location.

Even then, they're generally non-specific and will often just say "We're doing a wall dive" and not say the name of the actual location. And even if they did, most new divers haven't memorized the names of the divesites anyway, so it wouldn't help much if the DM said "We're going to XYZ" unless the name simply sounded dangerous, like a ski run called "The Widowmaker".

flots

 

[Laurie S.]

There seems to be a lot of finger point at "cruise ships", however you can't actually make any generalizations about the SCUBA skills or training of anybody who gets off one.

My buddies and I regularly take cruises because our wives don't dive, however you would be hard pressed to call any of us "newbies," and in general, we're a hell of a lot more competent than quite a few of the DMs we've run into.

While newbies do require mentoring and all sorts of other stuff, what they really need is a very benign, non-threatening environment to hone their skills, not a Superman-DM to herd them though someplace they shouldn't be, and try to protect them from stresses and dangers they shouldn't be encountering.

flots.

Same here, my dive buddy is my boyfriend and instructor. He's been diving for 38 years, teaching for 33 years, and is rapidly approaching 5,000 dives. I may only have 131 dives, but am a very capable diver. Neither of us are typical cruise ship divers, yet he has been on four cruises with me now. But, I've watched the other cruise ship divers that we've been with, and most of them scare me. With a few rare exceptions, I see accidents waiting to happen.

 

[islanddream]

I have to agree with you Craig. I was not only this dive boat, but I was in the group of eight that surfaced with only seven. There were 22 of us on the boat not including the dive team. Even though we all filled out the paperwork explaining our dive history, we were organized into our smaller groups only by our seating on the boat. We happened to be the eight furthest from the stern, thus we were last group to dive. The dive team did make it VERY clear that this was going to be a tricky descent and the need to stay together was of the utmost importance. I am a new diver. This was actually my trip after completing my training in West Palm Beach. I had heard from not only the divers at the Jupiter Dive center in WPB, but also from my local dive shop owners here in NYC, Cozumel is nothing but drift dives. I think having all my training so fresh on my mind I was ready to handle it. This dive was by NO means enjoyable. I had never imagined I would have to put so much air into my bcd or fin SO HARD to stay buoyant and stay on the heels of our DM. I never expected him to keep a constant eye on all of us, though he did make a concerted effort to turn around and watch us, but as a new diver all I wanted to do was stay glued to him and keep an eye on my buddy. It wasn't until 15 minutes into this dive that I was even aware of the marine life around me. I was exhausted from this dive.

It wasn't until we were aboard the boat that I found out we were missing her. I had always assumed Christina had surfaced and that we would eventually find her floating if we looked long enough. Those of us at the stern were looking for her the entire time, but the white caps did play tricks with our eyes. The part that haunts me the most is having the realization after the fact that I remember seeing her weight belt before the dive. She had wrapped the excess belt around itself about three times. I may be a new diver, but I know this would make a quick removal nearly impossible. The dive team had pointed out the added fee of $3 for every pound of weight lost and a $10 fee for the belt if lost. Hopefully this threat of a fee didn't encourage Christina to make it nearly impossible to lose her weight belt in an emergency. Either way I will never sit idly by and let someone do something like that in my presence without me pipping up and saying something, even if that makes me an obnoxious stranger...

That was our first port of call on this twelve day cruise. It never really left my mind for the rest of the cruise, and still lingers in my head. It really making you understand the frailty of life, and how we need to appreciate every minute with those that we love. I just pray that she is eventually found for the family's sake. My prayers go out to them.

The two sentences I bolded are the ones that got my attention. It's too bad the dive shop didn't group the people according to dive history with newbies all being in the same group(s). Perhaps they could have started their dive and stayed above the reef so as not to get sucked down by the current. Depending upon the makeup of the 22 divers, perhaps the dive shop could have ascertained by reading the paperwork carefully that a certain number of divers were not certified to got below 60 feet, hence, Santa Rosa was not an appropriate dive site for those people. Just a thought.

 

[AggieDiver]

I just Googled "Cozumel Dive Sites" and checked out the first dozen I came to. Some sites listed about 40 dive sites for customers to read and memorize before such a trip. Some of the most extensive sites did not even mention Santa Rosa Wall, which I find amazing. Of all the sites I found, only one gave sites a difficulty rating, and Santa Rosa was listed as "intermediate," with only "novice" being easier and two levels of difficulty greater.

I think asking divers on a cruise to know the difficulty of every possible dive site they can encounter on a vacation might be asking a bit much.

I stand corrected. When I first went to Cozumel many years ago as a novice diver with only a few dives under my belt, I read everything I could about the dive sites and Santa Rosa was on my list of those I probably ought to avoid at that point due to my inexperience. Maybe I am the only one, but I always do that when I am going somewhere so I know which sites to request and more importantly, which to avoid.

 

[Mike]

The two sentences I bolded are the ones that got my attention. It's too bad the dive shop didn't group the people according to dive history with newbies all being in the same group(s). Perhaps they could have started their dive and stayed above the reef so as not to get sucked down by the current. Depending upon the makeup of the 22 divers, perhaps the dive shop could have ascertained by reading the paperwork carefully that a certain number of divers were not certified to got below 60 feet, hence, Santa Rosa was not an appropriate dive site for those people. Just a thought.

They were grouped. It was one group of lowest common denominator typical cruise ship diver. There was no need to separate anybody because nobody was grouped above novice no matter if they were on their first open water dives after certification or if they were an instructor with 5000 dives. This is typical of cruise ship dive operators.

 

[redacted]

The two sentences I bolded are the ones that got my attention. It's too bad the dive shop didn't group the people according to dive history with newbies all being in the same group(s). Perhaps they could have started their dive and stayed above the reef so as not to get sucked down by the current. Depending upon the makeup of the 22 divers, perhaps the dive shop could have ascertained by reading the paperwork carefully that a certain number of divers were not certified to got below 60 feet, hence, Santa Rosa was not an appropriate dive site for those people. Just a thought.

I think it would be very undesirable to put all the novice divers in the same group. Groups with mixed skill levels, as long as the site is appropriate for the least experienced divers, hopefully give the DM/guide the chance of some able assistance from an experienced diver should a problem occur.

 

[AggieDiver]

Actually not.

While I can't speak for what happened in this instance, the ship does not disclose the dive site, neither does the dive op until the boat is underway and the captain selects the location.

Even then, they're generally non-specific and will often just say "We're doing a wall dive" and not say the name of the actual location. And even if they did, most new divers haven't memorized the names of the divesites anyway, so it wouldn't help much if the DM said "We're going to XYZ" unless the name simply sounded dangerous, like a ski run called "The Widowmaker".

flots

That isn't acceptable to me as a diver. I would not dive with an operator that couldn't at least tell me more about what to expect on a dive. I have done dives on "unnamed" sites in Roatan where the DM made it clear we were diving "off the map" and we prepared accordingly. I understood the conditions and accepted them. But as I said above, I always read up on the places I am going and have in mind which sites I ought to avoid. I am obviously not trying to totally absolve the operator either...as Islanddream said above, it is unfortunate that the op couldn't take a few minutes to place divers with others with similar experience. Or at least see that they had alot of novices onboard and choose a site accordingly.

As for grouping novices, that is the best policy, because they are generally going to burn air faster than experienced divers. When you mix the two, either you have novices going up early without a DM or you have experienced divers ending their dives early (and unhappy) because the novices ran out of air.

 

[boulderjohn]

I stand corrected. When I first went to Cozumel many years ago as a novice diver with only a few dives under my belt, I read everything I could about the dive sites and Santa Rosa was on my list of those I probably ought to avoid at that point due to my inexperience. Maybe I am the only one, but I always do that when I am going somewhere so I know which sites to request and more importantly, which to avoid.

I actually concur with the one only web site that rated the sites, the one that labeled it as intermediate. I have never dived it with currents such as were described in this incident. When I have dived it with the more normal currents, I have always felt it was a pretty easy dive site. Of all the dive sites marked "novice" on that web site, the only one that is not a typical shallower site used for second dives is Palancar Gardens. If you are looking for a relatively easy first dive site, Santa Rosa Wall under normal conditions would be a consideration, IMO.

 

[jd950]

The dive team had pointed out the added fee of $3 for every pound of weight lost and a $10 fee for the belt if lost.

I have never seen a dive op warn divers about the cost of a "lost" weight or belt. Much of my diving is done without a DM or dive op, so maybe I just don't don't have enough experience with dive ops, but I have dived with 6-8 ops on Cozumel and the Yucatan coast and several other ops elsewhere and have not seen that before. I find this to be a very odd component of a dive briefing. Does Sand Dollar have a lot of people "losing" their weights and belts? Does that mean they have a lot of people dropping excess lead, or improper/unsafe weight belts or ????

I don't typically "lose" weights on a dive. I have seen, on occasion, a weight or pocket or even a belt get dropped when being handed up to a boat at the end of the dive...maybe that is all this refers to?

Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that divers are warned about the cost of lost weights during a pre-dive briefing?

I am not very comfortable with the improperly sized weight belt either. I am beginning to wonder if this dive went wrong before anyone even got wet, but I wasn't on the boat, so I don't know.

Edit to add: I think the idea they will bill a diver $15.00 for losing a 5 lb weight also says something, but that is a different issue.