divers rescued at barracuda
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Skittl1321
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deepsea21
Contributor
The great "Cedral fly-by" resides near if not at the bottom of my Coz site dive list. That being said, I have had a couple of tolerable dives either dropping in pre-Cedral and drifting into it or near the end and drifting out of it... Can't remember which it was. Other than that B-O-R-E-I-N-G.
deepsea21
Contributor
If I surfaced, there wasn't a boat in site, and I had a PLB it would get activated immediately as I know I'll be floating for HOURS before they find me. Same thing goes in my boat - Activate the EPIRB as soon as the potential for a life threatening situation presents. The time to activate it isn't after I've been bailing water for 1/2 an hour and realize I'm not making headway or am just keeping up. Time is not on your side when you're in or could end up in the water (even if it is 80 degree water). With a wet suit on I can get chilled after an hour in 80 degree water... How chilled would I be after 6, 12, or 18 hours? I was fishing off the Outer Banks of NC when the Coast Guard reported pinging from an EPIRB from a fishing boat. I listened for 2 hours as radio traffic continued between the Coast Guard and other fishing boats in the area checking their radar and trying to raise the fishing boat by radio. Long story short, when an EPIRB or PLB is activated no one is rushing to put aircraft in the air and start looking right away as that costs one heck of a lot of money. How long ya think Mexican rescue would wait before deploying?
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To each his own. I have been diving Cozumel for about 25 years and the only dive I would consider boring was that time at Maracaibo where the top of the reef was at 130' and we spent virtually all our dive time getting down to it and getting back up through multiple deco stops.
Yah your wife was pretty freaked out until your SMB was spotted.
DjDiverDan
Contributor
I was going to start with an apology for going off topic, but then it occurred to me - this is Scuba Board! Going off topic is what we do best!
Anyway, I have to put in my two cents on Cedral. Yes, the currents can be variable, sometimes ripping, sometimes calm, sometimes reversing halfway through the dive. But I remember years ago, in the early 90s when I started coming to Coz every chance I could, I really liked Cedral, primarily because it was a great place to see an assortment of morays. In the early 1990s, sea turtles were a rarity, you were lucky to see one or two in a week of diving, so morays and big groupers were the most common “big” sea life, and Cedral was a good place to see morays, green, spotted, even golden occasionally. And even when the current was ripping at Cedral, it didn’t compare to Barracuda. I’ve only been on Barracuda twice, once a scary rollercoaster flyover, and the second time it was so wild I called the dive less than a minute after getting to depth - signalled the DM, let him know I was bailing out, and got back on the boat. The rest of the group finished the dive and were raving about what a fun ride - to each his own. Jumping out of a plane without a parachute might be a great ride, but I don’t like how it is going to end, so I’ll beg off. I have no desire to go back to Barracuda, but I’ll dive Cedral every time.
Anyway, I have to put in my two cents on Cedral. Yes, the currents can be variable, sometimes ripping, sometimes calm, sometimes reversing halfway through the dive. But I remember years ago, in the early 90s when I started coming to Coz every chance I could, I really liked Cedral, primarily because it was a great place to see an assortment of morays. In the early 1990s, sea turtles were a rarity, you were lucky to see one or two in a week of diving, so morays and big groupers were the most common “big” sea life, and Cedral was a good place to see morays, green, spotted, even golden occasionally. And even when the current was ripping at Cedral, it didn’t compare to Barracuda. I’ve only been on Barracuda twice, once a scary rollercoaster flyover, and the second time it was so wild I called the dive less than a minute after getting to depth - signalled the DM, let him know I was bailing out, and got back on the boat. The rest of the group finished the dive and were raving about what a fun ride - to each his own. Jumping out of a plane without a parachute might be a great ride, but I don’t like how it is going to end, so I’ll beg off. I have no desire to go back to Barracuda, but I’ll dive Cedral every time.
nwflyboy
Contributor
I, too, have had some great dives at Cedral. There are different ways to do it: there's what I know as just Cedral which starts out in a sort of canyon between ridges and ends going over some hills, there is Cedral Wall, which goes up the wall side of the outer ridge of that canyon, and there is Paseo Cedral which is upcurrent of the other two dives and has that winding swimthrough in that big sort of pyramidal coral formation near the end. I like them all. I have seen more sharks and big green morays at Cedral than at any other single Cozumel reef. I hope I never get so jaded to Cozumel diving that I think Cedral is boring.
