First Trip to Scuba Club Coz

[redacted]

SCC dress code. Breakfast and lunch are timed based on dive boat departures & arrivals and are totally informal. Some type of shirt is appropriate and some type of shorts or a bathing suit is acceptable and common. Footwear is pretty much optional and you will see bare feet, flip-flops and dive booties. Dinner is a bit more formal and served in a dining room upstairs. Shorts or long pants, a proper shirt, and shoes (sandles) are expected. A nasty t-shirt will get you some looks but I have never seen anyone who was reasonably dressed asked to change (even when I thought they had crossed the line). Dinner is served from 6 till 9 to accomodate night dives. I usually eat eary before any night dive. If you do a 2-tank twilight/night dive, you will normally have time to change and get dinner when you get back. Or you can arrange (with Mario, the maitre de) for a box meal of some kind.

 

[redacted]

I just read on travel.state.gov, that Mexico allow's people to bring in personal items worth $300 US.... There is even a warning on the site saying that if you want to take a laptop computer, you should write a statement saying it's for personal use and your taking it back home, and then go have it notarized by a Mexican Consular Office.

OUCH!@ I think I'll leave the laptop at home! And I know my dive equipemnt is worth more than $300

Anyone here ever have any problems taking laptop, digi cam, dive equipment into Mexico? Did they make you pay a fine?

Cozumel exists as it does only because of tourism. No one is looking to hassle tourists. You have to go out of your way to piss someone off enough to get hassled. Dive gear, expensive cameras, and laptops are just part of the normal visitors gear.

 

[rje634]

I just read on travel.state.gov, that Mexico allow's people to bring in personal items worth $300 US.... There is even a warning on the site saying that if you want to take a laptop computer, you should write a statement saying it's for personal use and your taking it back home, and then go have it notarized by a Mexican Consular Office.

OUCH!@ I think I'll leave the laptop at home! And I know my dive equipemnt is worth more than $300

Anyone here ever have any problems taking laptop, digi cam, dive equipment into Mexico? Did they make you pay a fine?

I bring far more that that amount in equipment alone, unless the items are brand new in boxes and they think your going to try and sell it, they leave you alone. I've seen people with $3000 worth or underwater camera equip. and customs didn't bat an eye.

 

[rottielover]

OK I feel better about taking the laptop, will allow us to take more pictures!

Hopefully my last dumb question:

I heard someone say that your supposed to take the battery's out of your dive lights when you fly? I don't have any of the "can" style lights, we're diving with Pelican flashlights (excuse me, "Dive Lights").. I'm taking the following: 1 each Nemo 8C, 1 each 4AA backup light, and 4 Glo-Toobs... Do I seriously have to take out all those battery's and pack them away someplace, thus taking up double the room in my bag? Seems a heck of a lot simpler to store the battery's in the light (thus giving me space for spare batterys')...

OK promise I'm done with stupid questions! (until I think of the next one)

 

[redacted]

OK I feel better about taking the laptop, will allow us to take more pictures!

Hopefully my last dumb question:

I heard someone say that your supposed to take the battery's out of your dive lights when you fly? I don't have any of the "can" style lights, we're diving with Pelican flashlights (excuse me, "Dive Lights").. I'm taking the following: 1 each Nemo 8C, 1 each 4AA backup light, and 4 Glo-Toobs... Do I seriously have to take out all those battery's and pack them away someplace, thus taking up double the room in my bag? Seems a heck of a lot simpler to store the battery's in the light (thus giving me space for spare batterys')...

OK promise I'm done with stupid questions! (until I think of the next one)

You might get away with it going down - I'm not sure if the US inspectors are looking for this. But coming back most bags are inspected at the Coz checkin & they will require all batteries be removed. If the light turns on while it is packed in the luggage, it can a fire hazzard. I have had an Ikelite PC lite do a meltdown. I remove all batteries before packing.

 

[diveborg]

Anyone here ever have any problems taking laptop, digi cam, dive equipment into Mexico? Did they make you pay a fine?

Never a problem with the iBook or the Olympus C5050, it's housing, Ikelite strobe, or the several hundreds of dollars of dive gear.

People that own laptops actually travel without them? How do you play with your photos? I have to do that each day, plus it is great to have some DVD's saved to the hard drive to watch on the plane or during long layovers.

 

[diveborg]

I heard someone say that your supposed to take the battery's out of your dive lights when you fly?

OK promise I'm done with stupid questions! (until I think of the next one)

Yes, you should take the batteries out and it is better to do that yourself than have the TSA goons do it for you. Batteries don't really take up that much space unless you have the extra large Costco sized package of batteries

 

[rje634]

I have a C4 and just take out one battery to disable it...
Also, it is a eLED so I don't have to worry about melt-downs seeing they run very cool.

 

[ggunn]

OK I feel better about taking the laptop, will allow us to take more pictures!

FWIW, there are plenty of places on Cozumel that will pull the pix off your camera card and put them on CD-R. They will pull them up from the CD-R to prove that they are there for you, too. If I had a laptop, though, I'd take it.

Cheers,

 

[Christi]

I just read on travel.state.gov, that Mexico allow's people to bring in personal items worth $300 US.... There is even a warning on the site saying that if you want to take a laptop computer, you should write a statement saying it's for personal use and your taking it back home, and then go have it notarized by a Mexican Consular Office.

OUCH!@ I think I'll leave the laptop at home! And I know my dive equipemnt is worth more than $300

Anyone here ever have any problems taking laptop, digi cam, dive equipment into Mexico? Did they make you pay a fine?

No worries, cameras, laptops, personal sporting gear, etc are exempt from that $300 limit. Read the back of the customs declaration when they give it to you on the plane.

I don't have one with me or I would tell you exactly what it says. Trust me, you'll be fine.

Now if you're trying to bring in a bunch of brand new electronics and stuff that they suspect will be staying in the country, you may have problems...but persoanl items that will be used by you during your vacation are basically exempt.