Is there any downside to NOT using the house dive shop?

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Definitely old enough to understand:(
 
Answer to the original question, not really. The only advantage I ever experienced was doing shore dives with same op that rented shore diving tanks. You only have to fill out paper work once. The disadvantages though are true deal breakers. Big, slow boats, with lots of divers. Even if you have 3 guides for 18 divers (1:6) it still takes forever to get to the site, gear up, dump, and pick up 18 divers.

Part II: Aldora, Liquid Blue, Salty Endeavors.

My wife has been diving Coz for over 30 years. I'm a newbie at 23 years. We have dived with many ops, both big and small. My wife would tell me stories of this great DM with Del Mar Aquatics who climb the tree, get and slice coconuts for the SI. His name was Martin. He later started his own operation, Dive With Martin. He brought another guy over from Del Mar, Dario Hernandez, who we dived with all the time, even after he left DWM. Talked to him a year or so ago while he was working for Aldora. Anyway, our experiences include Dive Paradise, Dive Paradise fast boat, Blue XTC and a few others. We now dive exclusively with Liquid Blue. Our preference is maximizing bottom time when the dive calls for it. Steel tanks are a huge plus. I would rather do two 80 minute dives at $110 than two 60 minute dives for $95, or whatever the math is. Reality is I wan't the most time I can get in 2 dives since I'm not interested in a 3rd dive. The rule of underwater photography is you see the best stuff when: 1) you back roll off the boat and your camera isn't ready to fire and 2) when you are 60 minutes into the dive. Extra time at the end of the dive can be incredibly productive. Liquid Blue also has 100 cu.ft. tanks if you don't need the 120.

As I always point out there are many excellent dive operators in Cozumel. I have many friends that are very loyal to other dive ops for good reason, e.g. Aldora, DWM, Papa Hogs. So one differentiation is steel tanks. There are three ops with steel tanks:

1) Aldora
2) Liquid Blue
3) Living Underwater

Aldora is a multi-boat operator. This means you may or may not get your favorite DM each and every day (same issue with DWM for example). That's the nature of the business. Aldora apparently follows the all-ascend-together procedure. For us this means ascending before we would have polished off an AL80 if you have a heavy breather in the group, so what was the point.

Liquid Blue provides towels, jackets, SI snacks, plenty of water, etc. which is great, but not totally unique. I haven't dived with Living Underwater, but have actually referred people to him, who had nothing but ecstatic praise. There is nothing bad to say about Jeremy and his operation.

This board has a huge fan base for a few operators, but there are so many good ones with little differentiation. You will likely find one you really like. I'm simply providing my point of view, which is avoid the cattle boat, and choose a single boat operator.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to state what may be obvious, I have no first hand knowledge Salty Endeavors, ergo, no comment.


Big fan of Liquid Blue. Kami and Steve run a great op. They are very responsive to emails. We have know them since they moved to the island and been diving with them for a few years. Always a great experience.
I have dove with Salty Endevours. Henry bought the business from a friend I had been diving with for many years. It’s a great option. Henry was fun to dive with. He completely overhauled the dive boat he acquired with the business. We began diving at Liquid Blue only because we had become good friends with the owners. Both are excellent choices.
 
Anyone remember Darwin Zapata and Cozumel Equalizers?
That sounds familiar. What years were they around. ? Kind of think I might have gone out with them when Dive Cozumel didn’t have a boat going a few times
 
That sounds familiar. What years were they around. ? Kind of think I might have gone out with them when Dive Cozumel didn’t have a boat going a few times
We dove with Coz Eq in the early 90's. They were a small op and many times Darwin, the owner, was our DM.
 
So, is The Dive Shop fully operational? We were there when the pier crashed during the October hurricane. We are returning April 18 and wonder what the situation is.
 

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