Near Miss with Cruise Ship: Dive Paradise - Cozumel

[Bayara]

I just got back from a week of diving in Cozumel with the dive operation: Dive Paradise. We did not have a good experience with this operation, for several reasons. One of which I will report here.

The final day of our trip, we did three dives with Dive Paradise - the final dive tallied 14 dives total for the trip. The boat left dock at about 3:00 pm and took us to Paradise Reef: our dive plan was to dive Paradise Wall for half the dive, then Paradise Shallows for the second half. Paradise Wall is deeper and further from shore. Paradise Shallow tracks directly into the cruise ship lane.

When we jumped into the water, the current was extremely strong, but the dive proceeded as planned. About 30 minutes into the dive, we arrived at what appeared to be a mooring line - a chain extended to the surface on a buoy: we had obviously come close to the cruise ship docks, though none of the divers realized this at the time. The guide had the perfectly safe option of ascending for our planned 3 to 5 minute safety stop on the mooring line, but instead chose to direct the group of six into the current (an impossible feat... and at least one of the divers had less than 1000psi remaining in his tank at the time), then rapidly ascended from approximately 60' to 20' at a rate far too fast for safety. All six divers chose to ascend more slowly not realizing the danger because we were not briefed on procedures if we came near the cruise ship lane. The guide continued to the surface with his SMB deployed. All divers initially attempted to complete a safety stop. It wasn't until another diver realized how near we were to the cruise ship lane (by the sound of the ship) that the group understood the danger and surfaced. Upon surfacing, the group was approximately 100-150m from a cruise ship that was powering up to leave port. The current was pulling the group directly and quickly toward the ship.

Three divers and the guide were permitted to climb on board the dive boat (one of the small 'fast' boats). The remaining three divers were asked to hang onto the side of the boat as the captain powered up the twin engines and drove quickly away from the cruise ship area. During this ride, at least one of the divers' head was underwater, though he fortunately had the presence of mind to keep his regulator in his mouth.

When all remaining divers were on board, the guide never once asked if the group was ok. He was more worried about receiving a fine for being too close to the cruise ship area, and indicated this by asking: "Did anyone hear them call harbour patrol". Nobody on the boat was able to complete a safety stop: each diver had between 1 - 2 minutes remaining on their 3 minute safety stop when we were forced to the surface.

So the questions are:
- When the guide realized the speed of the current, why did he choose still to take the group to the shallower area of the site that would take us into the cruise ship lane?
- Or, why did he take us to this site at all - being an experienced guide he should know the approximate cruise ship schedule and know to avoid the area.
- When we reached the mooring line, why did he not choose to ascend along the line instead of cutting back against the current and being pulled closer to the cruise ship
- Finally: the cruise ship will not leave until the pilot ship gives permission: why was the decision made to make 3 divers hang off the side of the boat while under power? This only adds to the potential of injury if someone lost grip and fell into the twin motors.

We were extremely unhappy with the service and experience we were subjected to at Dive Paradise in Cozumel, and will not recommend this operation to anyone in the future. The staff with few exceptions are unfriendly, arrogant, and extremely poor decision makers. Avoid this shop if possible.

 

[DandyDon]

Wow! That reef is usually an easy dive, not one of the most enjoyable, but currents and eddies happen. Glad you got out uninjured and not arrested. From your side of the story, it sounds like an awful experience. I've never dived with that Op.

 

[openmindOW]

Thank you for sharing this post, Bayara. I hope that the tips were low.

 

[Skittl1321]

Wow. That sounds horrible. The decision to not allow the final 3 divers to get onto the boat seems the most egregious- because that seems to be a 'cover my ass, get out of the lane' and not at all a safety consideration. It was to avoid a fine, not to avoid being hit by a cruise ship. I cannot believe any diver agreed to it. That just seems so unsafe.

The other issues- no idea why a divemaster would make those decisions, it sounds like a complete screw up.

Glad you are safe.

 

[flots am]

The only real problem here is that a DM is required, and "follow me" is considered a good dive plan.

If you were allowed to plan your own dive, and knew where you were (part of the whole "plan your dive" thing), you would have surfaced for pickup before entering an area where you could get turned into chum.

Also, it's not just that particular dive op. The DMs move around, some get burned out and don't care anymore, some are on auto-pilot, some just don't have good judgement, and at any given time, any dive op can take you on a bad dive.

flots.

edit: I probably didn't really make myself clear. The only way to dive within your level of acceptable risk is to plan and execute your own dive.

Any time the dive plan is "follow that guy", you're not planning or executing your own dive, and whatever happens is out of your control. You might get a great dive or you might make a cruise ship late when they have to send someone down to remove your remains and equipment from one of the props.

It's a great reason to not do "trust me" dives.

 

[cb5150]

Interesting, to say the least.

 

[Darol]

Luckily no one was hurt, thanks for sharing, this dive could have had a very tragic ending. A great learning tool.
Powering up with divers in the water hanging on the sides, just to avoid a fine, sounds like a recipe for disaster.

 

[redacted]

I have dove Paradise Reef when a sudden current change (from gentle south to strong north) sent divers from quite a few ops into (as in pushing off) cruise ships. It happens. I do agree they probably should have taken advantage of the mooring chain to surface but I'd bet that would have been difficult without gloves. As far as blowing off the safety stop, that is why it is called a safety stop. When you are headed into docked cruise ships, what is the greater threat? Forgoing an extra margin to prevent very unlikely DCS or washing into the ships? I suspect only half of the divers were allowed to board as the boat was getting too close to the ships. I don't understand why they did not have a rope available so they could slowly tow the divers a safe distance. Reporting it to the agency would likely be a waste. They train and barely police their training standards. I doubt if they would involve themselves in much else.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Did you send this write-up to the owners/operators of Dive Paradise? Yes, it seems someone screwed up, but I have heard only positive comments about Dive Paradise. Some friends of mine liked them very much the couple of times they used Dive Paradise. "Arrogant" would be if you advised the owners of Dive Paradise in writing about this, and they chose to ignore you. Seems to me they could use this incident as a learning opportunity to improve their safety procedures and staff training.

 

[Mike]

There have been many incidents involving the cruise ship and cruise ship pier over the years in Cozumel, ones that were much worse than this one for sure. Dive Paradise is a good dive op in Cozumel, however when it comes to today's day and age and the internet you're only as good as your last dive.

Sounds to me like the DM f'd up on this dive. Guilty of missing the signs of how close they were going to end up to the cruise ship pier, but was reacting and changing plans accordingly as he started to recongnize the changes that were happening fast.

First off, the safety stop issue is a non-issue. Safety stops on recreational non-decompression dives are OPTIONAL. Under any emergency the safety stop is going to be the first thing to get nixed. And a diver with 'less than 1000 psi' at 20 feet is a diver who can most likely not run out of air for a bare minimum of 20 minutes at that depth, there is also the safety of your training to be able to rely on your buddy to breathe off their tank, so there was no fault on the DM for the lack of a safety stop or the air supply being low of a diver as described.

Sh*t happens and you were a witness to it happening. No excuses for the divemaster, from your description he blew it in regard to logging another safe as a baby dive, puppy dog, nose follows tail Cozumel dive, however the margins of it being a disaster may or may not be as bad as you think it was, for a professional who is diving everyday and knows all the ins and outs of the dive sites and reactions to currents he was probably not at the same level of anxiety that you were and was simply managing a goof up.

Nobody died, nobody was injured and you have a good story to tell. It would be better if it didn't happen, but it sounds like when there was a problem the dive master and crew reacted swiftly enough to have avoided the problems from escalating and did snatch your group out of the water before you got too close to the cruise ship danger zone, sounds like you were just on the edge of entering the actual danger zone and didn't.

Why didn't he use the mooring line? Probably two reasons - 1 is diving involving mooring lines doesn't exist in Cozumel, so the dive master probably isn't even wired in his brain to think about them, and secondly I imagine he felt there was less of an issue than you did and was in control of ending the dive and getting out of the water soon enough to avoid the cruise ship zone that he knew he was going to approach.

Why did he take you to the site? Because that site is dived hundreds of times a week and isn't a problem, but it is known to have some issues with currents switching and changing in intensity, but I doubt the conditions on your dive were any different than thousands of other times that site has been dived and 'managed', and will continue to be in the future.

You should write the mangement of dive paradise and let them know about your experience, there is a good chance they don't even know anything about the incident as the crew and dive master probably didn't broadcast the sporty dive experience to anyone once back at the shop.

Why'd they drag you guys in the water? - it's Mexico.