New Divers and Cozumel?

[Ron Brandt]

Thanks for the responses. Personally I don't see the value in snuba. Its diving light, or diving with training wheels. But, I can't convince the non-divers in my group to get certified. They are too afraid and want to try something intermediate between snorkeling and diving first.

As far as staying in Cancun goes, yeah, I know. I rode the bus up to Playa Del Carmen and caught the ferry over last time, so I know how long that can take.

Ok,try this.Have your friends do a Discover Scuba with the dive opp I have suggested and is in my sig at the bottom of my post.
After doing the DS your friends can dive on the island for 14 days with an instructor or dive master.Yep,the real deal. If they enjoy it it can be credited toward full certification.

As for the trip to Coz from Cancun,I enjoy it. We often have people staying in Cancun join us. They keep their same room in Cancun and stay at a low cost hotel in Coz for a day or two to do the best diving in the world.

Pm me for details if you like.

Ron

 

[Rick Inman]

IBTW, I hate the search function. Go ahead and type in "Cozumel" and you'll get over 500 pages of returns.

Cool! 500 posts to read. That's what I love about this board!
Would you rather get ONE??

 

[ggunn]

Thanks for the responses. Personally I don't see the value in snuba. Its diving light, or diving with training wheels. But, I can't convince the non-divers in my group to get certified. They are too afraid and want to try something intermediate between snorkeling and diving first.

I am not a fan of either SNUBA or resort courses, but if forced to choose, I would go with the resort course. I think SNUBA is dangerous; there is virtually no training with it, and twenty feet is plenty deep to embolize someone surfacing with full lungs. I don't think that risk-wise it is between snorkeling and SCUBA at all; I think your buds should be more afraid of SNUBA.

I saw a couple of SNUBA rigs around Cozumel 5 or 6 years ago, but not recently. Maybe it's available there somewhere, but it's not pervasive. I have never seen one out on the reefs, anyway. I never hope to, either; the surface units are obnoxiously loud, like a chainsaw.

I love diving, and I encourage people to do it, but it is all about risk management. IMO, one should dive with the appropriate training and equipment, or not at all.

 

[lawofgravity]

Hi all, I've been lurking around a bit and thought I'd finally register and post.
The reason I am posting is that I am, relatively speaking, a new diver and would like to dive Cozumel. I got my PADI open water cert in Guam in 1998 while in the Navy and only did 3 boat dives and 2 beach dives before packing up and heading home. I haven't been diving since. Is Cozumel too advanced for a newbie like me?

I'd love to see Palancar, can anyone recommend a non-cattle boat operator that has the patience for inexperienced divers?

My significant other only had a few dives under her belt before we headed to Coz for the first time. She was definitely nervous the first dive, but once she saw how easy it was, no problems dude. I wouldn't recommend Palancar to newbie divers because they require excellent buoyancy skills to navigate the swimthroughs. That and the possibility of a strong current are the only reasons why it would be considered an "advance" dive.

 

[Len]

I am not a fan of either SNUBA or resort courses, but if forced to choose, I would go with the resort course. I think SNUBA is dangerous; there is virtually no training with it, and twenty feet is plenty deep to embolize someone surfacing with full lungs. I don't think that risk-wise it is between snorkeling and SCUBA at all; I think your buds should be more afraid of SNUBA.

I saw a couple of SNUBA rigs around Cozumel 5 or 6 years ago, but not recently. Maybe it's available there somewhere, but it's not pervasive. I have never seen one out on the reefs, anyway. I never hope to, either; the surface units are obnoxiously loud, like a chainsaw.

I love diving, and I encourage people to do it, but it is all about risk management. IMO, one should dive with the appropriate training and equipment, or not at all.

I agree.

 

[Kat]

Years ago my boyfriend had me transition from snorkeling to scuba, via snuba. For me, it was a good way to check scuba out. On another trip I took the resort course & went diving. Finally, after all that screwing around, I took OW.

Everyone is right about the safety issues with snuba. Just a basic discription of what was going to happen & off I went. Nothing about how to react if a problem should arise or the danger of surfacing to quickly etc...This was run off a party boat during spring break in Cozumel.

 

[Moodiejeff]

I saw a couple of SNUBA rigs around Cozumel 5 or 6 years ago, but not recently. Maybe it's available there somewhere, but it's not pervasive. I have never seen one out on the reefs, anyway. I never hope to, either; the surface units are obnoxiously loud, like a chainsaw.

I think I saw them doing snuba a little north of the Cruise ship pier (Puerta Maya? - the Southern one). There's a new beach club around there, maybe it was off of that. Sorry if I'm not being of much help but it was something i saw out of the corner of my eye.

I wholeheartedly agree that given a choice the resort dive is a better decision.

I wouldn't recommend Palancar to newbie divers because they require excellent buoyancy skills to navigate the swimthroughs. That and the possibility of a strong current are the only reasons why it would be considered an "advance" dive.

It is not a requirement to do the swimthroughs, plenty of people skip them and go around to wait for the group to emerge. That being said, I guess if you're a newbie with bad buoyancy skils (and there's a current) you may want to stay close to the DM and not be drifting over the edge of the wall :11:

I'm not a huge fan of the whole swimthrough thing... there's enough damage being done. 9 times out of 10 I do them anyway... all the cool kids are doing it so i have to follow. :11ztongue

 

[gdenny]

They are too afraid and want to try something intermediate between snorkeling and diving first.

Sounds like they could use a Discover Scuba class. Not one like my first experience where they chuck you in the ocean after a 15 minute class on the boat out. But a real one with instructors in the pool.

 

[borninthesignofwater]

Sounds like they could use a Discover Scuba class. Not one like my first experience where they chuck you in the ocean after a 15 minute class on the boat out. But a real one with instructors in the pool.

Hey, thanks to everyone for the replies. November is a long way off, so I'll have some time to work on them. Already, a few are saying they will try snuba and if they like it, go for the resort course. Now if I could just get them to skip the middle step!

As far as bouyancy skills go, I never really had too much trouble getting it down when I was diving in the Marianas, but you never know. It's been awhile since I've been in open water. I will get a refresh course and log some dives this summer before heading down to Cozumel. I may just get my advanced cert too.

I've actually been on a boat dive where a fairly strong current suddenly kicked up. It's no fun swimming like crazy just to get back to the boat. I'm glad for the experience though, at least I learned to relax and to stay in shape for the next time.