Newbie going to Cozumel seeks advice

[Hawkeye Mark]

First time I went to Cozumel I had a BC I bought used and had regs I rented from LDS. Used BC malfunctioned on last dive and was worthless after that. Since then I bought all my own stuff. I figured out quickly that renting tanks was a losing proposition. do a lot of lake diving and go out in the gulf fairly often.

 

[scubabob1234]

Hi
I'm a new diver @ 50 and want an easy & comfortable scuba vacation. You sound like you know how to avoid the hassles! Any more advice on Cozumel? Any tips on diving on the Big Island of Hawaii?

 

[geraldp]

My wife and I are planning to go to Cozumel at the beginning of August for 5-7 days and I have a couple of questions. We will be recently certified, we're doing our open water dives locally in July. We do not have any equipment other than the basics.

1. Some posts here have said some dive-ops don't let you take advantage of the computer profiles, but it seems everyone uses them. I assume that renting for a week is cheaper than buying, but should we just dive with tables?

Well I would never dive without a computer, but I guess people do it all the time. As a newbie hopefully you'll be using a less aggressive profile. Also most newbies go through air fairly quickly, so your bottom times will be shorter anyway. My experience with the dive-ops there (two of them anyway) led me to believe that you're sent down until the DM runs out of air. If you run out of air before he does then you surface. He may or may not surface with you, depending on how many other divers are still down there. In other words they're too laid back to care whether you're diving tables or computers.

2. Should we buy or rent BC's and Reg's? I've heard the arguments against renting life-support, but we've already $$$ into Scuba and I'd like to put off additional purchases if it's feasible and safe.

I'm with ggunn... buy what you can afford now, then rent the rest from your LDS. I know it's a pain to drag all that stuff down there, but at least you'll be sure that your stuff is well maintained. You'll also be familiar with the equipment, which is critically important. When we were there earlier this year my buddy did a cost comparison for renting at the LDS vs. renting locally. Renting locally in Coz (for 2 days of diving) was a lot cheaper than renting from the LDS for the whole week. The equipment he got was total garbage, however, and he had some fairly serious problems with it.

Please post a trip report when you get back... we'll be interested to learn how things went.

Jerry

 

[ggunn]

Hi
I'm a new diver @ 50 and want an easy & comfortable scuba vacation. You sound like you know how to avoid the hassles! Any more advice on Cozumel? Any tips on diving on the Big Island of Hawaii?

Cozumel has some of the most comfortable diving in the world, and the dives run the gamut from easy to challenging. Asking for "advice on Cozumel" opens a huge category, though; read some of the existing threads on this forum and you'll find scads of opinions about dive ops, hotels, food, things to do on shore, places to shop, places to drink, etc ad infinitum.

As to Hawaii diving, I'd suggest going to the SB forum that covers that.

Cheers,

 

[diveborg]

Hi
I'm a new diver @ 50 and want an easy & comfortable scuba vacation. You sound like you know how to avoid the hassles! Any more advice on Cozumel? Any tips on diving on the Big Island of Hawaii?

If you want to know the best source for information about the Big Island, buy Hawaii, the Big Island Revealed It has got to be the best guide book I have ever read on any destination.

Then dive with Dive Makai They give the most through dive briefings. They offer guided dives where the guides have 2 speeds, slow and stop. Or you can do your own dive with a buddy. Just be back on the boat within your NDL and 300psi. Couldn't be easier.

 

[Sue-ba]

What are you complaining about?!?... you're right near Saltwater!

Har, har, that is funny! Yeah, I have lots of it in my own backyard.

 

[DallasNewbie]

OK, so Cozumel basically kicks ***! Suffice it to say that on the surface interval after our first dive the wife and I were trying to figure out when we can take our next vacation. :banana:

Thanks in large part to the advice given here, we had a great time on our first trip.

 

[geraldp]

OK, so Cozumel basically kicks ***! Suffice it to say that on the surface interval after our first dive the wife and I were trying to figure out when we can take our next vacation. :banana:

Thanks in large part to the advice given here, we had a great time on our first trip.

That's IT??? We want to see a more indepth trip report than that

 

[Wristshot]

Yeah, that doesn't suffice for anything!

W

 

[DallasNewbie]

Yeah, that doesn't suffice for anything!

W

Trip Report