Ship Dive Gear To Cozumel

[AfterDark]

Mini hijack in progress. I'm thinking of doing this only to Key Largo FL. My brother has his luggage shipped wherever he flies, and it's always there when he gets there, which is not always the case with the airlines. I've carried on my reg minus the hoses when I fly, makes for a much more compact package. When it comes down to it that's the most important piece of gear. I would think the tank would be big bucks to ship and a tank is a tank, as long as it's filled its a good one!
If I where going anywhere and making 1 dive I'd just take the reg, octp, computer and rent everything else.

 

[Airleron]

Is there anything else to do at Cozumel besides diving?

 

[Jupiter31]

Take your mask; perhaps your fins - and rent everything else - Coz has excellent rental gear as a rule, and you will be assured your own mask fits and you have a comfortable pair of fins - you may find you prefer the rental BC and reg over your own; good opportunity to rey out different eq.

Its not like you are shipping from NY to Miami; nor are you diving under Artic ice or doing a real deep or technical dive where your own equipment may be critical - you are asking for a hassle that you can so easily avoid -

 

[Teamcasa]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Moved to Cozumel Forum

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[scubafanatic]

Actually, I think it does matter how many days you plan on using the gear. If rental for the full set is 45/day, and it costs 180 to ship, well, that would be 4 days worth of rental gear. If you're only going to dive one day, it's obviously more cost effective to rent. If you're going to dive 5 days, then definitely ship if you can get a reliable shipper. Unless you want to factor the intangibles like "it's your stuff" then rent the stuff up to about 4 days worth of diving. If it's only 25 for the extra bag, well that's one way, so it's 50 for both ways, so I generally would take my gear for the extra 5 bucks unless it was going to be a huge hassle.

...umm, Dive With Martin includes all FREE rental gear (except for wetsuit/dive lights) in all their dive packages.

 

[cutthewake]

Wow I have never been on a message board before now. I want to thank everyone for there input. To answer some of your questions. We are traveling with non divers and because of this have allocated only one dive day. This will be our third trip to Cozumel and have always packed our own gear. Quite frankly I am tired of packing it. We will and always have brought our own mask, fins, snorkel. We use integrated weights and octopus with our BC and computer. So our Regs and BC attachments usually doesn't match the rental gear. If anyone knows of a dive shop using integrated weight please let me know. Hate to sound like a whiner but weight belts kill my back and hips. We are staying in Playa so the same goes for Isla Mueres although we have never dove there.

Hola

 

[Damselfish]

I don't know about Coz, but I suspect you'll have trouble finding weight integrated BCs in rental much because they'd probably be losing pockets alot. Consider getting one of the pocketed weight belts, they're much more comfortable than a plain webbing belt. I have a Cordura one with a zipper that holds standard block weights but is much more comfortable. There are also neoprene ones. That would at least make your hips feel better. As far as your back, maybe playing with weight placement would help, like put some of your weight on the tank strap. Another alternative that might make your back happy would be to invest in in a weight harness, usually used by cold water divers with a lot more weight, but they're not cheap.

If you think you might do the BC renting thing often while taking your own reg, perhaps change to a regular octopus and sell the integrated one and just avoid that problem.

 

[FishOutUvH2O]

Wow I have never been on a message board before now. I want to thank everyone for there input. To answer some of your questions. We are traveling with non divers and because of this have allocated only one dive day. This will be our third trip to Cozumel and have always packed our own gear. Quite frankly I am tired of packing it. We will and always have brought our own mask, fins, snorkel. We use integrated weights and octopus with our BC and computer. So our Regs and BC attachments usually doesn't match the rental gear. If anyone knows of a dive shop using integrated weight please let me know. Hate to sound like a whiner but weight belts kill my back and hips. We are staying in Playa so the same goes for Isla Mueres although we have never dove there.

Hola

If the rental equipment is different from what your trained on and experienced with, bring your own. There's more than discomfort at stake. I doubt you would have enough time to train on the new equipment and trying to figure it out in an emergency is probably not the best time. Some would probably tell you, "it's just a weight belt, how hard could it be?!" Pretty hard and potentially deadly in an emergency. I've personally never worn a weight belt and I would hate to have to try and remember I had one on and how to operate it, in a split second, if I needed to jettison weights. There's also the issue of removing your BC in the water. As you know, something commonly done in Cozumel. If you and the captain forget your wearing a weight belt and you take off your BC and hand it up, you may very well start a rapid, unplanned descent without a breathing gas source. I think that trying to switch from an integrated octo to a classic one without practice speaks for itself.