So, I was lucky enough to take 6 days off and visit Playa del Carmen with my girlfriend in December. We stayed at the Reef Playacar, just down the road from PDC. The resort was a very nice resort...if your not super picky about ants in your bathroom or the air conditioner on the fritz here and there. The staff was very nice, even though we had to argue alittle bit with the front desk to get are room switched because of the non-working air conditioner. My girlfriend felt that you really do need to speak spanish to get things done around here. Good for us I do.
The resort had a dive shop on premise, which is the reason I dove with them. It just seemed like it would take alot out of my trip if I spent an hour traveling just to get to the boat to do my dives. The staff was incredibly friendly and made custom trips for the two of us. A couple of times I was the only person aside from the instructor diving on the boat.
1st dive: Both the girlfriend and I went on an easy afternoon dive that they normally use to check out their student divers. This was my GF first dive not in NY's rough waters, so we figured it would be a good dive to start on. Our dive briefing was very long and had tons of information in it...alittle much if your an experienced diver but very good if your just starting out. We had 4 other divers with us, one of which was a young girl doing her check out dives. After all the gear was got together we all decidied how much weight we needed, I only needed 8 lbs at most since I was using a backplate and i did not realize how much controversy that was going to cause. The shop owner came and talked to me about using more weight and then two more instructors came over to yell at me that I did not have enough, saying that Im not used to their water and NY water was completely different because I don't dive in the ocean. After telling them that I had done over 150 dives in NY OCEAN water and my experince with my recovery diving they choose to leave it alone hoping that I would come back tomorrow asking for more weight. I didn't.
the dive itself was wonderful, and it was great being able to share it with my GF for the first time. The profile was MAX 40ft for 45 mins. Super Conservitive for my taste but with a brand new diver on board I said what the hell. We ended the dive after 25 mins because of the newer diver reaching her turn around air pressure of 700 psi. Everyone else in the group had between 2000 and 1500 psi still in their tank. So what my group choose to do was add in a saftey stop for around 8 mins just to squeeze out the dive before the boat picked us up. My GF and I were very excited because we got to see a Turtle for the first time!
Dive 2 and 3... These dives were for the next day which I did without my GF. We went to the Mama Vina "wreck" and to Sabados Reef. Both dives were excellent. we had a different and more laid back instructor. The only issue I had with this dive was the fact that on the wreck the instructor choose to do a full penatration of it. Even though it was only 95 feet of water and viz was like 100ft, and I have done plenty of penetrations into wrecks bigger it was kinda felt like a bad idea. In fact in one of the lower rooms i had to help one of the other divers dis-entangle himself so we could get out of the wreck. But none the less very nice. The reef was great more and more turtles and two eels.
Dive 4 and 5... These were the cenotes. I will have to do a whole other post on these by themselves with pictures.
All in all the resort and dive shop were very nice and helpful. Just too conservative and not conservative when you needed them to be the opposite. I would dive again with them and hopefully next time I can take even less weight off just to mess with them.
The resort had a dive shop on premise, which is the reason I dove with them. It just seemed like it would take alot out of my trip if I spent an hour traveling just to get to the boat to do my dives. The staff was incredibly friendly and made custom trips for the two of us. A couple of times I was the only person aside from the instructor diving on the boat.
1st dive: Both the girlfriend and I went on an easy afternoon dive that they normally use to check out their student divers. This was my GF first dive not in NY's rough waters, so we figured it would be a good dive to start on. Our dive briefing was very long and had tons of information in it...alittle much if your an experienced diver but very good if your just starting out. We had 4 other divers with us, one of which was a young girl doing her check out dives. After all the gear was got together we all decidied how much weight we needed, I only needed 8 lbs at most since I was using a backplate and i did not realize how much controversy that was going to cause. The shop owner came and talked to me about using more weight and then two more instructors came over to yell at me that I did not have enough, saying that Im not used to their water and NY water was completely different because I don't dive in the ocean. After telling them that I had done over 150 dives in NY OCEAN water and my experince with my recovery diving they choose to leave it alone hoping that I would come back tomorrow asking for more weight. I didn't.
the dive itself was wonderful, and it was great being able to share it with my GF for the first time. The profile was MAX 40ft for 45 mins. Super Conservitive for my taste but with a brand new diver on board I said what the hell. We ended the dive after 25 mins because of the newer diver reaching her turn around air pressure of 700 psi. Everyone else in the group had between 2000 and 1500 psi still in their tank. So what my group choose to do was add in a saftey stop for around 8 mins just to squeeze out the dive before the boat picked us up. My GF and I were very excited because we got to see a Turtle for the first time!
Dive 2 and 3... These dives were for the next day which I did without my GF. We went to the Mama Vina "wreck" and to Sabados Reef. Both dives were excellent. we had a different and more laid back instructor. The only issue I had with this dive was the fact that on the wreck the instructor choose to do a full penatration of it. Even though it was only 95 feet of water and viz was like 100ft, and I have done plenty of penetrations into wrecks bigger it was kinda felt like a bad idea. In fact in one of the lower rooms i had to help one of the other divers dis-entangle himself so we could get out of the wreck. But none the less very nice. The reef was great more and more turtles and two eels.
Dive 4 and 5... These were the cenotes. I will have to do a whole other post on these by themselves with pictures.
All in all the resort and dive shop were very nice and helpful. Just too conservative and not conservative when you needed them to be the opposite. I would dive again with them and hopefully next time I can take even less weight off just to mess with them.
