Trip Review: Tres Pelicanos (3Ps) & Casa Mexicana

[dflaher]

Here's an actual fact: I told Jorge that I didn't want to go below 80' He took me to a swim through that had me coming out at 107'.

Maybe if Jorge, upon hearing your request, should (could) have said something like " OK, but I plan to take other divers through the swim-through. You can stay above us if you wish". Then you would have the option of going deep or not.

 

[ggunn]

There are no PADI police at the dive sites. It's more to the point that there's more liability to the dive companies if someone is taken past their training limits. BTW..., I looked up the PDIC website. They have two levels above open water training before you get to Rescue Diver certification. That's one more than PADI. All certification agencies are businesses first.

Well, of course they all want to sell more certs, but no one at PDIC ever told me never to go deeper than 60' until I got another cert after OW. Also, as we all know, 60' at Cozumel is a very different environment than 60' in, say, the St. Lawrence seaway. An arbitrary catchall depth limit makes no sense.

 

[gr8jab]

Dives days went like this:

7:30pm Walk down to the shop (2 minutes)
7:45am Hop in a taxi (they cover it) or their vehicle
7:55am Arrive at the new Marina and walk out to the boat
8:40am Boat is leaving the marina

1:10 minutes seems like a lot of standing around. Any option to go straight to the boat?

 

[uncfnp]

1:10 minutes seems like a lot of standing around. Any option to go straight to the boat?

Some of that time is the cab ride. You absolutely could arrange your own transportation, rent a car or stay closer to the marina.

Obviously part of the time factor is dependent on the organization of the shop but part rests on the divers. And this is true for all dive operations. If a diver is late to the shop, if they forget a piece of gear it slows everyone else down.

Out of curiosity I checked some of my morning splash times with 3P’s. Typical times in the water averaged between 8:30 and 8:40.

 

[AdivingBel]

Out of curiosity I checked some of my morning splash times with 3P’s. Typical times in the water averaged between 8:30 and 8:40.

I checked mine as well and I'm nearly always splashing by 8:40 (except when I haven't set the time correctly on my DC ).

 

[AZTinman]

There are some interesting twists and turns with this thread.

We move from a positive report about diving with Tres Pelicanos to commentary about impressions concerning a 3-P's dive master intentionally wanting people to blow through their air to shorten dives and discussions about certification agencies' maximum depth rules.

For what it's worth, I've done several trips with 3-P's and never had any issues with their staff taking me deeper than I want to go or wanting me to blow through my tank to shorten a dive. I usually hire a private DM so I can focus on photography work rather than worrying about keeping-up with a group.

-AZTinman

 

[deepsea21]

For what it's worth, I've done several trips with 3-P's and never had any issues with their staff taking me deeper than I want to go or wanting me to blow through my tank to shorten a dive.

I've been diving Coz for 17? years now and have been diving with 3P's for the past 5 years (perhaps have about 150 dives logged with 3P's (as does my wife). 3P's offers experienced divers the flexibility and freedom they want and offers newer divers the level of safety and oversight they may (and probably do) need. A claim that 3P's plays the "deep and short" game is absolutely false. Furthermore, 3P's doesn't need to play that game because they have FAST boats and have their daily routine from rolling from AM to afternoon to twilight dives finely tuned. As UW photographers, my wife and I personally stay shallower where there is more light, more color, and more bottom time. We have absolutely never been told it was time for us to surface before "our" dive was complete and we do abide by 3P's stated policy of "Your DC, 70 minutes, or 700 PSI". If those who want to dive deep and short have to sit on the boat for another 30 minutes before we surface that's what they do and SI's are ALWAYS governed by the last diver to surface. The DM's provide a full pre-dive briefing explaining the dive, what may be seen, what to watch out for and be mindful of, the name of the boat, the VHF channel the Captain monitors, etc. etc. etc. If ya don't like 3P's, there is no shortage of others to try and chose from. In time, everyone finds their own preferred dive op.

 

[ggunn]

This idea that a DM would take divers deep to shorten the dive comes up every so often, but I don't buy it. It really doesn't make sense to me that a DM would incorporate such devious tactics to save, what, ten or fifteen minutes on a two tank trip that takes three hours or more?

 

[Snoweman]

This idea that a DM would take divers deep to shorten the dive comes up every so often, but I don't buy it. It really doesn't make sense to me that a DM would incorporate such devious tactics to save, what, ten or fifteen minutes on a two tank trip that takes three hours or more?

Some DM's get cold doing four dives a day. I don't notice this with Edgar or Julio. Jorge always strips down and puts on his diver jacket when he gets done a dive (at least that's what I have seen when I have dove with him). Shortening the dive means less time being cold. This last time, it was his third dive of the day. We didn't do fourth dive because a squall came up and the port was closed just as we were suiting up.

 

[nodakdive]

This idea that a DM would take divers deep to shorten the dive comes up every so often, but I don't buy it. It really doesn't make sense to me that a DM would incorporate such devious tactics to save, what, ten or fifteen minutes on a two tank trip that takes three hours or more?

It can happen.

Afternoon trip. 2nd tank. 2 groups, one new divers, the other advanced divers. Current moving south to north. Shop DM with the new divers and a freelance with the advanced group. We were running a little late that day.

We wondered what was up during the briefing. The freelance said we (advanced divers) were going to swim from the reef (50-60 max) to the wall, but we weren't going to dive the wall or even go very near it for fear of down currents. Ok, but we wondered why. The new divers drop first. After we get down, the DM leads us southwest across the sand. We were at about 90 feet fairly quickly and kicking into the current. We get to the wall and the DM is off the wall about 40 feet, over sand, heading north and kicking, but not hard. We follow. After a short time, he heads back to the original reef, now heading southeast, and kicking into the current again. We get back to the reef and meet up with the new divers and finish the dive, which was about 45 minutes in total.

All we could figure is that he didn't want us to do a 45 minute dive and have a bunch of air in our tanks at the end of it. There was absolutely no point in going to the wall other than getting us deep and kicking the whole time. Had it been one of the shop's DMs they'd have known that doing a 45 minute dive and having a bunch of air left in our tanks, but staying on the reef, wouldn't have bothered us a bit.