What's good for a first dive?

[AggieDiver]

I have to agree that I don't think Coz is particularly appropriate for a brand new diver. Between the drift diving, the "mob rules" site selection, the language barrier, and the uncertaity about who you might get assigned as a buddy, I definately wouldn't recommend it. I would recommend the Caymans if you can afford it (the price difference from Coz isn't as big as you think). Bonaire is also a good choice, and Roatan and Belize wouldn't be bad choices.

Aggiediver

 

[Kat]

I am not familiar w/ AZ at all. But there must be some local spots to dive. What about Lake Mead in NV? Hook up w/ your LDS, they should have some local trips available. IMHO, a new diver, especially w/ out a well known, trusted buddy, might feel a little intimidated diving Coz. Give your bouyancy & other skills a chance to develop & you will appreciate those great dives in Belize, Coz, the ABC islands even more.

 

[caymaniac]

The degree of difficulty with current diving in Coz is probably what people are thinking when you've asked about where to dive as a new diver. It's not that you couldn't handle it but that we all would like you continue to enjoy diving for the rest of your life. Those of us that are experienced have seen on occasion those newbies who freak out when they are challenged to a degree of difficulty that is hard for them to handle and they quit diving. Take Natasha's advice, go to Bonaire or the Keys or Cayman, you could probably handle Coz. but why not get used to diving a bit first before you up your degree of difficulty.

Dive Safe,
Caymaniac

 

[scubasteve27]

I would have to agree with some of the other divers on this-personally,Bonaire is a very good first choice.Cozumel on the other hand may be a little demanding for those not accustomed to drift diving and the diving is a little deeper. This Feb our first dive was to 110 ft at Palnancar Gardens,not for those new to diving at depth!!!Check out Bonaire you wont regret it- try and dive "The invisibles" site it's great.DIVE SAFE!!!!!

ASTA

SCUBA STEVE

 

[mchiapetto]

We may be an exception but we did our first dives at Cozumel and had a fantastic time. We completed our OW in August and booked a trip to Coz in October.

We purposely selected a dive op (Papa Hogs) that used small boats (6 people max). I exchanged several e-mails with them in which I explained that this was our first dive trip. They assured me that they would make sure to group us with other beginners and the dive master would take it slow with us.

Incredibly enough, when the boat came to pick us up on the first day, we were the only two divers on the boat (along with the DM). While there are deep dives in Coz, there are also many wonderful shallow dives.

Our first dive was Palancar Gardens where we did a max depth of 47 feet with an average depth of 34 feet. Our second dive was La Francesca where we did about the same depths. We were nervous at first but all the training had prepared us nicely and we had a wonderful time.

The next day we did a different part of La Francesca with a max depth of 61 feet (avg 48) followed by Paso El Cedral (56 feet max, 42 feet avg). Day 3 was Palancar Horseshoe (74 feet max, 49 avg) and then the area between Dalia and Cedral Pass (61 feet max, 43 avg).

By this time we were enjoying ourselves so much we did an afternoon dive on day 3. On day 4, the first dive was Columbia (85 feet) followed by Columbia Shallows (32 feet) followed by our first night dive to La Francesca (43 feet). We continued on to dive for a few more days (including another night dive) before heading home.

So as you can see, we started the week shallow and progressed deeper as our comfort level and skills allowed.

As for the drift diving, we found it to be easier than Bonaire (we did a week in Nov 2002). You slipped over the side of the boat and dropped down to the bottom. Then you just floated along until it was time to surface. And when you surfaced, the boat was right there. What can be easier than that? Since there were no walls, you did not have to worry about going too deep. You just stayed a few feet above the bottom.

There was no checking the direction of the current, starting the dive into the current until your air reached a certain point, then swim back for the same amount of time before looking for the boat. We could concentrate on getting comfortable with watching our gauges, keeping an eye on our buddy and working on bouyancy skills.

I respect the opinions of all the much more experienced divers above. But I wanted to share our experience and encourage you to not necessarily rule Coz out for your first dive. But it would be good to go with a good buddy. And find a dive op you really can feel comfortable with.

One other benefit to Coz that really helped us was the price. It ws so cheap there was no pressure on us to feel we had to dive a lot in order to "get our money's worth". We had planned to do only 2 dives a day (if that felt comfortable). We ended up doing 17 pressure free dives in 6 wonderful days.

Have fun and be safe.

 

[Finesse]

caymaniac once bubbled...
The degree of difficulty with current diving in Coz is probably what people are thinking when you've asked about where to dive as a new diver. .....

Those of us that are experienced have seen on occasion those newbies who freak out when they are challenged to a degree of difficulty that is hard for them to handle and they quit diving.....

why not get used to diving a bit first before you up your degree of difficulty.

Dive Safe,
Caymaniac

Now that you have probably already figured it out where your going!!!!

Dive off a boat in Bonaire......that would be a great starting point for anyone......Its shallow, warm, little if any current (Dive Masters will get you to the easiest dive sites....just tell them your ability) ...... There is no need to add current and depth to your first dive senario......there is no reason to go that deep on your first dives.....Caymaniac said it best and go easy to start ...get a feel for what diving in the "wild" is like.

The DM's (well.... Toucan Divers at least) are very good ..... They, as should all Dive centers, checked your ability and set dives accordingly...... You can express any concerns or issues you may have when you go to your orientation ( sign waiver/check cert levels, general overview of diving, marine park tag sign up).....and if need to.. get a DM to personally guide you for your first dive or so...... My sister did a Resort course a few weeks ago in Bonaire (which are one on one dives with a DM)...... Including two shore dives and a boat dive ....... she had a great time....and wanted more

Remember most people have enough going on in their heads on their first dives ..... dont make it more complex than it needs to be!!!

Most of all be safe and have fun with it !!!

 

[docmartin]

agree w/natasha about bonaire being best. no current, great viz, lots of colorful fishies. also great to get a start on night diving. plaza resort and toucan diving are great choice if you can afford it. i would not recommend cozumel to start. it is cheap and the diving is fine (by caribbean standards). however, you don't need to be drifting in a current at 80-100 feet with quite possibly several other groups of divers at the same site. save cozumel for later.
another good destination for the more adventurous beginner is walker's cay. no currents and very shallow dives (usually no more than 40 feet). reefs are not great but okay. the big draw are the sharks on most dives. you can even go snorkeling with sharks (bulls, reef, lemon) right off the shore. great experience if you're not a shark phobic. no night life except star gazing or hanging out at the one and only bar and bragging about your fearlessness.

 

[caymaniac]

docmartin once bubbled...
i would not recommend cozumel to start. it is cheap and the diving is fine (by caribbean standards). however, you don't need to be drifting in a current at 80-100 feet with quite possibly several other groups of divers at the same site. save cozumel for later.

On our first trip to Cozumel, when we were diving, one instance we had was with our group of nine divers. My wife, myself and one other diver were separated from the main group of divers by no fault of our own, the current did this for us. This separation was only about 15 - 20 into the dive. We quickly lost sight of the rest of the group, but the three of us continued together for another 15 minutes before I start thinking about the distance we've traveled, I signal to the other two to go up, and we all go up together. On the surface there was no boat to be seen, no other divers, just the water and the land a long way off and we were drifting fast. After 15 minutes of drifting ( forever :wacko: ), we saw a speck on the horizon, it wasn't our boat, but they did contact our boat and we were then picked up. This is not diving for begginners is what we all agreed to, and this isn't the only situation that happened to us.

Dive Safe,
Caymaniac :boom:

 

[Buffalo Dave]

My wife and I did our first "real" open water diving in Key West.

The visibility was only fair, but there are a lot of shallow reefs and some shallow wrecks. Another benefit for us was that it was a domestic jaunt (well sort of...it was the Conch Republic after all) and we could easily dump the kid off at Grandma's for a couple days. It seems like a much bigger deal heading down to the Netherlands Antilles or the Yucatan.

And also, Rodales ranked the Keys as one of the top 5 beginner dive locations.

 

[Jackie]

Okay, I'll bite. My daughter and I (I'm a 44 year old woman in reasonably fit shape, and a former lifeguard) did our OW checkout dives this March in Cozumel. We had a great time there both topside and diving. BUT if I were to do it again, I would take the advice on this thread and go to Bonaire or the Keys.
We had an inexperienced instructor on our very first open water dive (I dont know how else to characterize him). The predive briefing me was- "follow me ". It was just to be a little exploration. There was another woman along, doing a refresher as she was certified 20 years ago and nervous. Her husband had been diving without her all week and she decided to have more instruction. This was a shore dive.
All went well initially. Showed us nice stuff, easy, great viz. Next thing we know we hear the hum of propellers- we are just about under the Navy boat that was stationed just offshore . Yikes. Then we caught a drift. Was fun for a while. But the dive was getting longer and longer. The instructor was ahead of us and NEVER looked back to see how we were doing. My daugher (age 13) kept looking at me shrugging her shoulders. Now that we were 40 minutes into our first ever OW dive we were swimming against the current and all of us were getting fatigued. My air was running low( I had been given a small tank as I guess this was supposed to have been a short trip) and I was becoming more boyant. DM handed me weight to try and keep me down (we were all of 20 feet deep so this was not frightening to me but very frustrating). We didnt know where we were or how much further we had to go. He had no writing device. My daughter signalled UP and he vigourosly said NO. He wasnt towing a float/flag and as you might imagine it being Cozumel there had been boats zipping over us a lot of of the time. After checking carefully, we went all of about 15 feet to the surface . Actually as I was down to about 200PSI there wasnt much choice) Turns out we were in a restricted area off the Navy base. We had drifted North (not a suprise, its Cozumel) a towards the cruise ship pier at Punta Langousta and were now back as far as the Navy base. They were not happy to see us and the instructor was also irritated ar us that he was scolded,
Once we established what the remainder of the plan was the others descended slightly to make our way back to the short where we had entered.
There was no debriefing. Didnt fill out or sign our logs. The other woman with us was all cramped up and got sick on the beach.
Being that this was our vacation and supposed to be fun, not a scene from survivor, I met with the owner of the dive shop and was accomodated very quickly with no problem. Almost instantly found another instructor for us. The next day was terrific- we had a female instructor who was the best (also had 20 years of experience which showed). It all ended well. Having the comparison between the way the two instructors handled the dives showed me the great variation in quality. She supervised us (checking on our positions frequently), was clear about the skills she wanted to see as she brought the skills charts with her on the dive and could point to what she wanted us to do. Also wrote notes as needed to us on a pad. Towed a float and flag to mark our position. Kept us out of the drift and showed us some really nice coral heads and fish as a bonus on dive number four.
I was hesitant to point out the negative experience but have seen many times on this board how important it is to follow our instincts. One is not apt to have any reliable instinct on dive #1, which is the problem with the checkout dives (if not done with ones own instructor who supervised the pool work). Glad that I wasnt shy about finding someone better suited to our needs or my daughter may have given it up.
BTW I started reading this thread, because I am anxious to get more experience.