3 dives a day, 60-70 minutes down ... which dive op?

[mamanan]

most dive ops offer both morning and afternoon dives, wouldn't that give you 4 tanks a day?

then you could add a night dive trip and bump it up to 6 tanks!!

Your new pic is an improvement over that mustached one. LOL

 

[sharky60]

Your new pic is an improvement over that mustached one. LOL

We'er both pretty fuzzy but she's much cuter than I am.

 

[1gromit]

cheers,

I'd suggest you go with an op that dives with the steel 120's. Bottom times far exceed the AL80's, over 90 minutes on your shallow dives, and up to your deco limit on your deeper dives. Look at Living Underwater or Aldora - both are excellent. I believe that Liquid Blue also uses the 120's, but I've never done a dive with them, tho their reputation is good.

Al in Boston

Greetings folks -

I guess the title says it all ... only been to Coz once, five years back. Just discovered we have time to do a late April-early May trip, so thought we'd head back there. We have a real hard time paying to fly somewhere and then only dive 2 tanks a day and come up with 1200-1400 PSI. So, the question, what dive op(s) in Cozumel will do real live 3-tank trips, and allow you to burn your air on a long dive? Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help!

 

[highdesert]

Lots of repeat recommendations ... that's a good sign! I've already contacted some of them, and will get to the others. Thanks for the opinions!

 

[Moodiejeff]

Lots of repeat recommendations ... that's a good sign!

Let me repeat Blue XT~Sea

Near unanimous praise on here (and other boards). Will let you dive your computers, have some of the best DMs on the island and will accommodate 3rd tank requests as long as the minimum number of divers is filled. There have been many times that my wife and I have done 3rd tanks even if no one else on the boat wants to do them...

It's easy to talk pretty much any dive op into doing a 3rd tank at Paradise since it is right outside the marina. Good luck, you've gotten some great recommendations and I'm sure one of them will be a perfect fit for you.

 

[jeremyl]

I just got back from 6 days of diving with Aldora. Yes, we get 120s - and Nitrox appeared on the boat often (never requested it and didnt have to pay for it... many dives it helped stay deep on the reef). I dove with Edgar as DM. 5 or 6 + DM on the boat. Most dives were ~1hr. We did all go up together (except one dive where one gal wasnt feeling well and went up early with her hubby - she took a cab home before the 2nd dive). Dive was over when 2 divers had 1000 PSI. Often someone would be sucking on DM's air. All but one dive I was on the boat with >1000 PSI (Usually ~1200). I would have prefered to stay down another 10min, but thats how they ran the show. Currents abound in Coz, so I figured it was standard practice (for safty) to go up as a group... I guess some ops still let you stay down with a buddy. Oh well... I had a great time. I will put up a TR and links to pics soon.

Jeremy

 

[mstevens]

Nitrox appeared on the boat often (never requested it and didnt have to pay for it... many dives it helped stay deep on the reef).

Hmm. A number of my Cozumel dives exceed the MOD for 36% oxygen mixes even if you use a pO2 of 1.6, and I've had mixes that analyzed at nearly 38%. It's pretty hard to get mixes other than (nominal) 32% or 36%. If you think a max pO2 of 1.4 is more reasonable (as I do), then even with 32 your MOD is 111 feet - quite easy to exceed in Cozumel if you're not careful.

I'm not really sure what you mean by staying "deep on the reef." Perhaps you're referring to pushing the bottom of your planned depth for longer than you would with air due to slower nitrogen accumulation. Personally, I use air tables when I'm diving nitrox since my main goal is minimize my nitrogen load for a given bottom time, not maximize my bottom time for a given nitrogen load.

I'm also wondering if you travel with an analyzer since you don't request the nitrox or if the boat carried an analyzer that you used. I'm not an especially paranoid person, but if I can't analyze the gas I don't dive with it. On our last trip our boat left late and under some confusion due to a port closure earlier in the day. We discovered one less nitrox tank onboard than the total requested by divers. One guy had his initials on the teensy analysis sticker and said he'd personally analyzed it at the shop the night before. He ended up having to leave the boat at the SI due to another commitment, so we were back to enough nitrox tanks. The sticker he'd initialed said the contents were 32.3%. My analysis was 36.7% and the DM, who was curious if it was a mislabeling or an analyzer problem, got 36.5% with the boat's analyzer. I have no explanation for the discrepancy, but that's enough of a difference in MOD to prevent my ever diving on gas I haven't analyzed myself shortly before the dive.

Since I can't readily get my "best mix" for planned depth on a typical Cozumel first dive, I dive air. 36% is usually OK for a typical second dive.

Often someone would be sucking on DM's air.

Wow. All I can say is that that's my kid's air! In the incredibly unlikely event that my son's regulator fails at depth, he needs my air to make a safe ascent. If I'm not on that trip or sick in the room, he needs his buddy's air. If his buddy is so low he needs to nurse at the DM's backup reg, my kid is SOL. That DM now has 2 OOA divers and unless he's got doubles with 2 backups somebody's got to do a CESA.

Yes, I know this is unlikely and I know there are likely to be other divers in the area. In Cozumel, though, currents can vary widely at only slightly different depths and groups can quickly become separated enough that getting to a diver other than one's buddy when OOA isn't feasible.

In my opinion, once a diver is sharing air that dive is over for her and the pair needs to get to the surface as promptly as is safe, whether or not one of them is the DM or guide. Prolonging a diver's bottom time by sharing air with the DM is just asking for trouble.