Is there something particular or unique about Cozumel diving that makes the dive ops require their divers descend and ascend together? Do all Cozumel boats follow this procedure?
Live boat diving / drift diving - the boat follows the divers as best it can along the perceived drift, most of the time it's business as usual and the boat captain gets it right and is waiting where the divers surface, sometimes circumstances can change and reduce the odds, such as a storm rolls in, a captain makes a mistake watching the bubbles, two dive groups cross each other under water and bubbles become confused and the captain follows the wrong group... on and on... so sending the group on a drift dive down as a group and up as a group is safer than sending up buddy teams separately. (Do all dive operators in Cozumel do this? No. Many do not follow this policy, it's viewed as a safer alternative and followed by some) Further, more reasons why it's done - the dive master can't really follow each buddy team to the surface without abandoning the others, he really can't yoyo up and down 100ft three times over three dives each day safely, so the choice would be to send up a buddy team and they are on their own, if there is a problem with the boat finding them that complicates the day. So the safest method is everybody down, everybody up. The owner of Aldora who started this practice of the airshare and who's personal belief is doing it different than everybody else and has a policy of everybody down and everybody up at the same time has also said that when he first started this practice Cozumel had a problem with divers getting near misses and even hit by dive boats at the time and that was part of his initial reason for it, that has improved but he still wants his divers diving as a group and that is why the air share is one of his companies policy's.
The same guy who pioneered this safety measure is also responsible for pioneering many of the safety procedures dives enjoy in Cozumel today. Not long ago he was personally responsible for increasing everyone's safety by getting CO monitoring established in the islands main tank fill operation, he even put his own money into it to make it happen, since then he's taken it to the next level and is one of the very few who actually has his own tank fill operation so he can personally ensure his diver's air safety, he recently put nautilus lifelines on all his dive masters and boats, all of his dive masters are instructors, not just dive masters, and very experienced with some routinely having 10,000-12,000 dives under the belts. That's why this is all a little eye rolling, since the video depicts either an Aldora dive, or a rare example of one of only a handful of dive operators that follow the 'Adora way' the process that they use, and Aldora is known for being one of the safest, most innovative and pioneering dive operations on the island, not to mention the most successful and established. If you know the owner Dave you know he's by far leaps and bounds ahead of so many dive operators in Cozumel when it comes to safety, it makes all of this kind like... (yawn). This is the same guy who is the only guy on the island who has the safety measures in place to dive the East side of the island, nobody else can do it, he's also one of the few if not the only dive operation that can dive on somedays when all other dive operators are banned from leaving the harbor due to weather, one of his boats the Felicity can be the only boat allowed out. Why? Because the other operators are operating boats too small or too un-sea worthy to be allowed out, he's the only guy who opened up any new dive sites in the last 20 years by exploration paid for out of his own pocket and is introducing new dive sites while establishing stringent safety policies and experience level testing before letting divers participate. Nobody else does any of this. And the guy has pioneered a method to extend bottom time to his groups and some people are freaking out like this is the most dangerous thing they've ever seen before.
And the long and the short of all the controversy is not a single person who is so alarmed has been able to come up with anything solid as evidence of why it's wrong or any evidence of any training agency condemning it, nothing, all that can be really brought up as evidence is a 'feeling' that you just don't care for it.
