Can still remember my first dive in Cozumel, how about you?

[jwilson05]

January, 1987

My wife and I stayed at Vista Del Mar (no A/C, tarantula in the room). We dove with Aqua Safari. First dive was 105 feet at Palancar. Looking back it wasn't so smart since it was my wife's first time in the ocean. Neither of us will ever forget the incredible clarity and majesty. We were thoroughly disoriented for a while. We were also hooked for life.
I had a horse collar B/C. The wife had one of those new-fangled jackets. The DM had a tank, single hose 2nd stage, Voit fins, and a belt with a big knife in it. The ride out took about an hour and a half on an old fishing boat. The crew caught fish on hand lines for our lunch at secluded San Francisco Beach. Then to Paradise for the afternoon. I know people talk about how much better the diving was then, but I really don't think it was so different, and it is much, much safer now.

 

[scubatree]

I don’t think I will ever forget our first trip and dive in Cozumel. It was 30 years ago, October 1981.

I had wanted to scuba dive since I was a little kid watching Sea Hunt, Flipper, James Bond in “Thunderball”, and especially the National Geographic specials “The Undersea World of Jaques Cousteau”. I read the Cousteau book “The Silent World” about Cousteau and his life long friend and diving partner Fredrich Dumas and these guys were true explorers, undersea explorers.

My brother got certified in 1968 by YMCA and for my high school graduation present, he rented tanks and took me to Cisco Lake in west Texas to dive. I had no training and he just told to not do this or not do that or you will die. No BC’s, computers, safe second, just tanks, weights, and it scared the crap out of me. We only went down about 20’ or so, the water was cold, and murky. Probably not the most intelligent think to do, but I was young, dumb, and had no fear ( that is why they used to draft 18 year olds). It was not like Sea Hunt or where Jaques Cousteau dived.

My wife and I got certified in 1979 with our local dive shop “School of Scuba” in Abilene, Texas. We did our check out dives at Possum Kingdom Lake. Again, water was cold, murky, and not really all that much to see, except people use Texas lakes as dump grounds back then.

We did not dive again until our dive shop set up their first trip ever to Cozumel and we signed up to go on that trip. I will never forget, and I sill get the same feeling every time the airplane approaches the land just north of Cancun. I see the multi colored blue, aqua, turquoise, and indigo blue waters of the Caribbean and I get a tingle all over.

My first dive in ocean water and Cozumel water was on October 28, 1981. Dive number 4 in my old NASDS log book shows an 80’ max. dive at Palancar Reef for a total dive time of 35 minutes. The old log book says it all….”Beautiful, could see bottom from boat!” I was addicted like Rush Limbaugh to Oxycontin!

We did a deep dive and went to San Francisco Beach and ate what was caught while we were diving. After lunch and our surface interval we did our shallow dive. Our 2 tank dives took all day. No computers, just tables.

I have been coming back for 30 years and just completed my last trip. It was a quick. Last minute trip for my birthday Sept. 15 thru 18th. I just hope I can continue to call Cozumel “my home away from home” for another 30 years

Steve

 

[parrotheaddiver]

1978...don't remember anything else and didn't keep a log book at that time....but I must have loved it since I have been going back for 33 years

 

[ggunn]

Nice thread!

12/9/03 - San Fransico Wall, dive #29. We did the bag drag from PDC with ALL our gear and were too cheap to take a taxi from the ferry pier to Cozumel Equalizers all they down on 11th ave. It was exhausting but well worth it. My wife and I were the only two on the boat.

My log entry:

My first Cozumel dive was with Darwin as well. Freshly certed by different agencies, my wife and I dove together for the first time on Tormentos back in May of..., let's see... 1996? 1994? Anyway, the only reason she got certed was that she didn't want to wait ashore for me not knowing if I would be coming back, and after a less than ideal set of cert dives she was not at all sure she wanted to keep diving. That dive turned her around 180 degrees.

 

[DocVikingo]

Here's Darwin ; )

Oh, indeed I do.

It was in April of 1974 when the population of the island was about 7,500; it's now about 100,000. Cruise ships were few and far between and of course anchored as the reef destroying piers were still decades away.

There weren't all that many hotels or dive ops back then. I stayed at a hotel that no longer exists and dove with Aqua Safari.

My first dive was on Paradise Reef and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I didn't think vis ever got that good. Water temp was 84F.

Been going back ever since. This Nov, in fact.

Regards,

DocVikingo

 

[grf88]

I was visiting Cozumel in 1979 and towards the end of my stay I decided to check out scuba diving. I met a dive operator at Chankanaab Lagoon who put me in scuba gear and showed me how to operate it. I then went with a divemaster for a 20 minute dive on the adjacent reef where he took me through a swimthrough that was totally dark. When we returned the divemaster and instructor asked me what I thought and I said that I really enjoyed it but found the walls of fish quite disconcerting, remember this was 1979. They then gave me a fresh tank and said come back when it was empty. As I entered the water they threw in a full loaf of bread to make sure I had plenty of fish surrounding me. I now went for my fist solo dive and got thoroughly lost with no landmarks that I recognised but not knowing any better I continued the dive until the reg started to show some resistance pulled on the reserve and surfaced quite some way from the entry point. The next day I did two drift dives on the Palancar reef at about 70 feet. The equipment consisted of a horse collar BC and a reg, no pressure gauge or depth gauge.

When I returned to Canada I got certified and at that point discovered that my intro to scuba had been somewhat unconventional.

 

[fdog]

My first dive in Coz was April of this year with Scuba Club Cozumel.

I have no real recollection of the dive on Punta Dalila, although my logbook notes "Yawn". The experience we had from Scuba Club was very nice, though, and I do remember the dinners and the wonderful facility.


All the best, James

 

[Diver Kat]

Sad to say, my first dive on Cozumel did not go well. It was dive #18 on December 18th, 2002. Although we had made sure the dive op knew we were brand new - and been told we would be handled accordingly, when we got there, they tried to stick us on a boat going to Devils Throat. They told us it wasn't a big deal. Luckily, I'd read enough to know differently. Eventually - and for more $$$ - they sent us out on another boat alone. Didn't get much better. Neither the captain or the DM had any real interest in making our dive experience enjoyable. Once back on land, we had a big hassle with paying them as they now wanted cash rather than charging the dives to the CC they had required for the deposit. Although later on we got a written apology and an offer of a discount to dive with them again, we never did. (And never will, although many here on SB love them.) With some trepidation, we gave it another try in July 2003 and had a terrific time diving with Papa Hogs. We saw what Coz diving was really about and after that, we were hooked and now return to Coz any chance we can ....

 

[Augustus]

1967 anchor dive on Palancar. Swam back to the boat and saw a shark swimming by the dive boat as the crew was cleaning a fish. Also hundreds of conch all over the sand bottom. No drift dives in those days.

 

[budaman]

My first trip was in June,1986. Had started dating my better half on Valentine's Day of that year and after a couple of month's, she asked me if I'd be interested in going to Cozumel. There was one condition....I'd have to get certified. I told her I was already certified & she replied...not that kind of certified....you need to learn to scuba. Got my certification & in June we hopped a plane & off we went....no hotel reservations, we'll figure that out when we get there. Found a cute little courtyard inn a few blocks down from where Neptunos is now, but I seem to remember it being Scaramuche then....maybe not. Lots of trips to the old, original hole in the wall Carlos & Charlies will do that.

Don't remember too much about the dives other than being totally amazed at how clear the water was & how much more I was enjoying it than Lake Travis. I believe we dove with Dive Paradise because that little blue fish in their logo seems to stick in my head. We too would catch fish on the return from the dives & have lunch...such a change from the world I was used to. Dove the old airplane wreck in front of La Cieba when it was still an airlplane. Drifted down to the cruise pier where the Norway was berthed...that was a beautiful ship. Of course she was the SS France in her glory years as the last true Trans Atlantic ship built.

Cozumel set the standard for me as a dive destination & it still holds that distinction in my eyes. Sure it has changed, but still has all the charm I felt that first trip.

Mike