Coz fans: Any families consisting of single parent with PADI-certed Junior/teens?

[MeraSonnet]

Specifically for folks who love Cozumel... I am putting out an APB for families who travel in the form of single parents who love to vacation and dive with their PADI-certified Junior Divers/or school-age teen divers. My Junior Diver and I are very interested in creating a group of travel/diving companions made up of good-people, easygoing, funloving families. No "anxiety" of a dating scene... rather, the potential to build friendships focused on sharing some diving and bits of family vacations where the teens are an integral part of the exploration and fun. My Junior diver and I each have 2 years worth of 20 dives at Coz, mostly drift dives. This includes night dives and a wreck dive. We prefer small boat ops, with careful private DM's that understand the right dive profile for young divers, and handle the gear all week so we are not hauling it back and forth. We dove with Christi's Blue XTSea this past summer in Coz. If readers of this thread have a family in mind that is not part of Scubaboard, feel free to PM me. Thank you!

 

[Christi]

We look forward to having you back!!!

 

[mstevens]

Why rule out non-single parents with junior divers?

 

[MeraSonnet]

That's a great question mstevens. I thought about that after I posted, because I actually was not so much focused on limiting it to a particular family dynamic... as much as emphasizing the intention to enjoy the company of the teens. Frankly, I am in a space where I am not clear how folks frequently travel as families with teen divers, so I may have been speaking from some limiting assumptions. Assumputions such as... families traveling and diving would consider their dynamic sacrosanct, and likely not desiring a diving group of companions. Or, the limiting assumption that if families do travel together, they tend to seek out other couples with kids. I have approached two scuba families (both with married parents) in my home town who my teen and I have a fond acquantainceship with, asking if they would enjoy sharing a dive vacation. Neither has bit. But 2 dismissals do not necessarily mean they were because the group dynamic was not a good option. I should not allow myself to get discouraged just out of the gate there. Just having recently become single this summer after previously scuba traveling as a family of 3, I am still feeling my way here. So thanks for the thoughts on opening up to all the good possibilities out there. We love diving, and we enjoy other divers.

 

[mstevens]

Our diving kid is now 17 with 5 years and hundreds of dives (mostly in Cozumel). We've run into a number of issues, mostly assumptions from other divers on the boat that the "kid" was somehow going to affect their dive adversely. Little did they know that he'd be surfacing 20 minutes after they were low on air, doesn't kick up silt in swim-throughs, barely seems to move when he dives, etc. We've even occasionally had other divers complain to the DM _after_ a dive that he was on the boat, apparently out of some basic aversion to kids. Most have been perfectly fine once they saw that his diving wasn't going to affect theirs.

We never actually ran into another family with a kid his age, but it would have been nice. You should keep pursuing this. It's a good idea.

 

[kixy1]

It's a great idea. My son and I are the only divers in our family and we've traveled without the rest of the family to Coz to dive. I imagine it would have been an even better trip if he had some others in his age group! He's now 18 and our trip this March may be the last 'family' vacation as he heads off to college next year. Not sure if I want to put a frownie or a smiley face here...

 

[MeraSonnet]

Ah, Kixy, bittersweet. But I believe more sweet. One of the reasons my teen and I chose to dive certify together was be able to enjoy travel and exploring together in a way that would likely stand the test of time. When he gets into college, I know and hope he develops even more of his own interests and direction. Yet, I will be the primary ticket to the travel for a while yet in that college phase... and diving will always be thrilling. So with yours entering the college phase of life, I hope for you all that it starts another chapter of enjoying each other and savoring exploring together.

 

[Qnape]

My daughter is in her first semester in college so I am one year ahead of kixy1; she and I got certified together when she was 14. She now has perhaps 175 dives under her belt, and our time together diving has been extremely special to both of us. My wife does not dive (so far), so my daughter has been my dive buddy for several years. She is truly a fish, and never faced any problems from other divers once they saw her in the water. We took a "daddy-daughter" trip without my wife to Utila when she was 15, and neither of us will forget the adventures we shared including our interaction with the whale sharks. We recently returned from our "last dive trip"(at least for a while) in Cozumel. Like you, we dove with Blue XTSea. I dove for 9 days, but my daughter only dove for four - mainly because she wanted to spend more time with kids closer to her age (she met plenty on the trip, but they were not divers!). We met teens diving only in Belize - two brothers from Canada diving with their Dad, and she immediately made friends. I only wish we met more divers her age during our trips. While we certainly traveled as a family, we would not have hesitated to arrange travel so that she could have a buddy close to her age. If that left me with an insta-buddy, so be it. Divers are a friendly bunch; my wife has finally decided to get certified and after we check her out we will be traveling back to Cozumel next year with new diving friends we made in Little Cayman last year. Your idea is great; finding a few divers closer to her age will increase her fun and desire to dive. And yes, there are some of us out there who travel as a family, but only one parent dives with their child. I bet in every case that parent would love to find someone close to their child's age to coordinate a trip with! Best of luck and safe diving.

 

[Christi]

My daughter is in her first semester in college so I am one year ahead of kixy1; she and I got certified together when she was 14. She now has perhaps 175 dives under her belt, and our time together diving has been extremely special to both of us. My wife does not dive (so far), so my daughter has been my dive buddy for several years. She is truly a fish, and never faced any problems from other divers once they saw her in the water. We took a "daddy-daughter" trip without my wife to Utila when she was 15, and neither of us will forget the adventures we shared including our interaction with the whale sharks. We recently returned from our "last dive trip"(at least for a while) in Cozumel. Like you, we dove with Blue XTSea. I dove for 9 days, but my daughter only dove for four - mainly because she wanted to spend more time with kids closer to her age (she met plenty on the trip, but they were not divers!). We met teens diving only in Belize - two brothers from Canada diving with their Dad, and she immediately made friends. I only wish we met more divers her age during our trips. While we certainly traveled as a family, we would not have hesitated to arrange travel so that she could have a buddy close to her age. If that left me with an insta-buddy, so be it. Divers are a friendly bunch; my wife has finally decided to get certified and after we check her out we will be traveling back to Cozumel next year with new diving friends we made in Little Cayman last year. Your idea is great; finding a few divers closer to her age will increase her fun and desire to dive. And yes, there are some of us out there who travel as a family, but only one parent dives with their child. I bet in every case that parent would love to find someone close to their child's age to coordinate a trip with! Best of luck and safe diving.

I still can't believe she's already in COLLEGE!!! She was just a baby! haha!! Looking forward to having your wife and new diving friends on board with us

 

[MeraSonnet]

Where did your daughter and you stay on Cozumel, where you were coming across other teens traveling with their families? Did you like the accomodations there?