TommyEss
New
Hi everyone,
Lots of great information here, and this post is really to clarify my thoughts on how a friend and I handled a situation a couple of weeks ago in Cozumel. I'm relatively happy we did the right thing, and nobody got hurt, but I'd like to run it past everyone, see if there's anything we've missed, or could do differently next time.
Setting the Scene
My friend and I had just enjoyed our second 2 tank dive trip out in Cozumel with an excellent op I found through SB. My friend had only been able to join us on this, our second day, and she had dived with her hostel's shop the previous day. We were keen to get in a night dive, as we were told there would be octopus, and it was our last day in Cozumel.
We ended up booking a night dive with her hostel - she said the previous day's dives had been good, although the boat was a little tired, and she needed to switch to her alternative as her reg was letting in water. We arranged the price, including wetsuit hire, and agreed to meet at the hostel at 17:30.
17:30
I meet my friend at the hostel, and we wait for the op to turn up.
...
18:15
The op finally turns up, he's brought his girlfriend(?) in the truck, and starts pulling out gear for us from a side room at the hostel. It then becomes apparent that I need to pay another $10 for my wetsuit - only my friend has the wetsuit included for free. There's ensues a brief, language-barrier addled discussion about honesty, confusion and about being up front about these things. We agree to pay.
We now make our way to the marina, picking up tanks on the way - nothing untoward here. We gear up, he explains light signals to us, and we do our buddy checks. We enter the water as a three, and begin our descent. We get down a few metres, and notice the guide is back at the surface. My friend and I shrug our shoulders at each other, wait a few seconds, and go back up to him. On the surface, he asks if we're ok - to which we give a slightly confused "Yes", and we descend again.
We're not in deep water (I don't think I saw more than 11m the whole dive) - the bottom comes up quickly, and he points out a dead skate on the bed. We continue following him, looking around, getting used to what the lights do and don't pick up. And then he was gone...
My friend, who has over a hundred dives, to my dozen or so at this point, is taking my GoPro rig, which includes a couple of 900 lumen wide beam lights, on top of her wrist mounted torch, so between us, we looked like a mini-Vegas - we turn to each other, shrug again, and begin scouring 360 high and low - I think I can see a torch way up at the surface, which may be our guide, but I can't be certain. I check my air - still a good 2300 psi - we've not been in that long at all. Meanwhile, my friend is swapping to her alternate. I found out later that she had the water issue again. I signal with another shrug and then thumb upwards. She agrees and thumbs too.
My computer is asking for a safety stop, and we attempt to hold a depth of 5m, but stupidly, my dSMB is on the boat - I didn't think we'd be able to signal anyone else at night time...
We didn't get our buoyancy quite right, and slowly descended back down, pausing the safety stop timer on my computer. We tried again, swam up gently, and were watching my computer countdown, when seemingly out of nowhere, our guide reappeared. He asks if we're ok - we reply that we are, because we have loads of air and are physically fine, and we proceed to follow him once again. After another minute or two, he stops, and signals to us a thumbs up.
We get back on the boat without further incidence, and the guide says to us "OK - now we find the reef!" - but we've already been staring at each other and communicating in murmurs and imploring eyes, and we're not happy to do anything else with him. I say we'd like to go home, he pleads for us to give him one more chance, and I say calmy but firmly, "No thanks, we'd like to go home now, please".
Cue the worst atmosphere ever on the short trip back to the marina - I've been to more fun funerals, I promise you, and then we have the ride back to Cozumel to contend with too. I didn't hang around at the hostel when we got back, but they didn't ask my friend for any more money.
We debriefed ourselves over dinner a bit later.
Things we came up with:
1) Weird atmosphere over money - just felt a little fishy, but not a major warning sign at the beginning
2) Equipment, again - my friend had reg issues twice
3) I think we dealt with what was essentially a lost buddy in the correct way - search for 1 minute, then make our way to the surface
4) I'm not getting in the water without my dSMB again
5) It's very hard to hold your depth with no visuals - though I can do some night dives with my dive school on our liveaboard trip in January.
So - any input from the hive mind please?
Lots of great information here, and this post is really to clarify my thoughts on how a friend and I handled a situation a couple of weeks ago in Cozumel. I'm relatively happy we did the right thing, and nobody got hurt, but I'd like to run it past everyone, see if there's anything we've missed, or could do differently next time.
Setting the Scene
My friend and I had just enjoyed our second 2 tank dive trip out in Cozumel with an excellent op I found through SB. My friend had only been able to join us on this, our second day, and she had dived with her hostel's shop the previous day. We were keen to get in a night dive, as we were told there would be octopus, and it was our last day in Cozumel.
We ended up booking a night dive with her hostel - she said the previous day's dives had been good, although the boat was a little tired, and she needed to switch to her alternative as her reg was letting in water. We arranged the price, including wetsuit hire, and agreed to meet at the hostel at 17:30.
17:30
I meet my friend at the hostel, and we wait for the op to turn up.
...
18:15
The op finally turns up, he's brought his girlfriend(?) in the truck, and starts pulling out gear for us from a side room at the hostel. It then becomes apparent that I need to pay another $10 for my wetsuit - only my friend has the wetsuit included for free. There's ensues a brief, language-barrier addled discussion about honesty, confusion and about being up front about these things. We agree to pay.
We now make our way to the marina, picking up tanks on the way - nothing untoward here. We gear up, he explains light signals to us, and we do our buddy checks. We enter the water as a three, and begin our descent. We get down a few metres, and notice the guide is back at the surface. My friend and I shrug our shoulders at each other, wait a few seconds, and go back up to him. On the surface, he asks if we're ok - to which we give a slightly confused "Yes", and we descend again.
We're not in deep water (I don't think I saw more than 11m the whole dive) - the bottom comes up quickly, and he points out a dead skate on the bed. We continue following him, looking around, getting used to what the lights do and don't pick up. And then he was gone...
My friend, who has over a hundred dives, to my dozen or so at this point, is taking my GoPro rig, which includes a couple of 900 lumen wide beam lights, on top of her wrist mounted torch, so between us, we looked like a mini-Vegas - we turn to each other, shrug again, and begin scouring 360 high and low - I think I can see a torch way up at the surface, which may be our guide, but I can't be certain. I check my air - still a good 2300 psi - we've not been in that long at all. Meanwhile, my friend is swapping to her alternate. I found out later that she had the water issue again. I signal with another shrug and then thumb upwards. She agrees and thumbs too.
My computer is asking for a safety stop, and we attempt to hold a depth of 5m, but stupidly, my dSMB is on the boat - I didn't think we'd be able to signal anyone else at night time...
We didn't get our buoyancy quite right, and slowly descended back down, pausing the safety stop timer on my computer. We tried again, swam up gently, and were watching my computer countdown, when seemingly out of nowhere, our guide reappeared. He asks if we're ok - we reply that we are, because we have loads of air and are physically fine, and we proceed to follow him once again. After another minute or two, he stops, and signals to us a thumbs up.
We get back on the boat without further incidence, and the guide says to us "OK - now we find the reef!" - but we've already been staring at each other and communicating in murmurs and imploring eyes, and we're not happy to do anything else with him. I say we'd like to go home, he pleads for us to give him one more chance, and I say calmy but firmly, "No thanks, we'd like to go home now, please".
Cue the worst atmosphere ever on the short trip back to the marina - I've been to more fun funerals, I promise you, and then we have the ride back to Cozumel to contend with too. I didn't hang around at the hostel when we got back, but they didn't ask my friend for any more money.
We debriefed ourselves over dinner a bit later.
Things we came up with:
1) Weird atmosphere over money - just felt a little fishy, but not a major warning sign at the beginning
2) Equipment, again - my friend had reg issues twice
3) I think we dealt with what was essentially a lost buddy in the correct way - search for 1 minute, then make our way to the surface
4) I'm not getting in the water without my dSMB again
5) It's very hard to hold your depth with no visuals - though I can do some night dives with my dive school on our liveaboard trip in January.
So - any input from the hive mind please?