LATE Night diving in Cozumel

[jnersasi]

I'm going to be in Cozumel on Friday Feb 6th from the hours of ~9PM to 3AM (Just a quick stop on a Cruise ship). I have a group of 4-5 divers so far who are interested in doing a night dive. Now, 9PM is pretty late to be starting a night dive, but does anyone know of an operator who might be willing to accommodate such a group? If you are an operator, I'd be really interesting in hearing what our options are and what minimum group size you'd be willing to consider. We, so far, are all advanced divers with night experience. Some of us will need equipment, but we could compile that information and get it to you before hand.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Jeremy

 

[ggunn]

I'm going to be in Cozumel on Friday Feb 6th from the hours of ~9PM to 3AM (Just a quick stop on a Cruise ship). I have a group of 4-5 divers so far who are interested in doing a night dive. Now, 9PM is pretty late to be starting a night dive, but does anyone know of an operator who might be willing to accommodate such a group? If you are an operator, I'd be really interesting in hearing what our options are and what minimum group size you'd be willing to consider. We, so far, are all advanced divers with night experience. Some of us will need equipment, but we could compile that information and get it to you before hand.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Jeremy

Wow, that's a very unusual stop for a cruise ship; they generally like to be under way (weigh?) at night. Are you sure about the AM and PM to those times? A misprint on your itinerary, maybe? 9 AM to 3 PM is more like the typical stop.

But to answer your question, I don't believe that any Coz ops dive those times except (I've heard) on New Year's Eve.

 

[sharky60]

The times do seem to be off from normal visits, everything will be closed by the time you disembark.

If the times are correct, depending on if your group is first, last or some where in between to be allowed off the ship, it could actually be closer to 10p by the time you are able to go diving. Cruise ships assign you a group or color for safety and disembarkment reasons, and different groups get to go first at differnt ports.

Your dive group of 4-5 is minimal for what we call "6-packs" or the fast boats, which is what you want to be on. But that may not be an issue as you will most likely have to set up some sort of private dive any way.

Then there is the issue of park rules, there may be no diving after a certain time either by marine rules set by the port master or by the rules of the marine park it's self. Purly speculative of course.

Here are a couple of dive ops that may be able to help you out

www.scubawithalison.com
www.bottomtimedivers.net

also try
www.bluextseadiving.com
www.lorenz.pl/angel/index.html blue angel dive shop

It never hurts to ask, and folks in Coz are pretty accommodating, they want everyone to have a good time.

 

[jnersasi]

Thanks guys, yeah it is a really odd time. The ship has been privately chartered, and we are leaving from Miami on Thursday and returning on Sunday. I guess 9PM Friday just happens to be the halfway point. Since we've chartered the ship as a group, I think we could arrange to be on the first boat off if needs be so we wouldn't have to wait much after the ship arrived. 4-5 is the number of divers we have so far, but I anticipate more joining in. I'll try contacting those operators you mentioned Sharky - thanks for the names.

 

[bdshort]

That is a strange time to stop, for sure. I wonder if they're doing it just so they have docked at a foreign port to satisfy some strange maritive law? Everything will be closed at that time... unless you do find a dive operator willing to take you out, I'd just stay on the ship and sleep!

 

[scubawife]

Thanks guys, yeah it is a really odd time. The ship has been privately chartered, and we are leaving from Miami on Thursday and returning on Sunday. I guess 9PM Friday just happens to be the halfway point. Since we've chartered the ship as a group, I think we could arrange to be on the first boat off if needs be so we wouldn't have to wait much after the ship arrived. 4-5 is the number of divers we have so far, but I anticipate more joining in. I'll try contacting those operators you mentioned Sharky - thanks for the names.

I spent many years working in various areas of the cruise industry and even as a charter that is a really odd port call schedule for Cozumel... San Juan maybe, but not Cozumel. Not sure why a group would want to be in Coz overnight when it's not a nightlife or gambling destination. What's the plan? Dock and restock while the guests sleep?

Curious which ship you chartered, if you don't mind saying.

It'll be tough to get anyone out to take you diving at that time if they have a morning boat going out. Good luck. Please come back and post if you do get someone willing to do it.

 

[loudives]

I'm going to be in Cozumel on Friday Feb 6th from the hours of ~9PM to 3AM (Just a quick stop on a Cruise ship). I have a group of 4-5 divers so far who are interested in doing a night dive. Now, 9PM is pretty late to be starting a night dive, but does anyone know of an operator who might be willing to accommodate such a group? If you are an operator, I'd be really interesting in hearing what our options are and what minimum group size you'd be willing to consider. We, so far, are all advanced divers with night experience. Some of us will need equipment, but we could compile that information and get it to you before hand.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Jeremy

I second Bottom Time, Alison, Bluextsea. You would have to prepay with no refunds since they would have to get the tanks before the tank supplier closes for the day and pay the boat captain. Being that late you will be doing Paradise reef which is just outside the marina. Great shallow reef with lots of critters. 4 years ago I did it with Raul of Bottom Time and a small black tip shark went right between his legs and we were able to track him for 3-4 min.

 

[Sue Sue]

Good luck and great if you find someone, however, dive shop crews are finishing up their days by the time you arrive. They have already done 2 tank, 3 tank , twilight and/or night dives for the day and still need to clean up before they can get home, have dinner/rest/be with their families and be ready to start it all over again in the morning. They get up early to prep boats, equipment and tanks and then work until the boats are unloaded and cleaned up. Anyway, good luck. The only way to find out for sure is contact the dive ops directly and ask, no harm in trying. If you don't get to dive Cozumel, here's to hoping you do get the opportunity elsewhere. Sue

 

[jnersasi]

Just wanted to follow up on this for anyone who was interested:

We did end up doing our night dive. It was great. 8 of us went out with Eric Perez Novelo. He was great to dive with and did everything he could to get us in the water at such a late hour. We ended up diving Paradise Reef, and jumped in just before midnight for an hour long dive. Lots of octopi out at that time of night. I'd never seen one before. They're great!

Thanks to everyone who replied with contacts and information about the island. You all helped out a lot, and if you're going down to Cozumel I suggest you look up Eric - again, he was great.

Jeremy