Newly Certified and going to Coz for the 1st Time

[waynel]

Check out Gordon's My Band. Impressive. I am a musician (helped pay for college) as well and had three other musicians on our dive boat last week in Cozumel. I also met other divers on the bank who are former pros or were still gigging. Our local dive shop owner is one hell of a drummer and currently does some work with a jazz group here in Lafayette. Wonder why so many musicians are attracted to diving?

 

[Fordan]

1. Drop a bit lower - approx 20 feet....especially if there are lots of waves or surge. My computer won't start my 3 minute countdown unless I'm at 19 feet or higher, but yours may differ. Point is, it can make a big difference in your ability to hold your stop.

Don't believe mine (Oceanic) will start it until I get up to 15ft, but once I do, it'll keep counting down if I drop back down to 20ft, which isn't a bad place to be with the boat traffic in the area.

2. Turn yourself upside down. You can fin down and hold your stop from the "wrong" direction. It's a bit more work and you'll burn a bit more air. Watch your ascent rate once you've completed your stop and you turn around to go up; you should go up largely horizontal instead of vertical (see below).

One of the other divers when I was down there ended up doing this and had a minor problem... He didn't have a good seal on the neck of his wetsuit, and air from his regulator exhaust got up into his wetsuit, making his buoyancy worse. Might also have been the more work=fuller lungs issue and having to fight against their buoyancy as well.

 

[MMM]

There's a way to fix that. Hold your arm up and let the air exhaust from your sleeve.

One of the other divers when I was down there ended up doing this and had a minor problem... He didn't have a good seal on the neck of his wetsuit, and air from his regulator exhaust got up into his wetsuit, making his buoyancy worse. Might also have been the more work=fuller lungs issue and having to fight against their buoyancy as well.

 

[ggunn]

There's a way to fix that. Hold your arm up and let the air exhaust from your sleeve.

I think the point was that he was head down at the time, so the air would have collected in the bottom of his suit.

 

[Mawg]

Would this be a good spot for a quick discussion about managing a safety stop when you find you are too light? It's happened to me a couple of times (usually on the first dive of my trip). But you shouldn't get to 15 feet and then go "uh-oh". So I'll start.

1. Drop a bit lower - approx 20 feet....especially if there are lots of waves or surge. My computer won't start my 3 minute countdown unless I'm at 19 feet or higher, but yours may differ. Point is, it can make a big difference in your ability to hold your stop.
2. Turn yourself upside down. You can fin down and hold your stop from the "wrong" direction. It's a bit more work and you'll burn a bit more air. Watch your ascent rate once you've completed your stop and you turn around to go up; you should go up largely horizontal instead of vertical (see below).
3. Hold your stop in a horizontal position. For some reason a vertical position makes you more "cork-like".
4. Look into using steel tanks.

Others?

Fifteen feet is too shallow for a safety stop, imo. It seems to me that at 20 feet, the current doesn't push me toward the surface as easily as it does at 15 feet. I dont wear a wetsuit and cant comment there. Also, with an Al 80, the lower your psi, the more it acts like a HUGE cork.
Years ago, when I was still new to Cozumel drift diving, I had a scary experience while diving Santa Rosa Wall. It was toward the end of the dive and we were about to enter the last swim through. I lined up to enter when all of a sudden, I started heading up from a depth of around 70 feet. Nothing I did , even trying to swim downward, kept me from going to the surface. I fought it as best I could but, within 3 to 4 minutes I was on the surface. I IMMEDIATELY swam down and caught up with the rest of the group at the safety stop and spent 10 minutes there. That probably saved me from getting bent. I've been back to Santa Rosa many times since then with no similar problem.

 

[Fordan]

Right, he was head down, and had to stay that way to hold the stop. The air he was exhaling was making it inside his wetsuit. I suspect not much air would escape via the arms even if they were kept swept back so they pointed up.

If I was right side up and needed to get air out of the wetsuit, I'd pull the neck seal and flush water through the suit. Then again, I don't usually get too cold diving, so the loss of the body-warmed water doesn't bother me too much, at least at Cozumel temps. I find this especially useful on the initial descent, when I still have air in the suit from the Surface Interval.

 

[Sherpa_fab]

my recent dive trip to Cozumel made for a few firsts..

1st boat dive. 1st drift dive. 1st nite dive. 1st cave (cavern) dive. all in all I think

drift diving is much easier than just a regular drop-dive from a boat. you figure with

a steady current running in a direction, everyone doing the dive stays together at

about the same pace.................. that being said, photo-divers always want to go

slow to be able to take nice pics. I have no issues with that, just as long as the

group as a whole keeps pace together...................

here is another thought I've got on tropical diving............ (I dive Monterey since I'm

from san jose) and diving in 50 degree water, shore diving, in 15 foot vis, and going

60 feet is a whole other world compared to boat diving in 80 degree water, dropping

from a boat, in 80 foot viz................... the better you can see, the better you can

be confident that everything is okay.........

like said prior, inform the DM when you're heading out for the dive........ make sure

you stay close to the DM, (enjoy your dive of course, don't just hover and look at

his fins the whole time-!) and have a good time.............

another note: I'm a big boy, I dive a 7mm in monterey, and I brought a new 5mil

suit with me for Coz......... I only used it on 3 drops....... all the rest of my trip I

dove in my swimsuit.......... no issues with cold..... although, on my first dive without

wearing a wetsuit, I slightly rubbed up against a coral-plant with my forearm......

it stung very little, but later in the week, became a spreading case of contact

dermititis............. very itchy, little spores just like poison oak contact......... I

bought some cortizone cream at a pharmacia (2.5%) BTW, but it didn't clear it up

till I came home and went to my doc and got all kinds of crap (pills) to take........


enjoy your trip to Coz............................!

--Sherpa

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Cozumel was my first trip after getting certified, in 2005. It was great!! (Until Wilma hit and sat atop of us for sixty hours!)

You're going to have a great time. Enjoy!

 

[Namchief]

Thanks for all the help. My OW dives are this weekend. I'm not too worried at this point about going to 80' depth, except for getting Narced.

I'm mainly worried about doing a night dive for the first time. I probably won't have time to do an AOW class before then, so I'm just considering finding something super easy for a night dive. I heard night dives are pretty sweet during a full moon. Is that when there is the most phosphorous?

Take your AOW in Cozumel. With the OP I dive with it is $325 that is 5 dives over 2 days one dive being a night dive. All dives with private instructor/DM. Compared to the aprox. $200 for the same dives in a group.(less $ if you dive multiple days) You get a your AOW with a private Instructor/DiveMaster. So for $125 you get the same dives but with private instructor/DM and you get the advanced training of AOW. Which I totally advise.
Just my .02¢
Eric