BigHatNoCattle
Registered
Just returned from a dive dive dive trip. This was our first Caribbean trip in a couple years, with some cold ocean and fresh water dives between. We'd been to Cozumel two times previously, both with Blue Angel. Both of us have been diving since 2005 and are reasonably experienced.
We arrived Friday afternoon, mildly stiff and sore thanks to Frontier's new condensed seats. We won the red light! green light! sweepstakes, and watched the most thorough search of every piece of dive gear and article of clothing I have ever seen. In retrospect, cheering the red light may not have been the best idea.
The original plan had been to stay and dive with Blue Angel this time, which was full. Instead we stayed at the Villa Blanca, about 1/4-mile south. We figured the 15-dive package with Paradise Dive would suffice, and that we would mix/match/upgrade to get to 4 dives/day. The package was convenient and cheap.
The Villa Blanca was interesting from an historical perspective, as it has been there for so long. We requested a room as far from the street as possible to avoid road noise. We heard none. Our view was of a garden.
The room was spartan and clean, and had lots of marble: fun to slide on when wet, which was most of the week. Being on the ground floor, we did not hang our gear outside. The cleaning staff did cool origami with towels each day: sharks, ducks, hearts, etc. The bed was comfortable. No bugs were in the room. Oddly, we were warned about this during the flight down. The tap water had a disturbing yellow-tan hue that intensified later in the week. The little A/C worked almost too well. The ceiling fan moved an impressive amount of air; we turned it on while out of the room to dry our gear. We did not go in the pool. The thing that looks like it must be a hot tub in the Villa Blanca website is actually a kiddie pool. The entire lawn area surrounding the kiddie pool was inundated through Monday with the amazing amount of rain we had. No rooms flooded.
The breakfasts at the Nemo restaurant on the hotel property were adequate. "Continental" means coffee, OJ, and toast. With jam. We ate there each morning before diving. The hotel wi-fi worked in the restaurant, not in our room.
We had lunch most days at La Hach, above the little Paradise Divers shop. Pretty good quesadillas. Fast service, which was nice. We watched a couple of sunsets there as well, con margaritas.
We ate dinners at Kondesa, Kinta, Blue Angel, and one other little place south of the tequila factory. Kondesa was the best.
We found Paradise Divers to be pretty good overall, if a bit rigid at first. Their little shop below La Hach does not have much in it, but is not their main shop. Staff was friendly.
We had tough luck with weather the first couple of days with heavy rain and wind. We were annoyed to discover that the "Caribbean" package we purchased would have entailed diving the close-in shallow sites all week on big slow boats with a bunch of novices. Not that there's anything wrong with novices; we just like to dive for a bit longer and at more interesting sites. We were told that upgrading to the diving we came to Cozumel for was not possible for every reason imaginable unless we sacrificed the money we already paid, and then paid full freight to reserve the dives we wanted to do. That was unacceptable, of course. We eventually came to an agreement in which three mediocre dives basically equated to two good dives, plus a mild dose of guilt. Now we know: I will never again assume that one dive might equate to another, and will not assume that the hotel operator has any knowledge of the dive operation or can speak on their behalf.
Entertainingly, before this negotiation, my better half neglected to bring her c-card & log book along. In that light, I suppose we were lucky to dive at all. SSI failed to answer the phone number on my c-card during regular business hours (shortly before 3 pm MDT on a Friday in Fort Collins, Co). We were, however, able to reach our dive shop in Fort Collins to resolve the issue of whether she was, in fact, certified. Evidently others diving with Paradise have forgotten c-cards; there is a written test and a waiver to be signed and witnessed. She took the test, and passed.
For the week, we made 19 dives in six days (we only made 7 dives in the first three days, most of which were in tough conditions at the surface). Visibility was generally good (>100'), although I have seen it better in Cozumel.
Highlights... We dove Punta Sur (Devil's Throat) with eight other divers plus DM, and did several of the classic wall dives with fewer companions. The swim throughs on Santa Rosa Wall were amazing in brilliant sunlight. We saw more huge mutant lobsters than usual (one of which really enjoyed a lionfish carcass left for him by the DM), several turtles (both hawksbill & loggerhead), many rays, and a few nurse sharks. We had a great time playing with my GoPro, especially on the sunnier dives Mon - Thurs. We also discovered that the GoPro records very little inside the wreck and dark parts of swim-throughs, other than kicked up sand and dancing flashlights. We really enjoyed diving with Julio on the fast boat, and will definitely request him if we dive with Paradise again.
Other lessons learned: The least conservative algorithm in the Suunto D4i strongly dislikes deep, repetitive dives. I purchased that computer a couple years ago as a backup to an old Uwatech that I really like, and played with it on some relatively shallow dives in CA, and on some shorter dives in NM a few months ago. No problems. On this trip my Uwatech was admittedly close to being in deco mode; however, the Suunto at one point needed an additional 27 minutes at a ceiling of 10 feet, most of which were added in the span of a few minutes during a slow ascent from 30 to 20 feet as a precaution I normally take. The Uwatech showed no deco obligation. The Suunto will be for sale shortly on a website near you.
Finally, the GoPro Switchblade red filter worked great. The colors looked much more realistic than other underwater video I've shot. The other part of the Switchblade, the corrective glass lens designed to reduce the fisheye effect, fell out during a dive. My bet is that it was jarred loose in the bucket between dives. I retrieved it from the sand at about 60 feet. Turns out the connection to the rest of the housing is only a pressure mount, and unfortunately there is no way to secure the glass. I may attempt Krazy Glue, as I like the effect of the corrective lens, despite the added weight. For the record, I had zip-tied the Switchblade to the pole-mount, as I was strongly warned to do so by another diver.
We departed late Friday afternoon. Writing the above manifesto shortened the return flight considerably.
Dives logged:
6/13: Chankanab Balones; Chankanab Shallow
6/14: Cedral; Villa Blanca shallow (twice)
6/15: Columbia Balloons; Tormentos
6/16: Columbia Deep; Dahlia; Palancar Deep; Columbia Shallow
6/17: Devil's Throat; C-53 Wreck; Palancar Bricks; Columbia Shallow
6/18: La Francesca; Punta Tunich; Santa Rosa Wall; Paso de Cedral
We arrived Friday afternoon, mildly stiff and sore thanks to Frontier's new condensed seats. We won the red light! green light! sweepstakes, and watched the most thorough search of every piece of dive gear and article of clothing I have ever seen. In retrospect, cheering the red light may not have been the best idea.
The original plan had been to stay and dive with Blue Angel this time, which was full. Instead we stayed at the Villa Blanca, about 1/4-mile south. We figured the 15-dive package with Paradise Dive would suffice, and that we would mix/match/upgrade to get to 4 dives/day. The package was convenient and cheap.
The Villa Blanca was interesting from an historical perspective, as it has been there for so long. We requested a room as far from the street as possible to avoid road noise. We heard none. Our view was of a garden.
The room was spartan and clean, and had lots of marble: fun to slide on when wet, which was most of the week. Being on the ground floor, we did not hang our gear outside. The cleaning staff did cool origami with towels each day: sharks, ducks, hearts, etc. The bed was comfortable. No bugs were in the room. Oddly, we were warned about this during the flight down. The tap water had a disturbing yellow-tan hue that intensified later in the week. The little A/C worked almost too well. The ceiling fan moved an impressive amount of air; we turned it on while out of the room to dry our gear. We did not go in the pool. The thing that looks like it must be a hot tub in the Villa Blanca website is actually a kiddie pool. The entire lawn area surrounding the kiddie pool was inundated through Monday with the amazing amount of rain we had. No rooms flooded.
The breakfasts at the Nemo restaurant on the hotel property were adequate. "Continental" means coffee, OJ, and toast. With jam. We ate there each morning before diving. The hotel wi-fi worked in the restaurant, not in our room.
We had lunch most days at La Hach, above the little Paradise Divers shop. Pretty good quesadillas. Fast service, which was nice. We watched a couple of sunsets there as well, con margaritas.
We ate dinners at Kondesa, Kinta, Blue Angel, and one other little place south of the tequila factory. Kondesa was the best.
We found Paradise Divers to be pretty good overall, if a bit rigid at first. Their little shop below La Hach does not have much in it, but is not their main shop. Staff was friendly.
We had tough luck with weather the first couple of days with heavy rain and wind. We were annoyed to discover that the "Caribbean" package we purchased would have entailed diving the close-in shallow sites all week on big slow boats with a bunch of novices. Not that there's anything wrong with novices; we just like to dive for a bit longer and at more interesting sites. We were told that upgrading to the diving we came to Cozumel for was not possible for every reason imaginable unless we sacrificed the money we already paid, and then paid full freight to reserve the dives we wanted to do. That was unacceptable, of course. We eventually came to an agreement in which three mediocre dives basically equated to two good dives, plus a mild dose of guilt. Now we know: I will never again assume that one dive might equate to another, and will not assume that the hotel operator has any knowledge of the dive operation or can speak on their behalf.
Entertainingly, before this negotiation, my better half neglected to bring her c-card & log book along. In that light, I suppose we were lucky to dive at all. SSI failed to answer the phone number on my c-card during regular business hours (shortly before 3 pm MDT on a Friday in Fort Collins, Co). We were, however, able to reach our dive shop in Fort Collins to resolve the issue of whether she was, in fact, certified. Evidently others diving with Paradise have forgotten c-cards; there is a written test and a waiver to be signed and witnessed. She took the test, and passed.
For the week, we made 19 dives in six days (we only made 7 dives in the first three days, most of which were in tough conditions at the surface). Visibility was generally good (>100'), although I have seen it better in Cozumel.
Highlights... We dove Punta Sur (Devil's Throat) with eight other divers plus DM, and did several of the classic wall dives with fewer companions. The swim throughs on Santa Rosa Wall were amazing in brilliant sunlight. We saw more huge mutant lobsters than usual (one of which really enjoyed a lionfish carcass left for him by the DM), several turtles (both hawksbill & loggerhead), many rays, and a few nurse sharks. We had a great time playing with my GoPro, especially on the sunnier dives Mon - Thurs. We also discovered that the GoPro records very little inside the wreck and dark parts of swim-throughs, other than kicked up sand and dancing flashlights. We really enjoyed diving with Julio on the fast boat, and will definitely request him if we dive with Paradise again.
Other lessons learned: The least conservative algorithm in the Suunto D4i strongly dislikes deep, repetitive dives. I purchased that computer a couple years ago as a backup to an old Uwatech that I really like, and played with it on some relatively shallow dives in CA, and on some shorter dives in NM a few months ago. No problems. On this trip my Uwatech was admittedly close to being in deco mode; however, the Suunto at one point needed an additional 27 minutes at a ceiling of 10 feet, most of which were added in the span of a few minutes during a slow ascent from 30 to 20 feet as a precaution I normally take. The Uwatech showed no deco obligation. The Suunto will be for sale shortly on a website near you.
Finally, the GoPro Switchblade red filter worked great. The colors looked much more realistic than other underwater video I've shot. The other part of the Switchblade, the corrective glass lens designed to reduce the fisheye effect, fell out during a dive. My bet is that it was jarred loose in the bucket between dives. I retrieved it from the sand at about 60 feet. Turns out the connection to the rest of the housing is only a pressure mount, and unfortunately there is no way to secure the glass. I may attempt Krazy Glue, as I like the effect of the corrective lens, despite the added weight. For the record, I had zip-tied the Switchblade to the pole-mount, as I was strongly warned to do so by another diver.
We departed late Friday afternoon. Writing the above manifesto shortened the return flight considerably.
Dives logged:
6/13: Chankanab Balones; Chankanab Shallow
6/14: Cedral; Villa Blanca shallow (twice)
6/15: Columbia Balloons; Tormentos
6/16: Columbia Deep; Dahlia; Palancar Deep; Columbia Shallow
6/17: Devil's Throat; C-53 Wreck; Palancar Bricks; Columbia Shallow
6/18: La Francesca; Punta Tunich; Santa Rosa Wall; Paso de Cedral
