Sidemounting in Cozumel?

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catone

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Planning my first trip to Cozumel in January and plan to dive with AquaSafari (not decided yet). Is SM practical there?
 
I very much doubt it..unless you go with a private boat/dm you hire not likely to happen.Boat operators take out groups of various skill levels and most,if not all,do a dive on single tank..they operate on a time schedule..most of any one group end their dive at pretty close the same time within 15-20 minutes of each other or less.Taking a 2nd tank with you would disrupt this and not work with a group.Also you would most likely be getting into serious deco time and again would disrupt a group.Taking only 1 tank as a sidemount may be ok though.Depends on operator.
 
It is really up to the dive operator. I dove single sidemount in Roatan and Playa De Carmen with just a quick checkout by a DM, I don't have a sidemount cert. I was told by a Key Largo operator that sidemount is for tech diving only and their boat were not setup to handle tech divers even single tank. I really doubt that most of the Coz non tech operators are going to let you use two tanks but I single tanks is gaining more acceptance with the rec operators.
 
The idea was to dive the same configuration and have the redundancy of SM rather than a long deco dive. If I dive 1 tank I prefer to backmount. I guess the easiest way to find out would be to call the dive shop directly. :)
 
I know that Dive Cooperative co-owner/instructor Sherief often dives sidemounts. So his shop might offer those trips, or at least he can refer you to someone who does.
 
Having just dove with both Blue Angel and Deep Exposure (one of the few if only tech shops) my impression is that both would let you, but you will be constrained to 1 hour run times or less at BA while with DE you could have a 90 min deco dive if you wanted to. There is a difference in price for that BT tho. I enjoyed diving with both operations, they suit different needs. FWIW i was slinging a bottle of 50% on my dives with DE for deco/extended BT purposes.

Jorge and Jose were good DMs at BA that were pretty hands off (the way i like it) but would point out the cool sea life. Don LaBruzza at DE is the owner who also was our DM and is an all around good guy that we had a nice dinner with after. He also spears a mean lion fish...

Just to clarify, I would still call/email BA directly, that seems to be more of a wild card while I'm pretty sure Don (who dives rebreathers and sidemounts stages) would be fine with it.
 
I emailed Aldora recently and they told me no issues if I wanted to side mount. They seemed very interested. They were willing to provide two 80's. I dove with them before BM and they were super. I am not sure why everyone thinks SM is so crazy or for cave only. I believe that before very long SM is going to be common. I don't believe it will replace conventional obviously but will become less of a black art. For me its two tanks, self rescue, extra air. I have been in Cozumel in the devils throat and thought "I really don't have a buddy here..." My 2 cents.

Stano
 
I am not sure why everyone thinks SM is so crazy or for cave only.

(All of the following is written from the tourist operator perspective, and not from the diver perspective, because my experience is completely from the tourist operator side, and not from the diver's side.)

Operators (probably) don't want the traffic at the back of the boat that sidemount boat diving (seemingly) tends to create while tanks are being handed into divers in the water, or handed up at the end of a dive.

Tech boat dives are similar in that the slung bottles are handed into divers in the water or handed up at the end. With tech diving, there is a decompression based reason to not have divers who have just finished divers working hard to get their doubles and the sling tanks back on the boat.

It is easier for the operator to accomodate general needs rather than specific needs, and it is easy enough to say sidemount is tech because sidemount is often like tech in practice, as far as the 'on and around the boat' behavior is concerned.

For most operators, using a single 80 forces divers into being conservative with their dives. The captains I know prefer to have divers limited by their air, and don't want divers carrying extra tanks because too often the largest tank diver makes everyone else wait at the end of the dive, or goes into deco.
 
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If you're on a boat where you're giant striding, going in with your tanks clipped is simple ... there's no need to hand them down. Likewise, climbing a ladder with small tanks like AL80's is not a big deal. Bigger tanks ... like the HP120's that Aldora uses ... probably would be.

As I recall, Aldora uses small boats where you backroll into the water. If that's the case, I think then handing the tanks down once in the water becomes more practical.

For the most part I think the resistance to accommodating sidemount from any operator is more due to lack of familiarity than out of any real practical consideration.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
I agree with Bob. We did Roatan last and they were reluctant at first and but the third day they were saying that we made their job easier. We switched out own gear over - we were all more experienced than the average OW diver - all of use hook up our tanks and did a giant stride off the boat - all but one us climb the ladder with the tanks on and the person that didn't hands his gear up when doing backmount also. None of us did double tanks but if boat carters to that kind of diving it shouldn't be a problem. You even make a smaller splash when do the giant stride in sidemount.
 

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