No Night Diving in Coz??? Aaaaaaargh!

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Dave Zimmerly

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http://www.cozumelinsider.com/News

"Some of the new measures to be enforced include a greater distance between the reef and the diver, strict monitoring of diver buoyancy, and prohibition of night diving."

Glad I was able to do 2 night dives this last September. Guess I 'll have to start drinking earlier in the evening.
 
Stupid rules. Perhaps, in the name of aiding reef recovery, it would be best to take your vacation dive trip somewhere else.
 
That just bites. What do they mean by:

"Additionally, other popular dive sites such as Islote, Punta Celarain, Maracaibo, Chunchaka’ab, Punta Sur and Columbia have been declared areas of limitted use temporarily..."

Punta Sur and Columbia are two of my favorite sites. If Tormentos is off limits also, it doesn't leave many sites to dive. Any word on the Northern reefs out of the marine park?
 
Was planning to go there in February or March. Now it looks like I will be going to Bonaire in the Spring and back to Coz the first week in September. Hopefully by then, the Cozumel Palace and the reefs will be back in business.
 
I wonder who will be enforcing these rules - the guides themselves or marine park divers ??...and if it's the guides, do they have to police their clients - will they tell a paying customer to surface for breaking a rule?.....anyhow some are good some are strange

From that website:
measures to be enforced include:
- strict monitoring of diver buoyancy [hooray...but I wonder if they will really be able to stop the people who have no clue who bounce up and down crashing into stuff]
- a greater distance between the reef and the diver [not entirely sure what this means?! - but maybe its related to the bouyancy one - if you don't have good bouyancy you should keep your distance from the reef]
- no night diving [also probably related to bouancy and people's lack of it]

- Guides are strictly prohibited from touching or lifting organisms to show their clients in the hope of increasing their tips [they should never have done this anyway, but if they are "self policing" who will stop them]

and the use of cameras will be restricted [now this one is strange - what benefit does this give ? (unless they think photographers just get too close to the reef)]
 
That's odd. First they say limited use at Columbia, then they follow it with this...

The reefs that the Marine Park recommends during the period of recovery are Punta Sur, Columbia, Palancar Caves, La Francesa and Paso de Cedral which were minimally damaged.

So, they tell you limited use in one paragraph, then tell you to dive there while everything is getting back to normal! I was already to go there in December, but we can't get a decent flight so we're going to Roatan. Oh well, my favorite dive destination will have to wait a couple of months.
 
If they are not carefull, there will be no need for any of these rules. The rules themselves will distroy the diving industry in Coz. Why in the world would I want to dive there if I can only dive a few sites-with a thousand other divers, have to stay 10 ft away from everything (I do a lot of macro photograhpy), no night diving and from the sounds of it, there will most likely be some nanny DM buzzing me like a mad damsel fish. The 8 divers per group is also going to run the cost of diving up.
No thanks, there are too many other places to dive to have to put up with such restrictions. They will regret these rules.
 
Worst of all:

Fines for violating these restrictions will be severe, and dive operators must take into account that violations will be treated like federal crimes.

If you are photographer and you put your finger on a dead spot, are they going to throw you in the slammer? Or arrest your dive guide?

If Cozomel's dive industry wants to self-destruct, this is the way to do it. I'm curious about how the dive operators react.
 
stu_in_fl:
- Guides are strictly prohibited from touching or lifting organisms to show their clients in the hope of increasing their tips [they should never have done this anyway, but if they are "self policing" who will stop them]

and the use of cameras will be restricted [now this one is strange - what benefit does this give ? (unless they think photographers just get too close to the reef)]

Can't say I understand the camera thing, but I'd like to give three cheers for leaving the sea creatures alone. I don't know why everybody thinks it's cool to pull things out of their hiding places.

Terry
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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