Afternoon Dives

[Truckmanforlife]

Does anyone do Afternoon dives to follow up on a nice AM trip? Does the weather kick up wind wise to make the afternoon trips not as desireable? I will be in Coz from July 19th-27th and am a first time traveler to Coz. and would like to pack in a couple of night dives as well as some dives in the afternoons. Also would like info on the best shore diving areas. We are staying at Caribe Blu.

Thanks

 

[parrotheaddiver]

Several ops will do afternoon dives....usually have to have at least 4 on the boat to make it a go.....check with your op before you go to make sure that is the way they run the afternoon dives.....

good shore diving has never been very good in Coz....but in front to Caribe Blu where you are staying is suppose to be good....since Wilma it has probably changed.....we dove in front of El Cid/La Ceiba hotel last week on the airplane wreck or what is left of it.....saw quite a bit of sea life but not as good as a boat dive of course....I am sure Gordon will be tuning in here soon and he is the King of knowledge about Cozumel

Have fun

 

[ggunn]

Several ops will do afternoon dives....usually have to have at least 4 on the boat to make it a go.....check with your op before you go to make sure that is the way they run the afternoon dives.....

good shore diving has never been very good in Coz....but in front to Caribe Blu where you are staying is suppose to be good....since Wilma it has probably changed.....we dove in frot of El Cid/La Ceiba hotel last week on the airplane wreck or what is left of it.....saw quite a bit of sea life but not as good as a boat dive of course....I am sure Gordon will be tuning in here soon and he is the King of knowledge about Cozumel

Have fun

Um, what? Anyway, the shore dive in front of Caribe Blu is not what it once was, or will be again, but it's still worth doing IMO if you go a bit farther south. I personally haven't done an afternoon boat dive in a while, but they are available, as parrothead said, subject to there being enough folks that want to go. The weather is generally not a problem, though the light is not as good on the second dive because of the angle of the sun on the water; things go sort of gray. This is worse when the days are shorter, and I don't know what they do in the winter months when it gets dark a lot earlier.

 

[sharky60]

Last year we split our dives up between morning and afternoon dives, all dives were great, the wind does have a bit of a tendancy to kick up in the afternoon, especially the very southern dive sites can get a little choppy but still very diveable, depending on your experiance of course. The simple cure to this to do dive sites in the more northern section of the park, shorter boat ride too!

I had a couple of very nice shore dives off Caribe Blu in May, sure there were sand deposits and the sea fans weren't as abundant as they used to be, but that's just first impressions.

In fact, at first glance it looked pretty barron, but then I started looking around, we found tons of eels, arrow crabs, blenny's, slipper lobsters, yellow sting rays, cuddle fish, scorpion fish, barracuda (what's the big one named? Molly?), anyway, saw her.

It really was a very good dive for someone who likes to poke around in the coral and rocks like I do.

HEY ANN! how did you get in at airplane flats, we stopped by Martin's shop in May and they wouldn't let us get in saying there was no diving there because of too much debris.

 

[parrotheaddiver]

HEY ANN! how did you get in at airplane flats, we stopped by Martin's shop in May and they wouldn't let us get in saying there was no diving there because of too much debris.

Well that's a story lol.....back in the olden days in the 70's and 80's we use to enter at the dive shop at the old La Ceiba with no problem no charge....and we thought we would do that again....we were with some other scubaboarders Scubabum2 & wife and Foo and husband.....Scubabum2 check with El Cid/La Ceiba the day before we arrived and questioned them about entry etc since he had never been there....they said no problem showed him where to enter etc....make yourself at home gringo lol.....

The next day when the 6 of us showed up after renting our tanks at Scuba Shack and schlepping them via Scubabum2 small car to El Cid....all of a sudden things had changed they wanted 10.50 a head to get in where did that figure come from...anyway we were there and ready to dive to we coughed up the money and went in right there off of their beach a little further south than we use to get in at the old dive shop which looks like it has been relocated somewhere else on the property again it had been 12yrs since I had been at that hotel and dove the plane....

once underwater we headed west and then turned toward the south. I did surface once on the way back to get an idea of how far we had gone and was infront of a beach side bar almost to the pier.... I didn't see any debris just that boat that was sunk

 

[Shepman]

PM dives usually aren't as good as the morning dives, but you are in Coz so they are still great.

Firstly, check with your dive op. If they don't do 'em, Aqua Safari definitely will. They wanted 4 divers minimum and I just talked it up & we had 6 when the day came.

Others on here have mentioned La Ceiba/El Cid/"the plane". That is a great nite dive on the grounds of the hotel El Cid. If you can figure out what the policy is, do it by all means.

(Was AquaWorld the dive op at El Cid when you guys went there?)

This your first time down, I'd think a shore dive, a check out & 1 nite dive would be plenty in addition to the AM dives you have scheduled. Don't overdo things Truckerman!

 

[parrotheaddiver]

Shepman.....I cannot remember that far back as to who the dive op was or is for that matter.....there were not that many on the island back then as there are now....as far as policy goes....I think it probably changes on a case by case basis....I wouldn't think they would have even noticed if we hadn't brought in tanks they probably would have thought we were guests and would not have said anything.

 

[Shepman]

Shepman.....I cannot remember that far back as to who the dive op was or is for that matter.....there were not that many on the island back then as there are now....as far as policy goes....I think it probably changes on a case by case basis....I wouldn't not think they would have even noticed if we hadn't brought in tanks they probably would have thought we were guests and would not have said anything.

Yeah.

I was there last year & the op was Aquaworld. Del Mar Aquatics had been at la Ceiba forever. the easy was is to just go up there with your BC on, carrying your fins, etc & rent tanks from the dive op.

That is my favorite nite dive. I alwyas used to stay at la Ceiba until it got uninhabitable.

 

[ScubaTony]

Personally I like afternoon trips better. there are far fewer divers on the reefs and in general you see more big stuff like sharks and rays. I also love the afteroon sun. The way the light comes down over the giant coral heads is really nice. If you time it right when you come up from your second dive the water is calm and the sun is setting and it makes for a spectacular experience. Santa Rosa is my personal favorite for a PM dive.

 

[Truckmanforlife]

Just wanted to say thank you to all those on the board for answering my questions and posting some good advise on other threads as well. I will be in Coz on the 19th -27th next week. Hope to see some of you there. Thanks again for all the input it has helped in my first time trip planning and will go a long way in making this trip a more memorable one.

Dave in Seattle