The Trip
Not sure what to say other than wow
My girlfriend Lisa and I just got back from a great weekend trip to Cozumel.
First I wanted to thank Christi for making this my best trip to Cozumel and one of my best trips anywhere. I emailed her about doing the AOW course with her and she recommended a plan that turned into a great trip.
Secondly, I wanted to thank all of Christi's crew and folks that were involved well. Thank you Mago, Adan, Jackie(sp?), Santos, Sandra and Jake (I still need the link) Everyone involved were great to deal with and made the trip that much better.
The Hotel
Christi suggested Casa Mexicana as a nice place to stay in town that was close to her shop and the pier for daily pickups. This worked out great for us. The hotel is very nice, so nice that we felt a little bad about coming back dripping from the boat everyday, but they did not seem to mind The breakfast buffet was outstanding. Everyday it was something different and very good.
The Dive Op
Blue XTSea - What else can I say? Granted I'm a newbie with less than 50 dives and I've only done dives with a few dive ops in Cozumel, but I love Christi's op. Great people, great service, everything I would look for in an op. She will be my first call anytime I think of heading to Cozumel going forward.
The Gear
Being excited about the trip, Lisa and I bought a bunch of new gadgets and gear to take along. I liked my Tusa BP-2 bag, it worked really well for this type of trip. I didn't think about it much during the trip, but my new Atomic B2 reg did well. With my old Oceanic reg, I was always messing with it trying to make it perform better. With the B2, I just kinda forgot about it and dived and it worked as good at 5 feet as it did at 100 feet. Lisa's Oceanic GT-3 was giving her a little trouble with the first stage whistling at different depths during the dive. She had to return her first Oceanic GT-3 for this problem and now the replacement is doing it as well.
I really liked my Dive Rite Transpac for this kind of diving. It was light and packed well and did the job great. I did miss my integrated weight pockets once though when I bobbled a 4lb'er while getting back on the boat and lost it :shakehead Lisa liked her Oceanic Islander, but already has been talking about getting a Zeagle BCD next. My Apollo Bio-fins worked pretty well. I was able to zip around in the lighter currents and keep up in the moderate ones, but the DM made it look a little easier in her blade fins. Granted she deals with it everyday though.
My one semi-complaint was my Oceanic VT-3 computer. This is my first hoseless computer. I really like loosing the hose and having this on a retractor, but the alarms were killing me. Low dive time remaining, no dive time remaining, turn around time, etc. These alarms were going off well before my NDLs or air was running low and got to be quite annoying for me and probably other divers as well. I'm going to spend some time configuring the computer to reduce those alarms if possible. The one major problem was link loss. If I held the computer in front of me for any length of time (like a safety stop) it would lose link to the transmitter. This wasn't a huge deal since I was mostly watching my depth and time at that point, but it was annoying. And as you know any little annoyance on a good dive is amplified.
The Dives
1. Shore dive from Playa Villa Blanca - This was my GF's first time in the ocean after getting certified in August back in Dallas. So we thought instead of just dropping her off a boat for her first dive that we would do a shore dive to get her warmed up for Cozumel. Little did I know she was going to be more comfortable with Cozumel diving than I was
Topside this location is really nice now. They have rebuilt it very well. This would be a nice place to come and swim/snorkel and enjoy a drink under the sun. Underwater was kind of sad for me though. Its a lot different than when I dove it in June 2005 during my OW certification classes. The upside was I saw tons of baby fish, so it appears things are trying to come back. We saw three scorpion fish, a couple of eels and a Sailfin Blenny there.
We were doing our AOW course, so each dive after this corresponded to a course in the program:
2. Palanacar Caves - 83 ft max. - Peak Performance Buoyancy - After we did our weight checks and buoyancy practices, we got to tour the reef a bit. It blew us away. We couldn't get enough of the tall coral formations and swim throughs. Saw lobster, nurse shark, etc. The best moment was seeing a big (to us) Loggerhead Turtle glide gracefully off into the abyss. My first thought was to follow it, but quickly remembered the 80 foot max we were set to follow.
3. Columbia Shallows - 32 ft max - Underwater Navigation - Sandra worked in our navigation drills as we dove along the reef. This was a shallow reef that was teaming with critters. The Lizardfish was the one that stuck with me.
4. Paradise Reef - 41 ft max. - Night Dive - This was our first Cozumel night dive and it was cool. We dove with Jackie and Jake and had to deal with a moderate current. We missed the reef a bit so we started with lots of finning. My Apollo split fins got me through it, but Jackie made it look much easier with her blade fins. Saw lots of things that were not in abundance on the other dives like lobster, crabs, an octopus, a spanish lobster, tons of stingrays and sea turtles. I really enjoyed it.
5. Columbia Normal - 100 ft max - Deep dive - I was pretty nervous about this one. I told Christi I had been reading too much Scubaboard and had the deep dive worked up too much in my head. We rolled off the boat and dropped straight down. We landed at what I thought was about 70 feet and I whipped up the computer and we were lower than that I was ok at first, but we stayed a couple of minutes to do these skills and I got very narc'ed. At first it was just a tingle, but as I continued to huff away at the reg, it got more intense. It was a weird feeling coupled with a decent amount of confusion. It was euphoric though, no overwhealming sense of panic but I knew I needed to go up. I told Christi I was narc'ed and we swam up to 95 feet or so and my head cleared. Apparently I gave some mixed signals while narc'ed as well my GF later told me, but it seemed right at the time. Of course I had to take some ribbing from Christi and my GF Lisa for being the only one that got narc'ed
After we completed the dive skills that were required, we did the reef and it was also very nice. Lots of long swim throughs and beautiful coral formations. Although I was still a bit rattled from the narcosis and missed a lot of it
6. Palancar Gardens - 64 ft. max - Fish ID - Once upon a time in college I was a marine biology major, so this class was especially interesting to me. As much fun as it sounded on paper, the task of identifying a fully populated Cozumel reef was pretty overwhelming. After Christi helped us a ton in identifiying fish, we finally quit ID'ing and just enjoyed the end of the dive. Lots more swim throughs there as well. I'm already forgetting the names of all the fish, but I remember names like Seargent Major, Angelfish, Chub, Grunts, Blue Chromis, Rock Hind, Black Grouper, Basslets, Blue Gobies, Trunkfish, on and on. Before the class I had always admired the fish but never realized how many different different types are populating those reefs. It was quite eye opening.
Summary
Wow, this started out as a small post and quickly grew as the excitement from the weekend came back while reminicing about it. Sorry for the rambling
I recommend this plan for anyone thinking about doing AOW. It was MUCH better than doing it in Lake Travis back in Texas and not really a whole lot more expensive for the diving/class part itself. Christi and her group made it awesome. Unfortunately we remembered to pack everything but our cameras for this trip, dangit.
While writing this and reflecting back on it now, I just begin to realize how much information was packed into that weekend by our hosts. We learned much more about Cozumel above and below the water than I had in my previous 3 trips to the island. Thanks again, Christi.
Not sure what to say other than wow
My girlfriend Lisa and I just got back from a great weekend trip to Cozumel.First I wanted to thank Christi for making this my best trip to Cozumel and one of my best trips anywhere. I emailed her about doing the AOW course with her and she recommended a plan that turned into a great trip.
Secondly, I wanted to thank all of Christi's crew and folks that were involved well. Thank you Mago, Adan, Jackie(sp?), Santos, Sandra and Jake (I still need the link
) Everyone involved were great to deal with and made the trip that much better.The Hotel
Christi suggested Casa Mexicana as a nice place to stay in town that was close to her shop and the pier for daily pickups. This worked out great for us. The hotel is very nice, so nice that we felt a little bad about coming back dripping from the boat everyday, but they did not seem to mind
The breakfast buffet was outstanding. Everyday it was something different and very good.The Dive Op
Blue XTSea - What else can I say? Granted I'm a newbie with less than 50 dives and I've only done dives with a few dive ops in Cozumel, but I love Christi's op. Great people, great service, everything I would look for in an op. She will be my first call anytime I think of heading to Cozumel going forward.
The Gear
Being excited about the trip, Lisa and I bought a bunch of new gadgets and gear to take along. I liked my Tusa BP-2 bag, it worked really well for this type of trip. I didn't think about it much during the trip, but my new Atomic B2 reg did well. With my old Oceanic reg, I was always messing with it trying to make it perform better. With the B2, I just kinda forgot about it and dived and it worked as good at 5 feet as it did at 100 feet. Lisa's Oceanic GT-3 was giving her a little trouble with the first stage whistling at different depths during the dive. She had to return her first Oceanic GT-3 for this problem and now the replacement is doing it as well.
I really liked my Dive Rite Transpac for this kind of diving. It was light and packed well and did the job great. I did miss my integrated weight pockets once though when I bobbled a 4lb'er while getting back on the boat and lost it :shakehead Lisa liked her Oceanic Islander, but already has been talking about getting a Zeagle BCD next. My Apollo Bio-fins worked pretty well. I was able to zip around in the lighter currents and keep up in the moderate ones, but the DM made it look a little easier in her blade fins. Granted she deals with it everyday though.
My one semi-complaint was my Oceanic VT-3 computer. This is my first hoseless computer. I really like loosing the hose and having this on a retractor, but the alarms were killing me. Low dive time remaining, no dive time remaining, turn around time, etc. These alarms were going off well before my NDLs or air was running low and got to be quite annoying for me and probably other divers as well. I'm going to spend some time configuring the computer to reduce those alarms if possible. The one major problem was link loss. If I held the computer in front of me for any length of time (like a safety stop) it would lose link to the transmitter. This wasn't a huge deal since I was mostly watching my depth and time at that point, but it was annoying. And as you know any little annoyance on a good dive is amplified.
The Dives
1. Shore dive from Playa Villa Blanca - This was my GF's first time in the ocean after getting certified in August back in Dallas. So we thought instead of just dropping her off a boat for her first dive that we would do a shore dive to get her warmed up for Cozumel. Little did I know she was going to be more comfortable with Cozumel diving than I was
Topside this location is really nice now. They have rebuilt it very well. This would be a nice place to come and swim/snorkel and enjoy a drink under the sun. Underwater was kind of sad for me though. Its a lot different than when I dove it in June 2005 during my OW certification classes. The upside was I saw tons of baby fish, so it appears things are trying to come back. We saw three scorpion fish, a couple of eels and a Sailfin Blenny there.
We were doing our AOW course, so each dive after this corresponded to a course in the program:
2. Palanacar Caves - 83 ft max. - Peak Performance Buoyancy - After we did our weight checks and buoyancy practices, we got to tour the reef a bit. It blew us away. We couldn't get enough of the tall coral formations and swim throughs. Saw lobster, nurse shark, etc. The best moment was seeing a big (to us) Loggerhead Turtle glide gracefully off into the abyss. My first thought was to follow it, but quickly remembered the 80 foot max we were set to follow.
3. Columbia Shallows - 32 ft max - Underwater Navigation - Sandra worked in our navigation drills as we dove along the reef. This was a shallow reef that was teaming with critters. The Lizardfish was the one that stuck with me.
4. Paradise Reef - 41 ft max. - Night Dive - This was our first Cozumel night dive and it was cool. We dove with Jackie and Jake and had to deal with a moderate current. We missed the reef a bit so we started with lots of finning. My Apollo split fins got me through it, but Jackie made it look much easier with her blade fins. Saw lots of things that were not in abundance on the other dives like lobster, crabs, an octopus, a spanish lobster, tons of stingrays and sea turtles. I really enjoyed it.
5. Columbia Normal - 100 ft max - Deep dive - I was pretty nervous about this one. I told Christi I had been reading too much Scubaboard and had the deep dive worked up too much in my head. We rolled off the boat and dropped straight down. We landed at what I thought was about 70 feet and I whipped up the computer and we were lower than that
I was ok at first, but we stayed a couple of minutes to do these skills and I got very narc'ed. At first it was just a tingle, but as I continued to huff away at the reg, it got more intense. It was a weird feeling coupled with a decent amount of confusion. It was euphoric though, no overwhealming sense of panic but I knew I needed to go up. I told Christi I was narc'ed and we swam up to 95 feet or so and my head cleared. Apparently I gave some mixed signals while narc'ed as well my GF later told me, but it seemed right at the time. Of course I had to take some ribbing from Christi and my GF Lisa for being the only one that got narc'ed After we completed the dive skills that were required, we did the reef and it was also very nice. Lots of long swim throughs and beautiful coral formations. Although I was still a bit rattled from the narcosis and missed a lot of it
6. Palancar Gardens - 64 ft. max - Fish ID - Once upon a time in college I was a marine biology major, so this class was especially interesting to me. As much fun as it sounded on paper, the task of identifying a fully populated Cozumel reef was pretty overwhelming. After Christi helped us a ton in identifiying fish, we finally quit ID'ing and just enjoyed the end of the dive. Lots more swim throughs there as well. I'm already forgetting the names of all the fish, but I remember names like Seargent Major, Angelfish, Chub, Grunts, Blue Chromis, Rock Hind, Black Grouper, Basslets, Blue Gobies, Trunkfish, on and on. Before the class I had always admired the fish but never realized how many different different types are populating those reefs. It was quite eye opening.
Summary
Wow, this started out as a small post and quickly grew as the excitement from the weekend came back while reminicing about it. Sorry for the rambling
I recommend this plan for anyone thinking about doing AOW. It was MUCH better than doing it in Lake Travis back in Texas and not really a whole lot more expensive for the diving/class part itself. Christi and her group made it awesome. Unfortunately we remembered to pack everything but our cameras for this trip, dangit.
While writing this and reflecting back on it now, I just begin to realize how much information was packed into that weekend by our hosts. We learned much more about Cozumel above and below the water than I had in my previous 3 trips to the island. Thanks again, Christi.
