First timer to Cozumel and First time Diver

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ThePetiteRunner

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Hello Scuba Board Forum!

I will be spending my honeymoon in Cozumel for three weeks next June/early July. My fiancé and I would love to get certified and do some diving while we're there. We are both absolutely new to scuba diving (unless you count the week I did in my high school pool years ago), but my fiancé has snorkeled before in Belize and I've only snorkeled in our local rivers up here in California.

So! Obviously I have a lot to learn and was hoping I could get some of your insights on diving and Cozumel, if you would be so kind :)

1. Should we get our open water certification in Cozumel or before we leave the States?
(My thoughts: I think it would be a cool thing for us to do together while in Cozumel and since we have three weeks, we have plenty of time to learn and about two weeks to dive. I also think it might limit the amount of money we end up spending on dives since I'm pretty sure we're both going to fall in love with it!)

2. What pieces of equipment would you suggest we purchase and bring with us? Recommendations for brands/equipment?

3. Any local dive shops/outfits you enjoyed using in Cozumel? Things we should look out for?

4. What are some of your favorite dive spots in Cozumel?

5. Anything we should worry about going mid-June to early July?

6. Any other Cozumel secrets you'd like to share? :eyebrow:

Thanks in advance for your help! I'm looking forward to reading these responses!

Happy diving,

Cathy
 
I'm sure you will receive many different suggestions and opinions regarding dive operations in Coz. Everybody seems to have their favorite, and for varying reasons. These are my thoughts, for what they are worth:

Coz can be a challenging place for a new diver, depending on weather/current conditions. My first dive trip was to Coz, and the current was ripping. Had I not been with a very small group and a really skilled DM it might not have been the fantastic experience it was. There was so much going on between trying to manage buoyancy as a newbie and negotiate current that I felt a little stressed at times. The DM was fantastic, and gave me tons of feedback between dives, and underwater encouraged me to sloowwwww down.

My second trip to Coz was much better. I had time to reflect on my dives and to think through skills. I am a big one on visual imagery practice. The question on that trip was "where did you go for practice". I did a lot of watching and imitating trim and finning, breathing, etc. Helped a ton, and made Coz a favorite destination for me. Personally, being female, and having been petite at that time, I would recommend at least starting certification at home and then possibly completing the open water dives there, or making it a post cert destination.

The name of the op we always use is Living Underwater. Jeremy, the owner/dive master, is a great teacher and takes great care pointing out the tiny things of interest that encourage slowing down. Some of the other ops that get rave reviews are Cristina, Aldora, etc. Most posters would probably tell you to look for an op that takes smaller groups....6 to 8 divers...rather than the big cattle boats. When you contact ops, have questions ready, and ask them if they use larger steel tanks or aluminum 80s. The steel 120s and 90s give you longer dive time and help with buoyancy at the end of the dive.

You are on the right track asking questions! :wink:
 
I'm quite sure a lot of your responses will disagree with me, but here's my take:

Get certified before you go. The reason for this is that you will not be under pressure at home, if you should develop a cold or anything else that interferes with the schedule of your dive class. In addition, you will get certified in whatever your local diving is . . . which means you'll be familiar with it, and able to go and practice there between diving trips. This is important!

Cozumel is a beautiful place, a lovely island with superb weather. The diving has the best visibility I've encountered anywhere in the world, but the price you pay for that is current. Diving the Cozumel reefs is drift diving, floating with the current and watching what floats -- or flies -- by. It's physically undemanding, but it can be challenging to keep a buddy pair together in laminar water flow. In addition, many of the signature Cozumel dives are fairly deep, and the dive boats are accustomed to that; they will encourage you to exceed your OW limits very quickly, and before you have enough experience to realize you are getting bad advice, and what you shouldn't do.

It's not the place I'd choose to send a newly certified couple. But you are going there, so at least get certified before you go, and get a little diving in before you face current and depth.
 
I would get certified before you go. Even though I passed my confined water dives, I freaked out enough during them that I did not want to do OW dives before I retook those dives. There was no pressure of time since I was getting certified during my vacation.

The only gear we purchased was wetsuits, computer, fins, mask. (Oh and a snorkel, but we had that for snorkeling, and while we had to use it during our class, I don't dive with one. It's handy for snorkeling though.)

Cozumel was our first dives in the ocean and in something other than the shallow quarry where we got certified. We enjoyed it very much, and I limited myself to 75 feet, although others on our dive went quite a bit deeper than that. I think we were lucky to have mild currents on our trip. All the spots we dove were great. I especially loved Santa Rosa Wall, but was glad we did not go there until my third day. Even if I wasn't AT the bottom of the sites we were at, I wanted my first few dives to be at spots with hard bottoms, just in case.

We used Scuba With Alison and I thought she was wonderful for beginners, even though there were more experienced divers on the boat. I liked that I could giant stride off her boat, and not have to roll. I am an incredibly nervous person, and it gave me one less thing to worry about. Her rental gear was in fabulous condition- better than the gear we certified with at home at our local shop. I also liked that she accompanied us to our safety stop, and if you asked, to the surface to meet the boat. I have no doubt there are many wonderful dive ops in Cozumel, but I feel very fortunate we were recommended her, as she made our trip a truly fabulous experience.

I would not recommend staying at Sabor. We were put in a room with double beds, and then asked constantly if we were on our honeymoon... goodness, I hope not!
 
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1. A scuba certification includes a combination of classwork/pool work and ocean dives. You might consider doing the classwork in California and the certification dives in Cozumel. Believe it is called a referral, fairly common
2. Will let others chime in on brands. You will want a good mask, fins, wetsuit and snorkel (snorkel being least important). You will probably just want to rent the actual scuba specific gear here your first trip.
3. Most of the people on this board prefer smaller shops as opposed to high volume shops that may use large boats with many divers. I would certainly agree. I use Pelagic Ventures, but there are many others that people on this board like (Aldora, Blue XTSea....)
4. If you are here a while (as you mentioned) you will dive most of the sites that are within your abilities, I wouldn't sweat the order. Most likely you will dive some basic sites and then gradually move onto some of the walls. A smaller shop will certainly keep you within your abilities. Almost all diving in Cozumel is drift diving done from boats, btw. They drop you in the ocean, follow your group's bubbles, then pick you up when you are done--it is very relaxing diving.
5. The time frame you mentioned is technically hurricane season, but it is very early. I would say that there is literally less than a 1 in 100 chance you would encounter a storm. Cozumel can go several years without a storm and they are generally later in the year. I am flying there tomorrow and never gave hurricanes a second thought when I booked.
6. I (and many people here) prefer to stay in town as opposed to a major resort. Given that your a newlyweds, you might want to try the resort thing, but maybe leave some time at the back part of the trip to stay at a B&B in town or one of the smaller hotels. Too many people go to a resort on the south end of the island and never leave. There are many restaurants in town that are better that whatever you are going to find at an all-inclusive resort (see restaurant thread fairly recently on the board, La Cocay is my favorite). Also, while you are there I would certainly rent a car for a few days and go over to the east side of the island. There is no development over there, just a beach bar every mile or so. Time seems to slow down over there (but don't swim outside of marked/roped-in areas on East Side, currents can be fierce and dangerous). Swimming on West side of the island (where you will almost certainly be staying) is fine more or less anywhere--there is usually a mild current that you can generally swim against without much trouble,worst case is you just get out and walk back. It is was usually fun to go to the town square on Sunday night, but I haven't done that in a while
 
Here's another vote for getting certified before you go. My reasoning is somewhat different from what others have said, but the result is the same. If you get certified in the US somewhere, chances are the visibility will be lower and the water will be colder on your checkout dives. This will give you a wider comfort zone with respect to those variables, so when you dive the warm gin-clear waters of Cozumel you will be well inside your comfort zone with respect to water clarity and temperature instead of at the edge of it. You'll have more bandwidth to enjoy the sights and deal with the current, which is really no big deal. BTW. It will also give you a reference point as to how good the diving is at Cozumel compared to a lot of other places, and you might be be a little more at ease when you go to them.

As to equipment to acquire, IMO a dive computer should be very high on that list. Maybe at the top of it. If you wear glasses, by all means get a prescription mask. Or contacts, I guess, but that is something I have never tried. Fins? I guess so, but most ops have tons of them. I'd rent BC and reg at this point; those are a pretty big investment and you should either be pretty well off or dive a lot (again IMO) to justify it. Also, until you've been diving a while and try out some different gear, you don't know what you like, don't like, or don't care one way or the other about.

Most of the ops on Cozumel are excellent; you could make your op choice at random with little risk.

Things to worry about? Like the song says, don't worry be happy.

Enjoy your trip!
 
Chankanaab National park is a great place to start. It is an easy shore entry with no currents and 30 ft depth. There are some tall corals and a nice swim through. I did 2 discover scuba dives here and this is what hooked me to continue diving. There are ops right on the beach that can rent you gear and tanks or take you on guided dives. I've never done the wall at Cozumel and this is nothing like that. It's just a real nice casual beach dive that is very low stress.

Cozumel Parks | Cozumel Mexico
 
1. Finish up your certification at home. You really don't want to spend time in classroom or pool work during your vacation, and while a referral certification (where you do classroom and pool work at home, with a referral letter to a Cozumel Instructor to finish up your certification dives), you've got lots of time, get your C-Cards and do a little weekend diving at home to hone your skills.

2. Minimum equipment needs are mask, fins, snorkel, and protection - wetsuit, skins, skins plus, depending on your sensitivity to cold. I personally have never needed more than a "skins plus", a Henderson dive suit which is fleece lined and has 0.5 mil of Neoprene, but I carry a lot of my own insulation with me (the same as used by whales). Water temps in Cozumel during June and July will be warm - at least 80, more likely 82-84 degrees. But if you need more warmth because you get cold easily, or you are going to be diving every day (multiple days of multi- tank diving will result in a cumulative loss of core body heat), a 2-mil wetsuit should be plenty. Snorkel is not really essential, and though I was trained to always have a snorkel with me, I no longer even use one diving. But I like to snorkel on off-days and afternoons, so get one. I didn't add computer to essential equipment (maybe only because I started diving so many years ago when dive computers were very rare and very expensive), but they are very good to have. Once you decide that you are definitely going to be divers, get a computer, and get one that's Nitrox capable. I now take two computers with me, my main computer and a backup.

3. Go with a smaller Dive Op that will provide you personalized service - there are dozens out there, including Aldora (the biggest of the "personalized" dive ops, and a favorite of many because of Steel tanks, very long bottom times, long surface intervals at a beach club, etc.), Blue XTSea, Tres Pelicanos, Dive with Allison, and others. Also, consider hiring a private Dive Master to accompany you on your first day - it will really reduce the nerves that will accompany your first ocean dives.

4. Favorite dive spots -- pretty much all of them! They all have something different to offer, some with magnificent coral structure, swim throughs, a flight along a wall watching the abyss below you (wait until you have at least 3-4 days of diving behind you before you try the walls). If you are going to do 8-10 days of diving, don't worry about it, your Dive Op will pick sites that are appropriate for your skills and experience. Cozumel has lots of great spots that are perfect for Newbies, and a few (Punta Sur, Devil's Throat, Maracaibo, Barracuda) that require quite a bit more in skills and experience.

5. In June and July, you will almost certainly see rain, don't worry about it. Even if it rains every day, it won't last long. You MIGHT get a Norte, when the wind comes in strong from the North, sometimes strong enough to close the Port and cancel diving, but these are rare, so don't worry about them. July WILL be hot and muggy - you DEFINITELY want a Hotel with good AC in the rooms and a decent Pool. There are downtown hotels that are nice (like Casa Mexicana) that I won't stay at in July because the pool isn't big enough for me. Also, plan for Mosquitos, bring repellant.

6. General tips. One of the reasons I love Cozumel and keep coming back is that it has very friendly People and a wealth of great restaurants, most of them downtown. Because of that, I don't do All-Inclusive resorts on Cozumel, and recommend against them. Maybe, as Honeymooners, you want to be isolated on a big resort, and maybe you aren't big foodies so the monotony of the same food over and over at an AI resort won't bother you. But unless you make a few trips into town, you'll miss a lot of the charm of Cozumel, and if you stay at the far southern resorts, taxi trips into town will be expensive.

Enjoy your trip.

---------- Post added July 3rd, 2014 at 09:50 PM ----------

Ps -- on diving Cozumel. As noted, Cozumel is all drift diving. You drop off the boat, descend to depth, and let the current carry you along. The group stays together behind the Dive Master, ascends as a group, and the boat picks you up. It is the easiest, most relaxing diving I know of. I've gotten lazy in my old age, and I don't regret the fact that I haven't looked at my Compass or tried to navigate under water in at least 5 years. BUT some divers get nervous or overworked in drift diving because they don't follow the simple rules. First, DO NOT FIGHT THE CURRENT. It is your friend, doing most of the heavy lifting of moving you along the reef. Second, STAY UP-CURRENT FROM THE DIVE MASTER. If he stops to look at something, or point out something to the group, stop with him. And try not to form a tight crowd around him if he's showing you something small, like a Toadfish hiding in a little hole - everyone in the group will get their turn. Third, CONTROL YOUR BUOYANCY AND STAY WITH THE GROUP. When drift diving in a current, the water can move at different speeds at different depths; if the DM and the group are all at 85' and you decide to stay at 60', you might well find that you are being swept along faster than the group and get out ahead of the group. Trying to swim back against the current because you've drifted out 80 or 100 feet ahead of the DM can make drift diving harder work than it needs to be. Fourth, learn the tricks to minimize the effect of the current or avoid the current. Stay horizontal presenting a small cross-section to the current. Get close to the bottom where the current is usually weaker. Duck behind a coral head to let it block the current. Stick a finger or two into sandy bottom to anchor yourself (PLEASE don't grab the coral, we don't want you killing it, and with the wrong kind of coral, you'll be very sorry!). Most of the time the current in Cozumel is fairly gentle, but if it kicks up a bit or goes in crazy directions, don't worry. Just follow the rules and enjoy the dives.
 
I'm quite sure a lot of your responses will disagree with me, but here's my take:

Get certified before you go. The reason for this is that you will not be under pressure at home, if you should develop a cold or anything else that interferes with the schedule of your dive class. In addition, you will get certified in whatever your local diving is . . . which means you'll be familiar with it, and able to go and practice there between diving trips. This is important!

Cozumel is a beautiful place, a lovely island with superb weather. The diving has the best visibility I've encountered anywhere in the world, but the price you pay for that is current. Diving the Cozumel reefs is drift diving, floating with the current and watching what floats -- or flies -- by. It's physically undemanding, but it can be challenging to keep a buddy pair together in laminar water flow. In addition, many of the signature Cozumel dives are fairly deep, and the dive boats are accustomed to that; they will encourage you to exceed your OW limits very quickly, and before you have enough experience to realize you are getting bad advice, and what you shouldn't do.

It's not the place I'd choose to send a newly certified couple. But you are going there, so at least get certified before you go, and get a little diving in before you face current and depth.

Sound advice here.........

I would like to add:
1. No need to bring a wetsuit IMO unless yas just want to look pretty :cool2:
2. Can always do a beach dive first just to get acclimated so you don't look foolish on a first-time dive boat(Chankanaab is an excellent option)
3. Get certified before you go, the whole thing done in poorer conditions, visibility wise. That way you will feel more comfortable in those beautiful, crystal clear waters.
4. Bring a mask, fins, snorkel(for when you are not diving) and a weight-belt(if not a weight integrated BC) and just rent the other gear until you decide what regs and BCD's you want to go with.
5. Don't forget swimmers ear and lens defogger drops.
6. A dive light - even if yall skip a night dive, snorkel close to shore with it. Much more creatures come out.
7. Some kind of booties for the fins, three weeks of diving might take its toll on your heels and toes.
8. Rent a moped(2) for the day and tour the island, or even a Jeep and hit all the cool bars and such around the island. There is no electricity on the South/East end so do it early enough.
9. Spend a day at Carlos & Charlies(South end) and play with all their fun water toys.
10. Drink pina colada's until you are sick of them :D
 
The most common issues for new divers seems to be about ears, and any one of those can ruin a dive trip. Get certified at home, learn to equalize early & often, learn to rinse your ears after dives with a commercial Swimmers Ear preventative without fail (I use old bottle I refill myself with equal parts vinegar & alcohol, which is ever better but has a 30 day use life so not commercially feasible), and if you have problems - trouble shoot them on our Medical forum before you go.

Divers Alert dive insurance is essential for various reasons unless you have superior medical insurance that covers scuba, international travel, and emergency repatriations - or Dive Assure, also good dive insurance.
 

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