August trip report Blue XT Sea, Scuba Du

[Aquaman40]

My wife and I along with our 8 year old son spent the week of August 15th to the 22nd on Cozumel. We took advantage of Costco’s travel deal to Cozumel and stayed at the El Cozumeleno on the North end of the island. The El Cozumeleno was a nice resort which included meals and drinks. The food was ok and the drinks mostly weak unless you asked for a stronger ones.
The resort is clean and well cared for and there are plenty of employees to take care of the resort. My son made several friends and spent most of his time at the resort swimming in the large swimming pools or the sandy beach. I would recommend this resort on the basis of value and if you have children. Let me say that as long as you are at the resort, the kids club is free. If you want to leave the resort, they will charge you a 5 dollar per hour babysitting fee if you leave your child.

The on sight dive operator was Ocean tours who used Scuba Du. Antonio Madrazo, the Manager of Ocean Tours, can set up diving with Scuba Du. Scuba Du is one of the larger Dive operators on the island with several boats in their fleet. Scuba Du is home based out of the El Presidente Hotel, Further south than the El Coz. My wife and I ended up only making one 2 tank boat dive with Scuba Du. We did however go on a 4 spot snorkel tour through Antonio’s Ocean tours which was excellent, and highly recommended.

Scuba Du is an efficient dive operator with a pre-determined schedule of destinations, dive times and depths. 80 foot max. I found the rigidness of our Divemaster, Eduardo to be great for beginning divers but disappointing for more experienced divers. Our group of six divers had to do a safety stop at the same time and surface at the same time when the first diver in the group reached 700psi. Unfortunately, we had a very pleasant fellow on our dive who was happy to announce that these would be his first Ocean dives. I surfaced with 1100 psi , wife 1000 psi, on the first dive, Santa Rosa Wall and 1400 psi, wife 1200 psi on the second dive, Tormentos. This was after a 10 minute safety stop. Total dive time on the first dive,32 minutes most of which was spent in the 60 to 80 foot range. Bottom time for the second dive was a little better with about 40 minutes. When I showed the divemaster how much air I had on after the second dive, he said “ You should have got on an advanced boat “. Needless to say I had already prebooked the majority of my diving with Christy from Blue XT Sea diving, Thank God.

I’ll start by saying that Christy was always very prompt about answering my emails and all questions and concerns. I had read lots of reviews and it did not take long to see that it would be hard to go wrong diving with Blue XT Sea. I had to take a Taxi from the El Coz to the Plaza Los Glorias , any where from 6-8 dollars each way, every morning to catch her boat. Since she had sent my all necessary forms to fill out prior to my arrival, no time was wasted filling out paperwork on the pier. I met Pedro Pablo, the divemaster who was outstanding the entire time. I made 8 dives with Blue XT Sea and my wife made 5. I did a three tank dive, 2 2 tank dives, a 1 night dive. This was my wife’s first night dive and had it not been for Pedro’s patient and calm attention with my wife, she would not have made the night dive.

I cannot say enough nice things about Christy. She surprised my wife on one of our surface intervals with a birthday cake, assisted me greatly with arrangements for my son, including setting up a snorkel tour for my son while my wife and I were diving. Christy’s boat captain, Hector, (magu) which stands for magician, truly performed magic for us on several of our dives. All dives made with Blue XT Sea were over 60 minutes with one being over 70 minutes. If other divers hit 700 psi, Pedro would send up his sausage for their retrieval after a safety stop. Pedro and I were usually the last ones out of the water. Amazing, I would be down to 700 psi after 60 minutes and doing our safety stop and Pedro would still have 1500 Psi, WOW.

I don’t feel the need to discuss the actual dives because the internet is full of info on that. I will say however that during the week that I was there, Cozumel experienced some very strange occurrences regarding currents. On several of the dives, we experienced the current to completely change direction from south to north, east to west, and west to east. Anyone else that dove those days can confirm this. But nothing I had ever experienced can compare to the last dive we made on Saturday, August 21st at San Francisco reef.
There were only four of us that made the dive, my wife, Pedro, Steve from Arizona, and I. The dive started fairly normal with the exception of believe it or not 60 to 80 foot visibility. There was a lot of debris in the water because of the abnormal currents. We were drifting at about ½ to 1 knot in a northerly direction. All of a sudden, the current switched to a south Easterly direction in less than 2 minutes. Before you knew it, we were booking along at about 1 ½ to 2 knots. We cruised away from the reef and ended up going over sand beds. I looked over at Pedro and raised my hands in a “ oh Well “ gesture. Not much we could do at this point. We set ourselves at about 6 feet off the bottom and drifted along. We could all feel the current pick up speed. In fact, it started going so fast, that the sand started getting kicked up, causing visibility near the bottom to go to less than 10 feet, I thought I was back in California. At this time we were in about 40 to 50 feet and ascended out of the sand storm and noticed that our gear was literally full of sand.

My wife then looked at me and pointed up in a resigned manner, I also figured, what is the point. I then indicated to Pedro who indicated to Steve that we would go do a safety stop at 15 feet, YEA RIGHT. Upon getting to 15 feet, my wife who was now holding my hand, pointed out some miniature whirpools that were spinning on the surface. Very Impressive!!!. The next thing we knew, we were spinning around in slow lazy circles, very strange. Pedro and I kept looking at each other and shaking our heads. Then the real fun began.

I first noticed that my bubbles started going down, yep that’s right, bubbles going down. Then I could feel my ears tightening up and had to equalize quickly due to the sudden pain. I then moved my wifes hand to my shoulder strap so I could look at my gauge, 45 FEET, Wow, I thought, How did that happen in no kidding, 3-5 seconds. I inflated my vest, and started to ascend. The bubbles were still going down, past my mask, Weird. Then we were being pulled up so I deflated my vest and stopped a few feet from the surface. At one point I could see Steve go from 40 feet to within a few feet of the surface and then back down. Pedro had is safety sausage out and had the advantage of holding on to it with his dive reel.

At this point, Steve, my wife, and I surfaced. I will try to describe what we saw at the surface. We were still going around in small tight circles and observed what appeared to be a river running directly through the area we were in. It was serpentine in shape and undulating up down and sideways. The best way I can describe it is to imagine a large snake, the current, swimming around the area. The snake would be hundreds of feet long and several feet wide. Looking over, Pedro had been pulled well over a hundred feet from us in just a few seconds. Steve, My wife, and I were on the surface, waiting fro the boat to come over and talking excitedly about what we had just experienced when Pedro tells us to replace our regulators in case the current pulls us under again, Oh yeah, I thought, that would be a damn good idea.

Upon getting back on the boat, Christy who was on the boat, said divers were aborting the dive all over the place. There were dive sausages sticking up close to the beach and way out to sea. I asked Pedro who had been diving on the island for over 15 years if he had ever seen anything like that, and he said he had not. Let me finish this “ story “ by saying that at no time did my wife or I feel like we were in danger nor did we ever feel like “ freaking out “. The total time for this dive was less than 20 minutes and we both had over 2000 psi of air left on the boat. This is truly a dive for the ol log book. Has anyone else ever experienced this on Cozumel?

Continueing on, We dined at several restaurants including Casa Denis-fish tacos, La Mission-Lobster, Pricey, 90 bucks, La charoza, breakfast, I think I finally figured ou why some people love certain restaurants while others hate them. The quality of the restaurant and it’s food is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol you consume while on the premises or prior to arriving.
I also met a cab driver, Martin Azcorra, Cab # 108 who was absolutely awesome. Martin is a retired Divemaster. I hired him and his cab to drive my wife, son and I around the Island. It was not much more than renting a car myself and I had a personal tour guide. Martin speak excellent English and showed us and told us things we would not have seen or known on our own. We spent about 5 hours driving around and stopping at different places. Call and ask for this guy, you will not be disappointed.

Words of advice, Bring more money than you think you'll need, Cozumel is not as inexpensive as one might think. American dollars have raised the price in nearly all areas. Carry lots of ones, and the best place to get pesos are the ATM's, my statement shows 11.25 on 5000 peso's. You will save money using Pesos instead of dollars as dollars are usually treated at the rate of 10 pesos to the dollar.

All right, enough for now, don’t hesitate to email if you have any questions.


Mike—Aquaman 40

[GPdiver]

Nice report!
I have experienced similiar currents diving in October there.
actually it was with Pedro Pablo when he worked for Blue Bubble.
they called the currents "crazy" I thought we were in a blender.

[divenut2001]

The cabbie tour guide thing sounds like a good idea. How much did it cost you and how much did you tip him? Are there island tours available thru the hotels? How do they compare, how long are they and what do they charge? I'll be going for my first time in Jan.:-))

[Scubakiwi]

We ran into the same thing the mroning of the 21st. We had just finished our 1st SI for the day and had just dropped in north of the reef club at the Santa Rosa Wall. With A group of 8 we were to drop down and take a group picture. Once we got within 10 of the floor, we all noticed the current had picked up and was moving us northward. It seemed to pick up speed, and before we new it we were moving along like a freight train. We ended up cross through one group of other divers before we decided that the currents were to dangerous. By the time we got to the surface we had been bought north about 1/2 mile to 3/4 mile in less than 25 minutes.

The dive master had warned us that the currents were strange, but we didn't think we would run into anything like that.

[Tim Ingersoll]

Wow! Now that is amazing.

[Aquaman40]

The cabbie tour guide thing sounds like a good idea. How much did it cost you and how much did you tip him? Are there island tours available thru the hotels? How do they compare, how long are they and what do they charge? I'll be going for my first time in Jan.:-))

Hi Dive nut, I negotiated a price of 75 dollars (by comparison, 65 to rent a jeep) with Martin. My wife and I were so pleased with the service he provided us, I gave him a 35 dollar tip. I would suggest getting a hold of him upon arriving on Cozumel and finding out what his schedule is. If you contact him, Please tell him Mike, Joan and Joshua say Hola.

[Wristshot]

Mike,

Thanks for the report.

I have not seen the "serpent" but we did see churning seas at Tormentos, with boiling swirling waters (hence the name, I assume). That was the dive where we dropped from about 60 feet to about 100 in a blink of an eye. A couple of the divers in the group got real freaked out. One was ready to give up, and one held the DM's hand the rest of the dive.

Glad you survived the ordeal.

Good information about hiring the "private driver". How did you arrange that? Did you just meet him on a normal ride and work out a deal? I guess the hotel staff would know how to contact the cab company to find a specific driver. Just wondering out loud.


Wristshot

[Aquaman40]

Mike,

Thanks for the report.

I have not seen the "serpent" but we did see churning seas at Tormentos, with boiling swirling waters (hence the name, I assume). That was the dive where we dropped from about 60 feet to about 100 in a blink of an eye. A couple of the divers in the group got real freaked out. One was ready to give up, and one held the DM's hand the rest of the dive.

Glad you survived the ordeal.

Good information about hiring the "private driver". How did you arrange that? Did you just meet him on a normal ride and work out a deal? I guess the hotel staff would know how to contact the cab company to find a specific driver. Just wondering out loud.


Wristshot

Hi Wristshot, since I had to take a cab every morning from the El Cozumeleno to catch Blue XT sea's boat at Plaza Las Glorias's Pier, I rode in a cab several times. Martin was one of my rides and he spoke good English and said he is a retired Dive Master with over 9500 dives. I had already checked what it would cost to rent a decent vehicle, around 65 dollars, to drive around the island. I then ended up aking Martin if he could do it and the deal was worked out. Thus I was able to have a few Margaritas at some of the different places Martin stopped on the other side of the island. Also, I really enjoyed the tremendous amount of information and history about the Mayans and Cozumel in General that I would never have received had I rented my own car.
Later,
Mike

[Wristshot]

Mike,

Thanks! Sounds like a win-win. Plus his cab was probably air-conditioned.

Personally I don't drink when I am diving, so that is not an issue, but I like the tour guide concept. We rented a cheap car at ISIS ($40 for the day) but it was a turd and it had no AC in July. Poor decision making on my part.


Wristshot