That was some crazy current today

[RayfromTX]

We aborted 30 minutes in. With an almost full bc and finning up I was holding at 70’ and my bubbles were descending or swarming around me. The current was pushing us out and down so staying on the bottom to hide from the worst of it meant getting deeper and deeper. We were on Cedral and the current was running north to south. Not anything like that on palancar for the first dive but the viz was poor.

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

Cedral is probably my favorite dive site and could dive it multiple times a week and not get bored. I had heard it could get sporty but never experienced it until last month. Same thing happened to us and we aborted 15 minutes in. One of our divers was literally rolling along the bottom trying to get a grip. Vis sucked, current was ripping, would have been fun with just a few experienced divers going for a ride like Barracuda, but not for this group.

Glad everyone is able to tell the story.

Drink a Bohemia Obscura for me!
Jay

 

[RayfromTX]

Yes I love Cedral but when the current is taking you out and down there is nothing fun about it. I'll pass on Cedral in a north to south current. I suspect the topography creates the outward and downward current when the direction of the current is strong out of the north. In any case there are too many other options to choose that one. We'll dive it later in the week south to north.

 

[Skittl1321]

Did the DM/Captain brief you that the current would be crazy, or were they caught off guard by it too?

I thought the DMs could usually tell when the currents are going to be insane (and thus, choose to go elsewhere.)

 

[MMM]

Did the DM/Captain brief you that the current would be crazy, or were they caught off guard by it too?

I thought the DMs could usually tell when the currents are going to be insane (and thus, choose to go elsewhere.)

With the outfit I dive with, the DM always gets in before the other divers to check the location and the current. Sometimes the boat captain is directed to make a minor adjustment and sometimes the DM gets back on the boat to make a major adjustment. Nonetheless, the current can also change during the dive and the DM needs to then make decisions on the fly

 

[Christi]

I thought the DMs could usually tell when the currents are going to be insane (and thus, choose to go elsewhere.)

It's not always predictable and it can literally change on a dime during the dive. The DM's on the island are amazing, but they are not telepathic - haha!

 

[Skittl1321]

It's not always predictable and it can literally change on a dime during the dive. The DM's on the island are amazing, but they are not telepathic - haha!

Oh, I know. I'm just wondering if they jumped in with a "this is going to be a fun ride" and it being a bit too much; or if it completely caught them off guard.

Cozumel DM's are amazing.

 

[Christi]

From the

Oh, I know. I'm just wondering if they jumped in with a "this is going to be a fun ride" and it being a bit too much; or if it completely caught them off guard.

Cozumel DM's are amazing.

sounds of it, Martin my DM was surprised and the changes happened during the dive.

 

[RayfromTX]

We checked that the current was north to south as we suspected and started at the south end of yucab. We adjusted to be a bit closer to shore and expected the typical brisk Cedral current. It started out as a normal brisk current for Cedral but soon became very swift. As the dive progressed it started pushing us out from shore and we were working near the bottom and swimming cross current to work back shallower.

At 25 minutes we were starting to experience erratic currents where it would be crazy and then die off for half a minute and then hit hard again. Then at 29 minutes we thumbed the dive because it was too much of a fight and the bottom was dropping away. That’s when I started having to fight straight down current, surrounded by my own bubbles and almost fully inflating my wing and finning up to ascend. It didn’t work at first and then did. 6 minutes later we were on the surface which was actually quite calm.

Edit to add
We were all experienced divers with many dives in Cozumel currrents. I have 10 at Cedral. If we had been with divers without good experience we would not have been able to dive Cedral.

 

[deepsea21]

I know I'm in the vast minority here but just another thing to add to my "Why I dislike Cedral" list. What part of the dive did you get caught in that thing? If you're talking 70' I am guessing it was in that one area about 1/2 way into the dive (depending on where you dropped) where it drops off before rising back up. I usually avoid hugging the bottom there to maximize bottom time as there isn't much to see. I prefer to drift/fin across that area at a shallower level until I pass it and reach the other side where the bottom rises back up to me. Cedral has enough crazy fly-by current and who needs to be caught in something like that... The current moving from north to south there? That tells me something was going on that is out of the ordinary. If I'm ever on a drift dive and the current shifts from south to north to north to south or is drifting south from the beginning of the dive I'm heading up and calling it personally as something out of the ordinary is going on and I don't care to find out where those currents are converging at depth creating such things.