Am I being silly?

[Doc Harry]

A healthy respect for unfamiliar environments will keep you alive and happily diving until you're old and demented....

Talk to your dive operator about your lack of experience with drift diving and get hooked up with an instructor for your first dive.

The challenges of drift diving are easily managed. In fact, I think drift diving in Cozumel is a lot easy that other types of diving.

You will need to jump in with your group all together, much like paratroopers jumping out of an airplane, so that you can stay together. Try to position yourself so that you're jumping in the water in the middle of the group so that it's easy to stay with them.

During the dive, find a coral outcropping to hide behind, out of the current, if you ever find the need to stop somewhere.

At the end of the dive, all you have to do is surface and the dive boat will be right there.

Simple, but nerve-wracking for someone not used to open-water currents. Good luck.

 

[Papa_Bear]

You will be silly (idiotic?) to do a dive you are unsure of. You are never silly to call a dive you are unsure of.

If you don't challenge yourself on easy safe dives you will never get better! All new divers are apprehensive, you would be nuts if you weren't, but You have to master your fears and take the ONE step that will end your fear! You and the Boat are drifting at the same speed, if you get in and can't go get back on the boat! Nothing ventured nothing gained!

I have don many dives I was "Unsure of" that's the adventure!

 

[I Dive]

If you don't challenge yourself on easy safe dives you will never get better! All new divers are apprehensive, you would be nuts if you weren't, but You have to master your fears and take the ONE step that will end your fear! You and the Boat are drifting at the same speed, if you get in and can't go get back on the boat! Nothing ventured nothing gained!

I have don many dives I was "Unsure of" that's the adventure!

Apprehension is your ally, or enemy, depending on the level of it. It is your ally if it's just enough to keep you thinking, it is your enemy when it controls you. It's up to the OP to decide where he's at...

 

[vladimir]

the point I am trying to make is that since he is diving from a cruise ship, they will group those divers together and are well aware that most cruise ship divers are beginners. They rarely take people far from the cruise ships to dive, meaning the dive sites are going to be shallower (all the deeper, more challenging dive sites are farther south). They may take them to Palancar Gardens, but that is an easy dive and not too deep or to Chankanaab which is a great dive with tons of fish. they aren't going to take the group deep, like to Columbia or Punta Sur. I think SandDollar Sports is the dive op used by all the cruise ships and they have a system down from what I have heard and read here on SB.

I was not insinuating that he should just "trust" the DM, I was trying to tell him that drift diving in Cozumel is not something to fear. Thousands of people dive there each month, from land-based dive ops and from cruise ships. There are good DMs and bad DMs anywhere, so no one should EVER just trust them to keep you safe - they are your dive guide only.

Thanks Robin. I agree with you that there is nothing particularly worrisome about the dive he is likely to do. You seemed to take comfort in the fact that they would "all be entering the water together and staying with a dive guide the whole dive, just drifting together." This is the same circumstance that gives me pause. Often the group dive engenders some ambiguity in the buddy system that, in effect, leaves everybody buddy-less, or in a quasi-buddy arrangement with the divemaster, who has five or more "buddies" to monitor and potentially share gas with. When you say the divemaster is "your dive guide only," do you mean that each buddy team will be planning their own maximum depth and turn pressure? Or will a loose association of divers trail along behind the divemaster until somebody admits to being low on air, at which point he will signal everybody to ascend, and often donate air to a hold-out who was keeping his hoovering a secret?

I have little doubt that the OP's dive will be enjoyable, relatively stress-free, and relatively safe. To the extent that he takes control of his own safety, it can be even safer and less stressful.

 

[Brian Sharpe]

Am I being silly? .......but as it gets closer I’m Terrified at the thought of drift diving. I just got certified over the summer and all my dives have been fresh water quarries. What should I do?

Sean

Would you be able to do any drift dives closer to home before the cruise?

I haven't dived in Coz (yet) so I have no idea how strong the currents may be but if you can get a few dives under your belt before going on the cruise I'm pretty sure you'll feel a lot more confident. Have you spoken to your LDS? It may cost a few bucks but I'm sure one of the instructors there would be happy to go out with you for a few supervised dives (assuming you have an appropriate site available)

I had my first "warm water" dives last week and compared to the St. Lawrence River they were a breeze.

 

[vladimir]

Would you be able to do any drift dives closer to home before the cruise?...I had my first "warm water" dives last week and compared to the St. Lawrence River they were a breeze.

Exactly; a breeze by comparison. He'd be better off using the Cozumel dives to prep for drift dives "closer to home" than vice versa.

 

[Basscat]

I got certified at the end of this past May and spent a week drift diving Cozumel at the beginning of August. I got in 20 lake dives before the trip, but was also concerned about drifting, but it was sooo wonderful. Stay close to the dive master and let him/her know of your concern, they will take care of you and keep an eye on you. Drifting slowly a couple feet over that green sea turtle serenely munching on a sponge on top of a reef about 60 feet down was one of the greatest moments of my life. Going back in December

 

[hartl0602]

Thanks all for your helpful words, i'm still apprehensive but considering going through with it. as for trying to do a drift dive locally, i'm in Illinois, and i'm not sure if we have gentle currents. i could be wrong but i think the only current i would run into is on lake Michigan. i think the part that gets me is not feeling like i control the dive. i'm use to planing the dive and having to kick everywhere i go, fact is i normally lead the dives with me and my buddy.

 

[scubafanatic]

Am I being silly? I’m going on a cruise at the end of the month and had originally planed to dive in Cozumel, but as it gets closer I’m Terrified at the thought of drift diving. I just got certified over the summer and all my dives have been fresh water quarries. What should I do? I’m almost to the point of just taking a discover scuba in Cozumel so that I can get my feet wet so to speak…I’m not afraid of diving in fact I’m very excited to be diving in Ft Lauderdale post cruise, I’ll be there for 3 days and plan to dive day 2 and 3. I just can’t over come this fear, not to mention the fact that I know they will push me beyond my training (i.e. go to deep)

HELP!!!!

Sean

1) bring a decent sized safety sausage...but forget about bringing a reel for now...you're going to be task-overloaded. If you get separated from your group and are on your own, as you ascend and do your shallow safety stop......and then prepare to surface...rotate in slow 360 degree circles....LISTENING for the sound of approaching boat engines......and looking upwards. If you hear boat motors getting closer...do not surface until you hear the motors getting further away...otherwise you risk getting 'torpedoed' by a boat/props!

2) wear a dive slate, on which you will be writing down the name of your dive boat...that way, if you surface and another boat spots you first, they can radio 'your' boat to recover you...assuming you remember/wrote down the name of 'your' boat.

3) get familiar with your own dive computer...if you get separated from your group, it will be up to you alone to be able to read and follow your own computer to ascend safely.

4)...your air consumption will likely suck...which is to be expected......don't get paranoid about it....but do pay attention to that!

5) ....how's your bouyancy control......are you still pretty clueless or are you at least 'passable' in that category?

6) in drift diving, your body/BC acts like a 'sail', your 'radar cross section' will determine your drift speed relative to the rest of the group. If you find yourself drifting too fast (ahead of the rest) get horizontal, head facing the current to reduce your 'sail' area exposed to the current.....also, if you are terrain-following (like a cruise missile) duck behind large coral heads to hide from the current until the rest of the group catchs up to you.

7) don't be in the very front of the group......use the 'advance guard' divers as providing advance warning of oncoming water/current/updraft/downdraft conditions...see what's happening to them so you can prepare if you see something 'radical' happening 'forward' (this is most useful in the event of a major upwelling/downwelling)

8) enjoy the scenery, but maintain situational awareness, don't drop to the bottom for a minute to look closely at something, then look up and find the group has 'vanished'.

9) make sure you don't have overly sensitive ears/sinuses...sometimes currents move at different speeds at different depths...they can also move in different directions at different depths......to stay with your group you might have to make something of a 'crash dive' to drop down to a depth matching the group/DM......if you're stuck on/near the surface ear-clearing, the group may accelerate away from you as they catch a deeper current.

10) wouldn't hurt to have one of those LOUD air powered horns that connect to your inflator hose to surface signal a boat...or warn off a boat that might not see you and run over you.

11) wouldn't hurt to carry a small dive light...so you can look inside/under things...or if you do a wreck dive......also, if you end up doing a twilight dive, an emergency dive light is useful if it's dusk/dark at the end of the dive and you need it to signal a boat.

12) gloves and knives are officially not allowed inside the Marine Park

13) don't touch the coral or any of the animals !

14) stay well hydrated...the #1 cause of decompression sickness is dehydration !

15) don't forget the mask defog !

16) probably don't bring a camera, at least until you are a lot more comfortable and your bouyancy control is decent.

17) gonna suggest at least a moderate thickness wetsuit....3 mm full suit isn't a bad start...new divers ALWAYS underestimate their thermal protection needs...and a cold diver uses even more air...and your air consumption will suck anyway and you'll need all the help you can get!

18) don't forget your small bills (tip $ plus small expenses if you do a surface interval at a beach side restaurant.)

19) partake of any boat offered snacks/fruits......trust me, you will burn up the calories.

20) don't make a very common rookie mistake, especially bad to make in a high current, of trying to swim 'upstream' if you blow past the DM and DM has spotted something cool for you to come look at.....you will burn an incredible amout of your already limited air fighting your way upstream to see what he's pointing out...and whatever he's found, there will likely be another critter just like it just 'down the road'...this is why you let the DM stay a decent distance in front of you, and you monitor the DM, and when he pulls over to show the group something, you can anticipate things and plot an intercept course....versus trying to reverse course and swim uphill after you've already passed him by. And honestly, if the DM pulls over to look at something, and there are already 12 other divers swarming around 'it'.....that's usually a big "cluster" and I don't bother seeing that critter/item.....the other divers will kick you in the face and have probably already scared off whatever it was anyway...there's always stuff you can look at on your own...you don't need to be spoon-fed everything.....enjoy your own dive and what YOU see/discover !

 

[robint]

Thanks all for your helpful words, i'm still apprehensive but considering going through with it. as for trying to do a drift dive locally, i'm in Illinois, and i'm not sure if we have gentle currents. i could be wrong but i think the only current i would run into is on lake Michigan. i think the part that gets me is not feeling like i control the dive. i'm use to planing the dive and having to kick everywhere i go, fact is i normally lead the dives with me and my buddy.

Good. You will do fine. My first 50+ ocean dives were in Cozumel and I found the drift diving easy and fun. I really doubt they will take you to a site with strong current that day, the DMs can look into the water and assess the dive before you get in and let you know what to expect. Just watch the DM for signals and enjoy the ride.