Currents

[bbarada]

We've been to Scuba Club a dozen or more times. We usually do afternoon dives off the beach. Very little current and lots to see. Some friends of ours were there the first week of September last year and they said the current was so strong they had to crawl on the bottom back to the ladder. They are very experienced divers, and said the current was strong on all of their dives that week, even boat dives.

Is there any way to predict the current strength? Tides? Moon phases.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[mstevens]

Wouldn't your experience in Cozumel make you tend to think that current would be stronger on boat dives, not "even boat dives"?

There may have been current that strong at the shore, but I've never run into anything resembling what your friends describe. I've done lots of swimming and snorkeling off the shore in Cozumel over the years.

I think your experiences over the years are much more representative than what your friends reported.

 

[azscubadude]

We've been to Scuba Club a dozen or more times. We usually do afternoon dives off the beach. Very little current and lots to see. Some friends of ours were there the first week of September last year and they said the current was so strong they had to crawl on the bottom back to the ladder. They are very experienced divers, and said the current was strong on all of their dives that week, even boat dives.

I've been on some boat dives with rigging currents but in my experiences (and I do a lot of shore dives with my camera rig in tow when at SCC ) I've never had the current keep me out of the water. I'm sure through the years there have been some bad ones but I've even gone shore diving at SCC when the port has been closed. I just check the buoys out front for the curve from the current and judge it from there.

When I do shore dive off the pier I'm all over the area between SCC and Hotel Cozumel and out past the big marker buoys in the grassy areas and never had a problem.

If there is a lot of chop I don't exit through the tunnel, I go to the ladder between the large pier and the short angled pier because the short angled pier cuts the chop. The ladder at this spot extends almost to the bottom and almost touches the sand. Just be careful, the ladder can be VERY slippery.

How experienced with the conditions around Cozumel were your friends and how experienced of divers are they. Could be multiple things, conditioning, smokers, heavy breathers, etc. One diver's ripping current could be another diver's.. not so much.

Since you have been there almost a dozen times, what has been your past experience, I think I would go with that if I were you.

 

[jlyle]

Many years ago, we took a taxi from SCC to La Ceiba and did a long drift dive back to Scuba Club.

The following year, we decided to repeat our shore drift with a group of friends. As soon as we entered the water in front of Sol Caribe, I felt the current running the wrong way (to the south). We quickly surfaced and decided to dive on the airplane wreck in front of La Ceiba since we weren't going to be able to drift in the direction we needed to go. As we headed towards the airplane, the current stated to rip towards the south, very strong and very fast. Fearing that we would be swept under a cruise ship tied up to the pier, I signaled everyone to go to shore. We crawled, hand over hand, along the bottom to get out of the water. One of the people we were diving with called his wife at SCC and she came down to La Ceiba to pick us up and take us back to Scuba Club. By the time we got back to the hotel, the current had reversed again and was gently blowing in the normal direction.

On a couple of other occasions we've had extremely strong currents in front of SCC, with the current changing directions from north to south and back again in a few minutes. The one time I was in the water during such an occurance on a night dive, it was another crawl along the bottom to get out of the current.

For more than twenty years, we have spent three or more weeks a year at SCC. It's my experience that such strong, squirrely currents are rare.

 

[ggunn]

Eddy currents and turbulence produced by the interaction of the relatively steady channel current with the coastline can produce wide variations in local currents. Once on a night dive on Paradise we passed the same moray eel five times from a different direction every time.

 

[coldwaterlloyd]

I have had the same current reversal off SCC . It was running south instead of the usual north , I took it for a ride to the airplane wreck and played around there for awhile . Took a cab back to SCC . Always take a few pesos in a baggie .

 

[octopuppy]

I've also encountered the switcheroo in front of SSC. Pretty intense. Does anyone know the anwer concerning the moon phase effect on the current?

 

[ggunn]

I've also encountered the switcheroo in front of SSC. Pretty intense. Does anyone know the anwer concerning the moon phase effect on the current?

That reversal is due to meandering eddy currents, not anything to do with the moon. The current out in the channel didn't switch directions.

 

[Dave Dillehay]

The widely varying currents are most common the closer you are to the structure of cruise ship piers and varying geometry of cruise ships being in and out of port. Not that you can't find varying currents anywhere in Cozumel but that is what accentuates the eddies near the piers. That has also made Paradise reef current direction so goofy, though usually mild.


If you recall passing those piers on your dive boats you will almost always find rougher waves and current around those piers. I had always hoped it was the ocean gods rebelling against cruise ships--but a diver friend who is an expert fluid dynamicist explained it all to me and I have no reason to disbelieve him.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[ColoDale]

I have been on quite a few dives in Cozumel where the current switched direction (North and South) and (up and down). One on Cedral Wall in the afternoon that went out an down and we missed the wall (saw it pass underneath tho), a night dive (Dalila) where the current ran South and out (East) then switched to North and out. We saw alot of sand that night. Some dives in the am have run fast, out, down, up and some underwater tornados.

I can say these are not the norm and I have found no correlation with the moon or time of day or time of year. I have noticed Cozumel does not have much tidal action. I have noticed the water being slightly higher at times for periods of days or the week and I can't explain that - it does not seem to be tide related and doesn't seem to me to be related to any different currents over the reefs. I've notice the water level against piers over many trips to be different.