Did a Cruise Ship Dive w/Sand Dollar in Cozumel . . .

[flots am]

I was on Cozumel on a cruise ship recently and wanted to catch a couple of dives, so I signed up with the ship because the timing was convenient. The ship uses Sand Dollar by the cruise ship port.

After stopping by the dive shop for a few divers to pick up their gear, we boarded a small boat. There were 7 divers, 2 DMs and a captain. The boat seemed completely packed although I don't know what it's rated capacity was.

The "dive briefing" for the first dive consisted of one of the DMs explaining repeatedly that the dive was 70' maximum and that exceeding that would mean that you sat out the next dive, along with the various rules about not touching anything, and an explanation of the DM sending up an SMB at the end of the dive. The other important point was to signal when we hit 1000PSI. So far, so good. Nothing about the actual dive or the dive site, though. Several divers mentioned that they would be unable to equalize quickly and were assured by the DM that this was no problem, and they should just descend as fast as they could and stay above the DM if necessary.

The dives were all calculated as a square profile with tables, even though everybody appeared to have a computer.

No mention was made that most the stuff above 70' was in terrible shape, or that the current was ripping, or that it varies in strength and sometimes direction by depth, and that given the current, "staying above the DM" would be more of a random occurrence than an intentional choice.

We all splashed in and the DM said "follow me" and immediately descended, moving off towards the wall, leaving his pod of divers who had not descended as quickly, in the distance. He repeatedly signalled for the divers to catch up, but there was little chance of doing that given the current. My buddy and I were fining our butts off trying to catch up, then after a significant amount of wasted effort, signalled "you're #1" to the DM, and decided he could wait for us or not, but that we were done chasing. The DM slowed up and waited for the group.

We then flew over a beat-up section of the top of the wall with little live coral and not many fish. He would frequently bang on his tank and point at something off in the distance, which was amazingly annoying, since I associate tank banging as a problem signal. After about a half hour we surfaced for pickup, although I don't know if someone was low on air or the DM just decided to end the dive.

The next dive was a shallow reef (Paradise), and was quite nice although also very short (maybe 40 minutes). I came back with more than half a tank.

Given the reef, water conditions and variations in diver skills, I have no idea what the purpose of the first dive was, other than to quickly burn off a tank in an area that couldn't be damaged. The second dive should have been much longer and appears to have been cut short for the convenience of the company or staff. Given the conditions, both dives should have been @ Paradise or somewhere similar.

I don't consider any of this to be "an incident" just an annoyance; however I can also see where the combination of random diver qualifications, DM impatience and poor dive site selection on the part of dive operators can easily contribute to an increased rate of medical problems and "lost" divers. It wouldn't have surprised me in the least to find that someone had a heart-attack while trying to catch up to the DM, or that someone would run out of air and/or panic given the stress of the situation.

I have no idea why cruise lines would hook up with a dive op in Belize like Hugh Parkey, who does a fantastic job with safety while at the same time delivering great dives for divers of all skill levels, then in Coz use a dive op that seems to have a fixed agenda, regardless of the water conditions or the divers.

flots.

 

[lindenbruce]

Well that's to bad. I have only used Scuba Club on one vacation and the other three with Aldora. Even then, Coz is a drift diving location so finning should be very minimal on the open reef. Why the DM was doing all that finning is beyond me. Unless he was getting in his work out at your expense. The reef system in Coz is still rebuilding from massive hurricanes about six or so years ago. You really need to go way south to see the more intact reef systems. But that is an hour plus boat ride. Maybe next time you will have a better dive with a different company. B

 

[Islandheart]

Agree this really does not fit the incident realm but should as hell qualifies for a nasty but well written letter to the Cruise lines HQ.

...the powers that be at the HQ need to know that such liability puts them at risk when they allow such poor service.

 

[Sherrodmustang]

Thanks for the review!

Me and the wife are going on a cruise in April to Costa Maya, Honduras, Belize and Cozumel. We actually have been looking at excursions some this evening.

What cruise line?

We are going on Norwegian out of New Orleans.

We could not find any for Belize , other than beginner scuba. So looking at the others for diving!

We also very new to diving and want to be safe and have a great time.

 

[koozemani]

Subscribing because this should be a colorful thread.

 

[ivakdiver]

When I did some Cruise boat diving a few years ago, I booked my diving through an alternative company called 'Shore Excursions'. I had good experiences in Belize and Roatan.

 

[lhhoback]

Seems like Sand Dollar has received several bad reviews. Even on the Carnival site the reviews are sort of suggestive of less than stellar conditions with this company. Luckily there are alot of really good dive operators in Cozumel and assuming the ship is in port long enough...its pretty easy to avoid going with the ship at this port.
Sorry to hear about your experience.

 

[Altamira]

Different day, boat, and crew? We dove with Sand Dollar on a recent visit to Coz and had two good dives from a fairly spacious boat with 8 divers, 2 excellent DMs that gave good briefings, paid attention to all of the divers, and pointed out a lot of neat stuff that would have been missed by most divers. If we had the kind of dive you described, I would not only have a chat with the DM between dives, but would certainly get the word back to the Cruise shore excursion folks as well as the owner of Sand Dollar.

 

[donhealy]

I've been on many cruises (including Carnival) and have used the ship's excursions as sparingly as possible. When in Coz find a good dive shop ahead of time and don't bother using the ship's. ScubaBoard has an extensive forum for Coz with many recommendations. Sand Dollar is actually a good operation but they limit the experience when working with the cruise line. Hugh Parkey (Belize) is great. They come to the ship and pick you up. Typically they dive on Turnifee Atoll. I will be using them again in May when I'm on Carnival. On Roatan, Carnival uses Anthony Keys. They are good but also tailor the dives to the cruise line. I will be using one of the local shops when I'm there again in May.

 

[flots am]

I've been on many cruises (including Carnival) and have used the ship's excursions as sparingly as possible. When in Coz find a good dive shop ahead of time and don't bother using the ship's. ScubaBoard has an extensive forum for Coz with many recommendations. Sand Dollar is actually a good operation but they limit the experience when working with the cruise line. Hugh Parkey (Belize) is great. They come to the ship and pick you up. Typically they dive on Turnifee Atoll. I will be using them again in May when I'm on Carnival. On Roatan, Carnival uses Anthony Keys. They are good but also tailor the dives to the cruise line. I will be using one of the local shops when I'm there again in May.

I've been on Cozumel a number of times, and only used the cruise ship's operator because of timing and convenience. With an extra 10,000 people on the island, I didn't want to spend part of the morning dragging my bag down the street or trying to catch a taxi.

While the dive op can't do anything about the weather, condition of the reef or current, they should be extremely familiar with which areas generally have high or low current and which are still in reasonable shape. The dives appear to have been setup for the convenience of the operator, not the enjoyment of the customers.

Also, I forgot to mention the "surface interval". It was spent not on a beach with some fruit or muffins and a drink, but in the boat, at the marina, watching the crew throw scuba tanks to the shore. The catcher never missed, but given that a miss would land the tank on a concrete block, there's a distinct possibility of "something exciting" happening.

I'm not sure why I'm bothering to write this, except that I'm just really amazed at the crew's lack of judgement or care in nearly all aspects of operations and can't figure out how they're still in business.

flots.