Dive op with great rental equipment, small boats, gear storage?

[chillyinCanada]

Dave, I've been diving regularly for years with an outfit that has that many boats, plus a 58' that goes out on longer trips every day, and they aren't having any trouble storing gear or mixing up wetsuits, hence my bias.

All I need is a place to hang it Dude. I can put it on the boat in the morning myself, if that's the biggie.

 

[Dave Dillehay]

DEar Mossman,

WE tried for a while and no matter how hard we worked we ended up with mix ups now and then. Get to Punta Sur and find out someone has the wrong wet suit and it is not pretty. And no matter how much you ask divers to check that their own gear is right...one black suit looks just like another. Maybe we will try it again, but the less pissed off divers the better. ON the other hand, we have very few divers who complain about having to take care of their own wet suits, indeed many prefer to wash their own rather than have theirs bathed with every bodies other ones...pee or no pee. I just can't see any dive shop individually washing wet suits!

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[mediumone]

I believe Opal's Dream does as well?

Yes, they do.

Now that I've had an op take care of the damn thing, I'd never "go back".

 

[Mossman]

DEar Mossman,

WE tried for a while and no matter how hard we worked we ended up with mix ups now and then. Get to Punta Sur and find out someone has the wrong wet suit and it is not pretty. And no matter how much you ask divers to check that their own gear is right...one black suit looks just like another. Maybe we will try it again, but the less pissed off divers the better. ON the other hand, we have very few divers who complain about having to take care of their own wet suits, indeed many prefer to wash their own rather than have theirs bathed with every bodies other ones...pee or no pee. I just can't see any dive shop individually washing wet suits!

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

I wonder if those same squeamish people believe the hotels wash each of the guests bedsheets individually

 

[Skittl1321]

I wonder if those same squeamish people believe the hotels wash each of the guests bedsheets individually

Sheets usually get washed in extremely hot water in an industrial machine.

At least at the local shop, suits get dunked briefly in a tank. I know it has some sort of sanitizer in it- but the process just seems a bit too brief.

I can certainly see the convienence, and it would be nice to have someone take care of my wetsuit; I just don't think dealing with a wetsuit is the massive problem you are always making it out to be.
But there seems to be an op for everybody in Cozumel. Some of the 'low price' ops that get recommended here end up pretty high priced when you need rental gear; a consideration for me, but not for everybody. I lost out on wetsuit valeting, but got a good price on gear rental (and good recommendations that the gear was decent.)

 

[Mossman]

Sheets usually get washed in extremely hot water in an industrial machine.

At least at the local shop, suits get dunked briefly in a tank. I know it has some sort of sanitizer in it- but the process just seems a bit too brief.

I can certainly see the convienence, and it would be nice to have someone take care of my wetsuit; I just don't think dealing with a wetsuit is the massive problem you are always making it out to be.
But there seems to be an op for everybody in Cozumel. Some of the 'low price' ops that get recommended here end up pretty high priced when you need rental gear; a consideration for me, but not for everybody. I lost out on wetsuit valeting, but got a good price on gear rental (and good recommendations that the gear was decent.)

Anyone using rental gear had best not be squeamish. Even if you use your own mouthpiece, how well do you think they sanitized that regulator that someone else actually breathed through? Or the BC that soaked up someone's urine when they peed underwater without a wetsuit. Disgusting!

The fact is, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of dive resorts around the world where the standard practice for divers after getting off the boat (or emerging on the shore) is to rinse their gear, including peed-in wetsuits, in communal rinse tanks. Especially in areas where water is scarce, or the staff just too lazy, the water doesn't get changed all that often. And sanitizer or soap added? On rare occasions, but good luck with that.

So I have absolutely no problem with the dive op doing for me in Cozumel what I'd be doing myself at a "self-service" dive resort.

 

[Mike]

How did I ever survive diving in Bonaire, having to deal with every piece of my own equipment every day?

I was even carrying my own tanks! Actually my tanks, AND my wifes!!!! Son-of-a!

 

[Mossman]

How did I ever survive diving in Bonaire, having to deal with every piece of my own equipment every day?

I was even carrying my own tanks! Actually my tanks, AND my wifes!!!! Son-of-a!

Depends where you stayed. Buddy Dive and BDA, which services Sand Dollar and Den Laman, both have rooms where you're assigned a spot to stow your gear (hook for BC, bench space for other stuff) and there are wetsuit hangers. Rinse tanks provided as well. I prefer that to the set up at Capt. Don's which is basically an open air locker room for gear with no place to hang the wetsuit. But they also provide rinse tanks.

Bonaire is shore diving. The price is included in most hotel packages or available a la carte for $100 or so per week, making the cost per dive dirt cheap. Even boat dives are cheap.

So with extremely cheap shore and boat diving and ample gear storage facilities, Bonaire is hardly a comparison to Cozumel where most people are picked up at a dock or drive/taxi to the caleta and have to drag their gear back and forth to a hotel room with no gear storage or rinsing facilities (besides a shower and a balcony with a chair for "hanging" a wetsuit, hoping it doesn't get ripped off if you're on the ground floor).

For instance, you've lauded the Presidente as the poshest hotel on the island. Would you really want to be dragging around unrinsed dripping dive gear through the fancy hotel lobby? All that pee and seawater dripping into the carpets and making the marble floors slippery and dangerous for other well-paying guests?

 

[Mike]

For instance, you've lauded the Presidente as the poshest hotel on the island. Would you really want to be dragging around unrinsed dripping dive gear through the fancy hotel lobby? All that pee and seawater dripping into the carpets and making the marble floors slippery and dangerous for other well-paying guests?

Maybe that's why they revoked my ambassador membership?

You might want to try them out. Not only does the butler there take your wet suit and dry clean it every night, but you'll find a mint on it in the morning.

 

[Mossman]

Maybe that's why they revoked my ambassador membership?

You might want to try them out. Not only does the butler there take your wet suit and dry clean it every night, but you'll find a mint on it in the morning.

I stayed there back when Aldora still handled wetsuits, so I wouldn't know.

The other difference is how far you need to trudge with your dripping wetsuit. In Bonaire, I drive up close to the gear storage room, grab my stuff, throw it in the back of the truck along with some tanks. Then I park usually within a few steps of the waterline. At the resorts, benches for doffing gear and rinse tanks are right by the dock where you climb out of the water.

In Cozumel, one might have to drag the dripping wetsuit a couple blocks in town, or a long distance through an AI resort property, or through a sparkling marble-floored hotel lobby like at the Palace.