Dive ops who spend their surface interval at a beach club.

[ScubaSteve1962]

Thanks guys

 

[Ron Lee]

Many of my hotels have been in town with NO beach area of any sort. Being able to sit under a palapa between dives with my feet in the sand, looking out over that beautiful blue water and listening as baby waves hit the shore is an essential part of a trip to Cozumel.

 

[Mossman]

I'd rather be diving. Nitrox isn't as boring as sitting on the beach getting sunburned for an hour or more, but I'm forced to accommodate the air breathers.

We have plenty of beaches here in California and I've been avoiding them since I was a kid. The only redeeming factor for me is when there are cute girls in bikinis from one of the cruise ships. I leer at them from the privacy of my sunglasses while watching the clock until it's time to do what I'm on the island for: dive, dive, dive!

 

[Oldbear]

I'd rather be diving...We have plenty of beaches here in California and I've been avoiding them since I was a kid...what I'm on the island for: dive, dive, dive!

I am mixed on this one...I too go to Coz to dive.

In Colorado we do not have too many beaches so a SI on a beach and to get a snack might be nice. But as far as beaches go I just spent 7 years in Iraq where we had all the sand we could stand, palm trees blowing in the breeze, sunny skies and on many a night we would get bombed in the evening; so beach SIs are not a high priority for me.

 

[Okie Mike]

Opal's Dream does SI at a beach club.

 

[DjDiverDan]

I'm with the original poster on this issue. I really like the long SI on the beach, lots of time to outgas, meaning longer no-deco limits for the second dive. Especially if you've done a long, deep first dive, say a wall dive to 110 feet or more, with 65-80 minutes of bottom time, a long SI is essential to getting the most out of that HP 120 tank on the second dive. But to each his own -- that's precisely why there are a lot of different Dive Op options in Cozumel.

 

[Farback]

Curious. These operations using 120 Steels where you may exceed NDLs. What provisions are there for deco? Is there a hang station with extra air, or are you expected to manage your gas? If on your own, and on rental tanks, is it one source octo or is there redundant air if you are getting into actual deco time? Not being critical, really want to know. I got into deco on non-redundant rigged AL80 recently on a trip. Not proud of it, but comfortable with my gas consumption and abilities. However, I do know I should not have done it. (Twice)

 

[Ron Lee]

Curious. These operations using 120 Steels where you may exceed NDLs. What provisions are there for deco?

Who said that these are deco dives? They are multi-level dives. I have two Suunto dive computers and there are times when I have to ascend to a safety stop before the rest of the group or the computers will go into deco mode.

My recollection is that the standard limit is no closer than five minutes left before the dive computer enters deco mode.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

Curious. These operations using 120 Steels where you may exceed NDLs. What provisions are there for deco? Is there a hang station with extra air, or are you expected to manage your gas? If on your own, and on rental tanks, is it one source octo or is there redundant air if you are getting into actual deco time? Not being critical, really want to know. I got into deco on non-redundant rigged AL80 recently on a trip. Not proud of it, but comfortable with my gas consumption and abilities. However, I do know I should not have done it. (Twice)

You're expected to manage your gas, just as you should be expected to do on any dive, with whatever tank(s) you're using.
I've gone into deco once with the 120s, and I can't really claim it was a surprise.
The harbor was reopened after being closed for 2 1/2 days for an El Norte. We headed out with Aldora to try and get in a couple tanks. The first dive was about 80 minutes (I can get my logbook if anybody really feels a need to know the specific profile). During the SI, the feeling was that we'd have to settle for one tank because of the time - a second tank would have put us well into twilight. As it happened, Mrs Dog and I had entertained ourselves during the port closure by heading for the cenotes. And still had all our lights...
There were four of us plus the guide, so everybody had one light and Mrs Dog and I both had a spare (plus the Light Canon I use as a video light...). So we cut our SI to only one hour and got back in. Diving a Suunto, I knew I would likely end up cutting the dive short or sliding over into some deco. Sure enough, I ran out of NDL with better than 2K PSI in my tank. No problem, really. I went higher up the wall. The group came up and headed across the top of the reef, and I ran out of NDL again. I left the guide know, and headed up. He collected the group (which had people who were about due to turn the dive anyway), did their safety stop and they headed back to the boat. I stayed down (the guide stayed down too), hanging off my DSMB for the 10 minutes the ultra-conservative Suunto demanded, then got back on the boat with about 1200PSI left.

I know, I broke the rules since I'm not trained for deco.
On the other hand, I knew I was going to have tons of gas to do the deco, and I knew that I was diving an ultra-conservative computer - my backup is an Aeris and I still had NDL on it. Had I been diving an Aeris as my primary (which I do, now), I would not have entered deco at all.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

on many a night we would get bombed in the evening; so beach SIs are not a high priority for me.

Presumably for at least two definitions of bombed?