Few questions for a few trips.

[Chanly83]

My wife and I are headed to Cozumel and will be staying at the Explorian from Jan 26th to the Feb 2nd. She won’t be diving but I would love to. I am newish to diving, I have my OW, Advanced Adventure, Nitrox and a few others. I also have my e-learning for deep, wreck, night and Intro to tech. I have never done any diver in the ocean let alone off a boat or drift. I grew up in CA on the beach and my wife and I do tropical trips every year for snorkeling. I would like to do 2 or 3 days worth of diving. Not on a cattle ship preferably with a private DM for at least the first day. I would like to stick with Nitrox, I have all my own equipment and a DC2000 that I would like to break in. If anyone could give me any pointers for dive OPs, places that we need to see and restaurants that need to be tried.

We received a phenomenal discount through my wife’s work for a week at Secrets Resort Playa Mujeres Cancun on Feb 13th to the 21st. I know A LOT OF people are not happy with pier fees but for the price we couldn’t turn it down. So please bash them on another thread. I was looking at Beyond Diving or Cenote Xperience. I plan on diving at least 5 days 2 or more tanks a day. Same thing as above Nitrox dives preferred and I love taking pictures. I would like to split my dives up between ocean and Cenotes and every sense I saw a photo of the Cenote Angelita 3 or 4 years ago it has been on my bucket list. My wife and some of her friends from work are interested doing some snorkeling in the Cenotes, I was hoping I could find a OP that would take them for snorkeling and me for diving. So please any must see must do things or places let me know. Also for both trips any MUST NOT DO things or places would be awesome.

We also have Grand Caymans Morritts Tortuga Dec’19 already planned so if anyone has any tidbits to throw in for then I won’t complain.

Thanks for the help

 

[Doc]

....I have never done any diver in the ocean let alone off a boat or drift....

I would very much so recommend that you acquire those two very basic experiences before you think able about adding anything else to your academic achievements. These two skills (drift and boat) are assumed for most any diver to have in their histories. Cozumel is one of the top 3 drift dive areas in the Caribbean, so you're in just the perfect place to do that.

Since this is your first salt water dive, you'd might want to tell your DM that there's going to be some fiddling with adding weights over your std fresh water set-up. Assumably you'll be wearing a different lighter thickness of thermal protection, so that's going to add another unknown to your prior recorded dive log weighting records. Who knows? Maybe you'll just break even with your weights...but it will take some time.

You can hire and have your own private DM, even if you find your yourself on a a "Cattle Ship", go for it.

If you want nitrox, that's fine for a desire, everybody will have it available to sell it to you. As you state though- "nitrox dives preferred", I really don't believe you're describing dive profiles or repetitive dive schedules that would flat-out require nitrox or be described as a "nitrox dive". Your call.

Get your wife into a Discover Scuba. Do that through a real-deal world dive agency shop (PADI, NAUI, etc) versus a fly-by-night "resort course" that unfortunately Coz is infamous for worldwide.

 

[diversteve]

Tortuga Divers (Red Sail Waterports) is onsite at Morritts. It's all boat diving from there. The other option is Ocean Frontiers but they;re on the south side and I don't see the point.

By the time you get there (with more experience) ask about Babylon - some say it's the best dive on GC.

If you learned to shore dive off SoCal you won't have any problems in the Caribbean. It's a lot easier to fall off a boat. Watch your depth - the water is so clear it's easy to go deeper than planned - there's no visual refercnce (nothing floating in it)

Since you mentioned your wife likes to snorkel - it's an hour drive to the west side but you might both enjoy the Kittiwake - a dive cleaned wreck that's so shallow the top decks are a snorkel.

Or Stingray City - a 15' dive that will also take snorkelers on the dive boat. On ours, a family with kids was on the boat - the parents did the dive, the kids snorkeled down and took the squid from us to feed them. They probably had the better time.

I'm sure Tortuga can set up both dives.

I think you're in Mujeres too early but check to see if the whalesharks are there yet. Usually that's closer to late spring/summer. Snorkel onty.

 

[rongoodman]

Since you mentioned your wife likes to snorkel - it's an hour drive to the west side but you might both enjoy the Kittiwake - a dive cleaned wreck that's so shallow the top decks are a snorkel.

Or Stingray City - a 15' dive that will also take snorkelers on the dive boat. On ours, a family with kids was on the boat - the parents did the dive, the kids snorkeled down and took the squid from us to feed them. They probably had the better time.

They're going to Cozumel, not Grand Cayman.

 

[EastEndDiver]

For info on Cayman go the Cayman sub forum lots of good uptodate info on all aspects of Cayman.

I laugh everytime I hear someone say "Babylon" it has become a buzzword because of a dive magazine.

 

[Mark Rappaport]

Scuba Mau

 

[scrane]

Piece of cake. Cozumel is geared towards divers of all levels of abilities. I can't see a problem as long as you go with any of the established operators. As a new diver I would not be put off by the larger boats. A private DM should be available from most providers. Nitrox??... It's up to you, but most people don't use it, it is an additional expense, and your air consumption will probably be your limiting factor. Private DM: it's up to you. If you've built up some skills and confidence in your training I don't see it as a necessity.
Cozumel diving is a well oiled machine. Not a lot of surprises.
Don't set yourself an ambitious agenda.
Just have fun.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @Chanly83

You might want to look into Dive House, serves both the Explorean and Fiesta Americana. I know nothing about them. You might want to do a couple dives before you take your camera. Try the Cozumel forum Cozumel

Cancun is not a common dive destination. Finding an operator out of Playa del Carmen for ocean and cenote dives sounds like a reasonable idea. Try the Mexico forum Mexico

You'll enjoy diving the east end of Grand Cayman. I stay at Compass Point and use Ocean Frontiers. As per @diversteve, if I were at Morritts, I would give Tortuga Divers a try

Is your wife interested in learning to dive? If you both dived, it might expand the dive destinations available to you

 

[Mark Rappaport]

You don’t have to use the on site ops at the resorts. We stayed at Sabor and dove with them, but the next year we stayed at Secrets and dove with SCUBA MAU. Picked us up on the pier. “Whole nother level...”

 

[scubadada]

You don’t have to use the on site ops at the resorts. We stayed at Sabor and dove with them, but the next year we stayed at Secrets and dove with SCUBA MAU. Picked us up on the pier. “Whole nother level...”

Explorean is not on the water, may not have a pier. Explorean guests have access to Fiesta Americana, perhaps a shuttle between the two, don't know

There are countless excellent operators on Cozumel, I use Aldora. Easy to pick if there is a pier for pickup or you have a car