Is 16 dives in 3 days too aggressive?

[Mike Klieb]

I guess what I am asking having never dove in Coz before is 16 dives doable or way too aggressive ? Been kinda playing with profiles to see where I end up on the charts but not sure of the depths of most of the dives so that makes it a little hard to estimate. I am Nitrox Certified so I will be using it to help extend my time. Any help would be appreciated thanks in advance.

 

[Steve_C]

Without knowing that you are doing, all 30ft reef dives or 120 ft wall dives it is impossible to tell. Also if you are an air hog and suck air so that your dives are shorter you can do more dives just shorter ones.

No way to tell without more data.

 

[ReefHound]

I cannot imagine doing 16 dives in 3 days in Cozumel. That's 6, 5, and 5. How did you come up with that number? Is this a contest or a challenge? If that's your mission then the way to do it is to stay somewhere like Blue Angel or Scuba Shack and do lots of shore dives.

You could do a 2-tank boat trip in the morning then 3 shore dives. The key is to keep the logistics simple which means staying somewhere on the water with onsite tanks available. I suppose it would be physically possible to do a 2-tank morning, 2-tank afternoon, and night dive boat trip but you'll be going from 7am to 9pm. You can do shore dives in much less time and won't need a surface interval except to change tanks.

 

[Mike Klieb]

Without knowing that you are doing, all 30ft reef dives or 120 ft wall dives it is impossible to tell. Also if you are an air hog and suck air so that your dives are shorter you can do more dives just shorter ones.

No way to tell without more data.

\
I guess that is my issue I don't know what im doing as far as the most common dives are they 60' 80' or are they 30'. I don't really consider myself an air hog my SAC runs about 18 - 22 but again that depends on effort.

 

[Mike Klieb]

I cannot imagine doing 16 dives in 3 days in Cozumel. That's 6, 5, and 5. How did you come up with that number? Is this a contest or a challenge? If that's your mission then the way to do it is to stay somewhere like Blue Angel or Scuba Shack and do lots of shore dives.

You could do a 2-tank boat trip in the morning then 3 shore dives. The key is to keep the logistics simple which means staying somewhere on the water with onsite tanks available. I suppose it would be physically possible to do a 2-tank morning, 2-tank afternoon, and night dive boat trip but you'll be going from 7am to 9pm. You can do shore dives in much less time and won't need a surface interval except to change tanks.

My thought was to do just that we are staying at SB I was originally thinking all boat dives but I wasn't sure how that would work out not knowing the depths or the average depth of the boat dives.

 

[ReefHound]

I'm blanking, who is SB?

 

[Johnoly]

... Any help would be appreciated....

Just from a logistics standpoint......
* What time of year? (not every op does night dives every night)
* How close to the boat are you staying? (lunch is gonna be tight, eating is one of the best parts of Coz)
* You including shore dives in those 16?
* I guess you could do 16 nitrox and stay out of O2 problems or do some 21%'s too but tough to cheat the computer.
* You're gonna need a vacation from your vacation, LOL!!

 

[ChuckP]

First dives are 80’, second dives are 60’ generally speaking and that’s very general.

Can you do 16 in three days? From boats, it’d be really hard - you’d have to shore dive in there somewhere, blue angel, Villa aldora etc.

Can you do it dive planning wise? That really depends on who you dive with and you. I see a lot of 45 minute dives here, some shops go 60, some go 80 - it depends on the tank size, your lung size, your groups lung size and the OP you dive with.

16 here in three days diving 60 minute dives from a boat - have dan insurance.

 

[Cozdreamer]

Are you wanting 16 just to say you did it? Cozumel is so much better than just a short dive to call it a dive to add to your count and/or logbook. I'd take a 60-90minute dive over a 40-45 minute dive anyday with what Cozumel has to offer underwater. PLUS you'll miss out on all the great restaurants to enjoy eating at if all you do is try to get 16 dives in 3 days.... just saying....AND if you are flying, you'll need to account for that too. I sure hope you have DAN insurance if you dive. Stay safe please.

 

[rmssetc]

I guess what I am asking having never dove in Coz before is 16 dives doable or way too aggressive ? Been kinda playing with profiles to see where I end up on the charts but not sure of the depths of most of the dives so that makes it a little hard to estimate. I am Nitrox Certified so I will be using it to help extend my time. Any help would be appreciated thanks in advance.

Instead of focusing on the number of dives, perhaps consider the total time submerged as your goal.

For example,

16 dives * 40 min ('cattle boat + AL80') = 10h 40min submerged.

Several CZM dive ops offer a 'dive your own tank' style, with 75min+ dives being common. Those operators typically do 2 boat dives each AM, and two PM dives (twilight+night) 1~2x/week. So, in 3 days you could do:

6x AM * 75min
2x PM * 60min
9h 30m submerged

pretty close, and likely more quality time under water. Still a tiring schedule, but much less than trying to squeeze in lots of shore dives and a higher count of short dives.