panama city and cozumel dive reports

[rebelrph]

I did 10 dives with Dive Locker from 7-23 to 7-28 aboard the Fintastic. which included the Accokeek, mack's reef, bridge span #8, red sea tug, putnam. Sunday (7-27) we did a 3-tank hard bottom trip for spearfishing and lobster grabbing. Visibility was an average 60 feet on all days except hardbottom which was closer to 30. Crew said viz is usually not that good, but had been  for several weeks.

8-4 through 8-15 I was in Cozumel and made 26 dives with Dive Palancar which operates out of the Occidental Grand (and Occidental Allegro) resort(s). Water temp was 85 - 87 degrees, although I did hit a small pocket of 84 degree water on one dive.. brrrrr. Viz was 100+, current mild most days. only one day was it really strong for shallower dive.
Turtles were nesting on the windward side so we saw some on every dive. the strong current dive we saw 10 and a herd of huge angelfish and parrot fish. Saw nurse sharks on most days, though not every dive.
Sealife seemed to be less than other trips there and many shallow dive sites are mostly parking lots still from Wilma in 2005. Deep dives Palancar Gardens, Horseshoe, Bricks, and Caves are as beautiful as ever.
Did Columbia Wall a couple of times, but had new divers on board most days, so didn't get to Punta Sur or Maricabo.

[rebelrph]

Dive Palancar is a good dive op, HOWEVER, be forwarned that you will only be diving 40 MINUTES per dive regardless of air supply or deco time left. they run a very tight schedule and limit times. I did squeeze out a few 50 minute dives when location permitted us getting in early , but exit times were based on next dive time. They do 4 dives a day with night dives added on MWF. 9:00 deep, 10:30 shallow, 2:00 deep and 3:30 shallow. I did all 4 the last 4 days of diving. 40 minute BT and nitrox made it easy. Because of the location of the resort, they do 1st dive then return for new tanks during SI. They can also pick up divers who didn't want to do the deep dive at this time. After the 2nd dive return for lunch and repeat the process in the afternoon , returning after each dive for tanks ( acutally they had tanks on board, they were really getting the tanks for the NEXT dive ). It didn't seem like a good use of deisel, but kept us from bobbing around on the boat for SI. Also, it allowed flexibility for divers not wanting to do early or late dives. Resort offers a free DSD class, so usually some boats had those "students" on board and therefore limited choices of sites.
Once I finally accepted the 40 min BT , I spent alot of time chasing down photos of turtles , sharks, eels, etc. always knowing regardless of how much swimming I did I'd still have 1000 + psi left in my tank at the end.

[mwhities]

Love the sig, been there a few times.

Good report. I will not be diving with them, I want my extra 8 minutes of BT!

Michael

[James64]

good to hear was thinkin about going down to panama sometime between te 21-25 to get a wet since m FINALLY back in the states

[frankc420]

So did they pair you with a good buddy or with an air hog?  Or did they pair you at all?

40 minutes is a lot of time at depth, not so much on shallow dives.

84 degrees was cold? 

[rebelrph]

we were "paired" but that didn't matter. at 37 minutes the DM signaled for safety stop. a few dives it was at 40 minutes for SS. All dives were multi-level. The guys I buddied with most usually had more air than I did at the 40 minute mark!

As I said, they were a good Op, but just limit diving to a set time, rather than Deco or Air.


TC