Review-Dive with Martin, Cozumel

[tiggy]

As a part of our Royal Caribbean cruise, we booked a three-tank dive with Dive with Martin on Thursday, October 13. This was probably the highlight of our cruise. Our ship was scheduled to be in port from 6am-4pm Cozumel time (7am-5pm ship time). We had chosen Dive with Martin due to their location (right on the pier), reputation, and cost. Since are new divers, we needed rental equipment and Dive with Martin’ rates included the equipment.

 

Booking: This was probably the biggest hassle. I initially contacted Dive with Martin in early July to attempt to book our dives. The first thing to note is that whoever answers their e-mails tries very hard, but the English is a bit rough. After 2-3 rounds of replies, I finally found out that they wanted me to arrange our booking at the beginning of September. Being a planner, this gave me a little bit of heartburn. (I’d booked the rest of our excursions in May and was worried about not being able to get on a dive boat if I waited.) However, we chose to wait and had no problems making our booking in September.

 

Pre-dive: Our ship was a bit late docking and clearing. So we didn’t make it off the ship until 7am Coz time. Fortunately, Dive with Martin’s boats and shops are steps away from the pier exit. We located the ship and were filling out our forms within 3 minutes of leaving the ship. We were fitted for rental gear, introduced to the two DMs who would be on our boat, and headed out to pick up the other divers. In all, there were 10 divers on our boat. We were split into two groups of five and assigned to a DM. Ours was Roberto.

 

Since we’re new divers, we were a bit concerned about the selected dive locations. These fears were quickly eliminated. Roberto verified our previous dive experience and based the site selection on our experience. Since our previous deepest dive had been to 76 feet, our first dive site had selected depth of 80-85 feet. This made is very comfortable and quite excited about the dives. After picking up the other divers at their various hotels, we headed out for the dive site and got a thorough dive briefing along the way.

 

Dive 1: Santa Rosa Wall, max depth 85’. The backroll entry was a first for us, but we got a quick set of instructions from our DMs and off we went. Being new, we had a little bit of difficulty descending (new wetsuits didn’t help either), but Roberto gave us a quick hand and down we went. After about 2-3 minutes, we fell in love with drift diving. We’d done a little during our certification, but this was so much better. It’s an amazing feeling to just watch the world drift by. We saw some marine life and really enjoyed the coral formations. Unfortunately, our dive was cut a bit short as my husband is still getting is air usage under control. We ascended as a buddy team and were picked up by the boat as the rest of our group continued on their dive. The metric we were given for bottom time was the time set by the DM or 700 psi. Personally, we were glad that the whole group was not forced to surface at the same time. We did not want to cut anyone else’s dive short while we’re still learning. Additionally, we could see the rest of the group while we hung at our safety stop. We spent our surface interval on the boat talking with the other divers. Bananas and bottled water were offered.

 

Dive 2: “Singlo” Pass Shallows, max depth 52’. (I know I have the name of this dive site wrong. If anyone knows what the correct name is, I’d love to fix it in my log book.) The choice of where to go for the second dive was given to the boat and our fellow divers wanted a site with a lot of marine life. This was the site our DMs selected. Needless to say, it did not disappoint. Upon descending, we immediately noticed the large numbers of fish. I can’t tell you what all we saw, but there was a large variety of fish. The highlights of our dive had to be spotting our first turtle (being harassed by a French Angel that was the same size) and drifting into the middle of a school of fish. Once again, we ended up ascending before the group. Apparently they saw a couple of nurse sharks during their safety stop.

 

At this point, we returned to drop the rest of the divers off at their various hotels. We then returned to our pier and had an opportunity to grab a quick lunch before heading back to the boat.

 

Dive 3: Las Palmas, max depth 65’, average depth 45’. On this dive, there were only the two of us and Roberto. It was our most amazing dive to date. The biggest highlights were a huge eagle ray (complete with remora) and a second turtle. By this time, both of us had become much more comfortable with our diving and were able to enjoy things a bit more. My husband had also managed to better control his air consumption, so our dives grew progressively longer.

 

Dive Gear: Since we’re new, we still need to rent gear. Dive with Martin had a nice selection of gear that appeared to be well cared for. The equipment was all Scubapro. It was our first experience with a weight integrated BCD and it solidified the fact that this is a feature we want when purchasing our own equipment. (I had a bad weight belt experience during training.) We were quite comfortable using their rental gear.

 

Summary: We’re already trying to figure out how to fit a dive trip to Coz into our calendar. This trip re-affirmed to us why we learned to dive. The diving was simply amazing. After a rough start trying to book the dives, Dive with Martin turned out to be a wonderful choice of dive operation. The DMs and on-shore staff were all helpful and pleasant. We would strongly consider using them in the future and would recommend them, especially for those coming off of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. Their location in proximity the pier makes them a stress-free choice.

 

Here’s hoping that they weather this storm well and that the damages are kept to a minimum.

 

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them.

[bruce-r]

Thanks for posting an Excellent trip report.

 

Yep, once you dive Cozumel, you really want to go back, and one day there on a cruise just won't be enough.

[tiggy]

Trust me, we're looking to see when we can squeeze it in. (Have a long trip to Europe already scheduled for next year, so it's a bit of a trick.) The sea life was just amazing. I'm going to need to brush up on my fish ID before another trip. The fish are pretty, but I'd like to know whata I'm looking at.

 

We also learned that we probably want to do a bit more diving before taking AOW. Our air consumption, although better, is still not where we want it to be. Getting that under better control will help make our future diving that much better.

 

We're just hoping that they pull through this mess. What a difference a week makes!