I decided to bring my rebreather down to Cozumel again since I was going to be there a month and wanted to get some deeper dives in. You can see my August trip report for more thorough information.
As per usual I brought my rebreather on the plane as carry-on. I dive a rEvo II Mini which is about as travel friendly as any 45lb rebreather can be. After removing the tanks and stand I wrapped the entire unit in a grill cover to make unit look like a backpack and simply carried it on plane.
I checked my 3L rebreather tanks in a separate suitcase with the valves removed and a piece of tape over the cylinder openings. I decided to bring my 3L tanks this time rather than my set of 2L tanks to avoid having to get O2 fills topped off every day.
I separately packed ~22lbs of scrubber in a kitty litter container and taped the Molecular Products MSDS sheet along with safe travel memo to the container. I also fully packed both scrubbers and left them in the unit.
Not to future self: If you happen to use a kitty litter container for traveling with sorb be sure to make sure that it is unscented kitty litter. Although I rinsed the container multiple times with soap and hot water and let it dry out, I was greeted with the faint smell of fresh kitty litter when I packed my scrubbers again. Thankfully it did not seem to affect the functionality as I am still alive but it’s not a mistake I’ll likely make again.
No issues with Boston Logan TSA security. I told the X-Ray operator it was a rebreather and might look weird on the x-ray. Luckily I got a TSA agent who seemed to be somewhat familiar with and understand rebreathers enough that it wasn’t any issue. They did their little explosives test / swab thing and I was happily on my way. I do realize that people have had issues with bringing sorb in opened containers or unoriginal containers but I did not have any issues this time.
Once I arrived in Cancun I was lucky enough to get the green button while going through Cancun customs and security. I got lucky and nothing was inspected or looked at. I’ve heard stories that you’ve had a 50/50 chance of getting into Mexico with Sorb. I decided to gamble and bring my own since it is kind of expensive to purchase in Mexico. Thankfully that gamble paid off. Nobody bothered to check the 2 full scrubbers packed inside the unit which I neglected to mention to security in addition to the ~22lbs of scrubber in my kitty little container.
The bus to Playa and ferry to Cozumel were uneventful as usual and my rebreather made it to Cozumel in one piece. I did have to feign ignorance on the ferry as they wanted to put it with the rest of the dive gear; I simply walked on the ferry pretending not to understand as I was too tired to argue. The ferry agent asked me if it was camera equipment and I replied with a straight face that it definitely was a camera.
I used Deep Exposure for O2 fills again like last time and had Aldora top off my diluent and bailout tanks since they have their own compressor. No issues at all with bringing my own tanks. Although they have a large supply of CCR cylinders already on the island they usually reserve those for rebreather divers who are diving with their operation.
I dove with Aldora Divers again for the first part of my trip since Deep Exposure was busy running a Prism 2 Instructor Course for a group of Divers from Hollis.
Not too much to report, we had a great week of diving and hit up most of the usual sites inside and outside the marine park. There were some days where the visibility in the southern end of island by Punta Sur lagoon was poor (by Cozumel standards) because of all the rain that week. I used to my rebreather off and on during the week on the boat. Not as much as I would have liked. Since I knew I was on the island for a month I didn’t care as much about diving my rebreather every day.
Thankfully I was lucky enough to be able to do some longer and deeper shore dives with my friends John and Kim. John had just finished his full cave course on the island with German Yanez so he was also on the island for about a month and Kim is currently a dive bum that lives on the island. John was able to rent a set of doubles from Meridiano and took a stage bottle while Kim used an HP120 and slung an AL30 with Nitrox 36.
We did a couple dives off the Villa wall to hunt for lionfish, don’t remember the exact days. It’s about a ~15 minute or so swim from shore to wall. It’s not really the kind of dive you would want to do on a single AL80 depending on how far and long you are planning. If your navigation is good there are a couple small wrecks you will hit before you get to wall. Both dives were around a max depth of ~160ft and runtimes were 90 and 95 minutes. Water temp: 80f. Visibility: 100ft+ Kim stayed on top of wall while John and I spend a bit of time hunting at 90-110ft before heading back.
Overall it was a great trip. I think I will still continue to bring my rebreather down to Cozumel provided I am there longer than a week. It’s nice to be able to get some longer dives in on the unit.
Heading back to the United States unfortunately was not quite as easy as my last couple trips through Mexican customs. Because my checked bag was going to be overweight I left one of my tanks attached to my rebreather instead of checking them both in a bag; I had previously done this before without any issues.
Up until now my experience with the security at the Cozumel and Cancun airports has been great. Regrettably since I was flying home standby I happened to get stuck in Cozumel for 2 days because the flights were full. This meant that I went back and forth through security multiple times in the Cozumel airport carrying a 50lb rebreather on my back. All they cared about was that the tanks I carried were empty. No issues and no major questions. I would guess that anyone that travels through the Cozumel airport can specifically thank me because they should all be familiar with a rEvo rebreather at this point. 🙂
Unfortunately since the flights out of Cozumel did not look great I decided to do the next logical thing and head to Cancun which has many more flights available. The early morning flight appeared to have 70+ seats open so it was pretty much a sure thing that I would be able to make it onto that flight.
That was where it all went downhill briefly, the Mexican security agent had a fucking conniption when he inspected my rebreather. All he kept saying over and over again was “this isn’t allowed on the plane ”and “it’s against regulations” but wouldn’t explain why or what the exact regulations were. I tried to reason with him by showing him the tanks were completely empty (los tanques estan vacíos. No esta lleno!) by sticking my finger in the valves and showing him the printed out TSA regulations (of course it’s not in Spanish but that wouldn’t have helped). No bueno.
I held my ground patiently for about 20 minutes asking him to show me the regulations and politely explaining to him in English and broken Spanish that I ALWAYS bring these through Cancun and Cozumel. Finally he got his supervisor involved who said that I could bring it on the plane but that I had to go check it in through an airline agent.
You see the absurdity here is the initial security agent didn’t even want me to bring it on the plane! It actually had nothing to do with the rebreather itself but the fact that I kept one of the tanks attached to the unit (empty, of course). If I didn’t have the tanks with me this wouldn’t have been an issue at all. Since my rebreather was not in any sort of protective case there was no way in hell I was going to check it as bag.
The Mexican security supervisor was “nice” enough to accompany me downstairs to “check” the bag. Luck and common sense prevailed when I was able to get an airline gate agent involved who explained to the Mexican security officer that there were no restrictions at all and this was allowed on the plane. The airline gate agent accompanied me upstairs and spoke to the Mexican security officers for about 5 minutes before they finally relented and let me carry it on the plane but not before writing all my passport information down and writing down the name and badge ID/number of the airline gate agent.
Did I mention that I had 2 full fresh scrubbers inside my rebreather? They didn’t care about that. 🙂 Oh well.
Otro pinche dia en el paraiso…
