AlexScuba Dive Shop: The Complete Guide

Courses And Diving

Adventure Diver (three training dives), Advanced Open Water (five training dives), and continuing education through to Master Scuba Diver level. The shop has run promotions adding a free extra Adventure Dive to Adventure Diver and Advanced Open Water enrolments — worth asking about at the time of booking, as offers change.

Location And Logistics

Avenida 55 Sur Bis 852 is a short taxi from downtown and from the southern hotels. It is not a walk-up location from the cruise piers, which is a filter on who books rather than a drawback.

Departure times and boat arrangements are set per booking — confirm directly.

Who It Is Best For

Certified divers working towards Advanced Open Water or Master Scuba Diver. Divers who want a small shop where the same instructor sees the whole progression through. Anyone who has had a rushed, oversubscribed dive elsewhere on the island and wants the opposite.

Less suited to a cruise passenger with four hours ashore looking for the nearest storefront.

The People Behind It

AlexScuba is built around Alex Oliver, the owner, a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer who has been diving since the 1980s and logs more than 10,600 dives. He is joined by Mamoto, an instructor working full time on the island since 1998 with over 7,000 dives, Pitagoras, a divemaster who doubles as photographer and videographer and was certified in 2008, and Lauren, an instructor.

That is an unusual concentration of experience for a shop this size. Between the two senior figures alone there are close to two decades of full-time Cozumel guiding, which shows up in the part of a dive most people never think about: where the guide chooses to drop you.

What The Diving Looks Like

The trip formats run wider than most small shops. One-tank, two-tank and three-tank boat dives, extended bottom-time dives, night dives, twilight dives and multi-day boat packages. A private divemaster can be arranged. Snorkelling is offered, including trips to El Cielo, and freediving is on the list as well.

Nitrox is available. Courses run from Discover Scuba and PADI Scuba Diver through Open Water, Advanced Open Water and Rescue Diver to Divemaster, alongside Emergency First Response and a range of specialties.

Cenote trips and technical diving are not published, so ask if either matters to your trip.

Languages

Spanish is native, and the team also works in English and Portuguese. Portuguese is genuinely uncommon on this island and worth knowing about if it is your first language.

One Thing About Diving Cozumel

Every dive here is a drift dive. The current carries you along the reef and you barely fin, which is why Cozumel is described as easy diving. What it changes is the guide's job: they choose where to drop the group so the current delivers you to the right part of the reef and back to the boat. Experience of the kind AlexScuba's team has is worth more on a drift island than almost anywhere else.

Contact

Phone: +52 987 105 5709

Web: alexscuba.com

See the listing for AlexScuba Dive Shop, explore dive courses in Cozumel, or start with planning your Cozumel dive trip.