Hi Texasguy.
There are several points to take into account in answering your question about shore dives in Cozumel. They are:
1. Is the area you want to shore dive within the boundaries of the Parque Marino Nacional de Arrecifes de Cozumel?
2. Is the entry/exit point you want to use public land, or land under a federal concession (a ZOFEMAT concession) and is the concession holder willing to let you use his beach as an entry/exitpoint?
3. Which dive operations are willing to rent you tanks that you can walk away with and use on your own?
Part 1:
If you want to dive from shore INSIDE the boundaries of the
Parque Marino Nacional de Arrecifes de Cozumel, (our national underwater park, see The Big Yellow Beach Map at the EverythingCozumel site to see those boundaries), legally you need to follow park rules (available at
http://www.conanp.gob.mx/que_hacemos/pdf/programas_manejo/cozumel.pdf). Two rules that stand out are:
Rule 20. ALL recreational dives (both SCUBA and FREE DIVING) must be supervised by at least one dive guide that has been authorized by INE (Institute of National Ecology) and in good standing with SECTUR (Secretary of Tourism).
Rule 24. Entry and exit points for shore dives must be in sandy areas free of coral.
Do people break these rules (which are backed by federal law)? Yes, all the time. Do people run red lights and not get a ticket? Yes, all the time.
The park is administered and watched overjointly by:
La Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT)
Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Medio Ambiente (PROFEPA)
La Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas(CONANP)
Secretaria de Transporte (SCT) via the Capitanía dePuerto
Part 2 of the answer addresses the fact that all of Cozumels shoreline is a Federal Zone that falls under the regulations of ZOFEMAT (Zona Federal Marítimo Terrestre). This zone extends landward 67 feet from the high tide mark. Most of this swath of federal land is open to the public for their use and enjoyment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The exceptions to the rule are the areas around Mexican Navy installations, Administación Portuaria Integral (API) installations, and municipal piers. Municipal, state, and national parks (like Chankanaab Park and the Punta Sur Park) also have times when they are closed to the public, as does all the beach and water in the Parque Marino Nacional de Arrecifes de Cozumel. There are also sections of the beach where the government has granted a concession to the adjoining property owner.
The special concessions covering sections of this swath of oceanfront are sold by ZOFEMAT to property owners who have title to land adjacent to it (or to someone else, if the property owner doesnt exercise his first right of refusal), so that the property owner can develop the land in that part of the federal zone adjacent to their property as well as restrict public use of it. These special concessions are usually granted to hotels, condo projects, beach clubs, bars, and restaurants. Typically, a homeowner with beachfront property does not buy a concession, but there are many cases where they do. However, wherever concessions have been granted, the public ONLY has the right of access THROUGH the concession, and NOT THROUGH the private property adjoining the concession. That means if you dont have the permission of the concession holder to cross their land to get to the beach, you can only access the beach by crossing public land to one side or the other of the concession and walking down the beach to the concession area to where you want to enter the water. It also means you ONLY have the right to PASS THROUGH the concession; you do not have the right to USE any of the amenities that the concession holder has placed there (palapas, umbrellas, tables, chairs, restrooms, showers, etc.) without permission.
I must stress the point that you cannot just walk through private property to get to the beach; that is trespassing. In Mexico, trespassing is a classified as a serious felony, and anyone arrested for a serious felony goes to jail and then awaits trial (no bail) as Mexico uses the Napoleonic Code of Law (guilty until proven innocent) and not English Common Law (innocent until proven guilty). DO NOT USE THE BEACH of a concession without express permission of the concession holder. Many of the public access points to the water surrounding Cozumel are marked on the Big Yellow Beach Map of Cozumel mentioned earlier.
Part 3 of the answer is something that you will have to find out for yourself by asking your dive operator. Some of the dive operations will rent you tanks to take and make a shore dive by yourself, and some of them wont. The reason that some of them wont (one of the shops told me) is that sometimes the divers dont bring the tanks back and that there have also been occasions where the diver went in solo and disappeared.
Dive Paradise-Hotel Baracuda, Jeanie's restaurant, Aqua World, Cozumel Palace, Scuba Club Cozumel, Dive Paradise sur, Hotel Cozumel Resort, Tio Jose's, Yuk-T-Ko's, Blue Angel, Dive Paradise-La Hach, Villa Blanca-Papa Hog's, Barracruda, Discover Scuba, TikiLa, Del Mar, Park Royal, and El Cid all have concessions north of the underwater park and are outside of its limits, as are all the hotels and beach clubs in the northern hotel zone.
Now,
that's a lot of trivia!