Return to Cozumel after 6 year absence

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After I wrote my report last night I found a curveball waiting for me in my email. My dive op had me, and me alone, on their schedule for Thursday and Fridays so they had to cancel those dives. Flexibility is the name of the game if you want to be happy in Cozumel, so we worked out an agreeable resolution. I'm now doing a previously unscheduled twilight and night dive with them tonight, and swapped one of my future days off for the Friday slot. Suddenly I had two free days on my hands. What was I going to do?

Dive of course!

I hit up Aldora to see if they had space for me, and they did!
I am glad you were resourceful in finding a positive plan B. Out of curiosity, did your original dive op help and assist you with booking at another dive op? I understand that taking out only one diver is not always feasable, but I would be annoyed if they didn't offer and help you book with an alternative dive op. Glad you are enjoying your dives. Please, keep the reports coming!
 
After I wrote my report last night I found a curveball waiting for me in my email. My dive op had me, and me alone, on their schedule for Thursday and Fridays so they had to cancel those dives. Flexibility is the name of the game if you want to be happy in Cozumel, so we worked out an agreeable resolution. I'm now doing a previously unscheduled twilight and night dive with them tonight, and swapped one of my future days off for the Friday slot. Suddenly I had two free days on my hands. What was I going to do?
It sounds like you had booked that Op's five trip or more package to get the $10/trip discount. Am I reading that right? Your solution of swapping dive trips sounds acceptable. My reaction would have been a little different in telling him that I tried for five trips, but he failed, so don't expect me to pay the non-discounted rate - then go shopping for another Op who would take me on the other days.
I am glad you were resourceful in finding a positive plan B. Out of curiosity, did your original dive op help and assist you with booking at another dive op? I understand that taking out only one diver is not always feasable, but I would be annoyed if they didn't offer and help you book with an alternative dive op. Glad you are enjoying your dives. Please, keep the reports coming!
I have had two different Ops take me out on private boats when they had no one else diving that day as I tend to go in the slow season. I felt bad for them, but their call. The year that of the International Tall Ships visit, on the day of the parade, I asked: "Since I am paying for two tanks, how about we skip my first one and motor out for a closer look at the ships?" What a treat. Then we did a nearby dive site, which is fine as I am not picky as long as it's not more than once on Paradise.

I too am enjoying your reports. On a lark, I checked airfares for December and found some 40% lower than last summer's ticket. I posted about it on FB, several friends told me to go, my daughter approved (that surprised me had she had recently said I had made a lot of week-long trips lately, but there is that She word), but I still tried to talk myself out of going - and failed.

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I understand that taking out only one diver is not always feasable, but I would be annoyed if they didn't offer and help you book with an alternative dive op.

My reaction would have been a little different in telling him that I tried for five trips, but he failed, so don't expect me to pay the non-discounted rate - then go shopping for another Op who would take me on the other days.

I get where you guys are coming from, but I have a long history with this op and I consider the owner a friend. They have been INCREDIBLY accommodating in the past when we were sick, or I injured my ear, or even if we just decided we needed a day off because we were beat. They have never charged me for a last minute reschedule, so I was damn sure not going to raise a stink about this scenario, especially after the economic hardship these folks have been through for the last 18 months.

They did offer an alternative op when I asked, but I had already booked with Aldora by the time they replied. It really turned out for the best - I had stunning twilight and night dives tonight (write-up tomorrow) that I wasn't planning on, and I'll still get the same number of dives with them... plus two days of extra diving with an op I've always heard great things about. It's a win-win for all of us.

Honestly I would bend over backwards for these folks, because they have done it for me. That's the kind of relationship you forge with a good op and it's why people get so attached to their favorites.
 
I still tried to talk myself out of going - and failed.

The absolute best kind of failure! :D That's really cool that you get to go back so soon. I can tell you I have caught the bug again. I'm not even halfway through this trip and I'm already thinking about when I'm going to shoehorn the next one in. This place is magic.
 
'm not even halfway through this trip and I'm already thinking about when I'm going to shoehorn the next one in.
Almost free...!!
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I’m loving your reports. I just came home from Cozumel sept 18 and miss the feel of it already. I love your outlook and positivity. Very infectious! enjoy the rest of yoir trip; I look forward to reading about it.
 
I have had two different Ops take me out on private boats when they had no one else diving that day as I tend to go in the slow season. I felt bad for them, but their call. The year that of the International Tall Ships visit, on the day of the parade, I asked: "Since I am paying for two tanks, how about we skip my first one and motor out for a closer look at the ships?" What a treat. Then we did a nearby dive site, which is fine as I am not picky as long as it's not more than once on Paradise.
Maybe they lost a little money on you but you've given Salty a number of shoutouts for it. Somewhere, someone has probably bought some diving from them after reading that.
 
Thank you guys for the kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying my euphoric ramblings.

First up for today... is yesterday! Last night I did twilight and night dives, and as expected had no energy to do a full writeup after. But here it is, as promised.

The twilight dive was on Santa Rosa Wall, as per usual, and it was stunning, as per usual! Despite knowing I was going to get some great scenery, I hadn't a clue what else the reef had in store for me. This was one of the most wildlife diverse dives I think I've ever done. Right out of the gate Santa Rosa let us know she had something special in store for us. A nurse shark was just below us, swimming away into the deep. And then 30m further south, an eagle ray also decided it was time to head for the channel! So far my only eagle ray sighting of this trip, but it was a great one and unexpected at this time of the year. At this point I was only 3 minutes into the dive and already ecstatic.

After that great intro we started moving along the wall. There were a couple lobster colonies creeping out of their dens, but then the real show started. A purple splendid toadfish was almost on full display, much further out than you'd typically see in the daytime. In the fading sunlight his purple coloring almost seemed to be glowing like neon. Very cool! Right after him there was a humongous brown sea slug/worm (not sure what they're really called) which I always think are gross and neat at the same time.

Shortly we came upon another group of divers who were shining a light on the wall and stopping for a long peek at something. It was a rockfish, motionless and in near perfect camouflage in the coral. No idea how that other group spotted him. The rockfish was followed by a couple of big barracuda, and then a turtle passed by. It was at this point I realized my dive log was going to be easier to fill out if I just tracked the stuff I DIDN'T see on this dive. And that list grew smaller...

Next up was a parade of either amberjacks or horse-eye jacks, I really can't tell them apart. But they were hunting or fighting or whatever jacks do, out over the deep just behind us and away from the wall, and it was cool to watch them moving so fast.

Towards the end of the dive we came up over the wall and finished over a more level spot, and that was where I spotted a tiger tail (worm I think?) followed by an absolute unit of a parrotfish. He was definitely the parrotfish that other parrotfish have to give their lunch money to.

There was undoubtedly more, but that was all I could remember by the time I was home, showered, and writing log pages. It was one of the most exciting dives I can remember in terms of sight seeing.

The next dive was the night dive, which we did on Paradise, as per usual. I am not the world's biggest fan of night dives only because there tends to be too much going on. There are usually a lot of other divers in the water near enough you can see their lights and hear their rattles, and also people tend to get excited and want to swim all over looking at every new thing that they didn't see during the day. I get it, but I am much more of a laid back, chill, feel-the-zen type diver, so all that hustle doesn't suit me. It's fun to do once in a while, but I don't go out of my way to schedule one.

All that said, it was still a great dive. The octopus were out IN FORCE. I have done night dives before in Cozumel, on this very reef, and have never seen even close to what I witnessed last night. I just stopped counting after 10 minutes because I'd already seen a dozen. But there was a special one at the end of the dive that I'll come back to.

After we'd all been over-satiated on octopus sightings, I started to look for other things. A couple of puffers were swimming nearby which was neat to see at night. The crabs were also out in force and we saw quite a few big guys gearing up for dinner, but none really out and about - they were all still hanging out on their ledges trying to make plans I guess. It's probably hard to meet up with your crab buddies for a night out when none of you have cell phones.

Towards the mid point of the dive we saw two sharptail eels, white with tan/greyish spots. Another diver on the boat later swore they were snakes but the face looked pretty eel-ish to me so I looked it up when I got back to the condo. Otherwise I certainly wouldn't have known what they were called. The second of the two we saw was super chill, and I flew right over him head down so my mask was only a foot or two away. He didn't seem to mind at all. It was pretty awesome to get a closeup like that.

The rest of what we saw was not terribly unusual, so I'll skip right to the grand finale. Towards the end of the dive we saw Yet Another Octopus (is everyone bored yet?) but this guy put on quite a show for us. He was spread out on the sandy bottom just in front of a small coral head, and we put our lights just to the side of him, as you do, so he doesn't go blind. Well we must have had the lights at just the right place because he started shimmer between different colors extremely rapidly, waves upon waves of color crossing over his body as he went from brown to white to green and then back again in all different combinations. The colors were just dancing over his body, as if he was the center display at a rave where red and blue were forbidden. This went on for a good 30 seconds and I was almost in shock - I had never seen anything like it with my own eyes. If I could have tipped that little pulpo I would have because he gave a fantastic show, and there wasn't even a two drink minimum. All joking aside it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen underwater.

That's it for last night's dives. I'll start a new post for today's adventures in a little bit, so stay tuned for a writeup where I dived for the first time with Aldora, and tried the sushi place Cozumel Dreaming for an early dinner.
 
Love and appreciate your style of writing of your dives....I feel like I'm there! That sounds like an incredible show you were treated to by the last octopus! Thank you so much for taking the time to keep sharing your dive adventures on the island I miss.....
 
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